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Re: Zoom H4 for laptop looping



You won't hear the artifacts when you play an audio input because  
your source audio is "leaking" through the ASIO direct monitoring and  
masking the drop-outs (the analog signal of the H4 is very good). Try  
to set up a long delay or reverb, in your audio application, with  
only wet sound (no direct instrument going   through it). Then you  
can play something and stay silent and listen to what you just played  
coming back through the delay/reverb.

I'm afraid it is not as much a driver issue as it is a USB2 protocol  
issue (for sound cards you should look for Firewire or PCI).  But the  
H4 is great bang for the buck as a field recorder IMO! And I'm  
totally happy with using it as a pre amp, merge box and reverb unit  
before my laptop (with another "clean" audio interface).

per



On 11 nov 2006, at 01.20, Joshua Carroll wrote:

> That's weird.  I didn't notice any artifacts, but I haven't really  
> run it through the ringer yet.  I'll play with it some more and see  
> if I can get it to reproduce your results.  If so, I'm going to be  
> all over Zoom to fix that as I bought it specifically because it  
> could double as an interface and I need it to work.
>
> Thanks for the heads-up!
>
> --Josh
>
>
> Per Boysen wrote:
>> Yes, of course. By writing "the dedicated software drivers" I  
>> meant the "H4 ASIO Driver Version 1.0.0.1". AFAIK there are no  
>> other drivers for H4 (I tried ASIO4ALL but it did not detect the  
>> hardware, but on Mac the OS X took care of it right away, although  
>> still with tiny audio artifacts) . I'm hoping an update to the  
>> ASIO driver is due soon...  ;-)
>>
>> per
>>
>>
>> On 10 nov 2006, at 02.22, Joshua Carroll wrote:
>>
>>> Ha!  Very cool.
>>>
>>> Did you download the ASIO driver for it?  I've not had any  
>>> problems getting a great sound as an interface via ASIO...
>>>
>>> --Josh
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Per Boysen wrote:
>>>> Date: Wed, 08 Nov 2006 10:06:16 -0600
>>>>
>>>>> Just thought I'd throw out a plug for the new Zoom H4.  It  
>>>>> works as a great 2x2 audio interface for Mobius (it has some  
>>>>> built-in effects I haven't tried yet, but will work in audio- 
>>>>> interface mode), and the other features make it ideal for  
>>>>> collecting found-sounds or putting together rough song ideas on  
>>>>> the fly.  The built-in stereo condenser mic has really  
>>>>> impressed me so far.  I expected it to pretty much suck for the  
>>>>> price, but I've been getting some excellent acoustic guitar  
>>>>> recordings with it.
>>>>>
>>>>> Anyway, for the price, I'm really happy, so I thought I'd pass  
>>>>> it along.
>>>>>
>>>>> --Josh
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Someone posted and asked about latency. I just picked one up  
>>>> this morning to check out, and may have some information to  
>>>> share. Regarding the option to use the H4 as an audio interface  
>>>> the software drivers are bad news. So bad actually that I would  
>>>> rather say that the H4 is not usable at all "as laptop sound  
>>>> card". I tested it for hours and although I used the largest  
>>>> available buffer I could not get a clean sound from it. Not on  
>>>> Mac with OS X and not in Windows XP with the dedicated software  
>>>> drivers. I'm glad I don't have to review it in a magazine  
>>>> because the marketing of it is partly misleading.
>>>>
>>>> But the H4 is great for other purposes - just forget about that  
>>>> audio interface dimension - like for example the stereo  
>>>> recording and the effects. Good guitar sounds in there  (Some  
>>>> people might want to use it as a four track porta studio as  
>>>> well). H4 is also awesome as a USB2 based SD card reader. And it  
>>>> rocks as a portable field recorder. I like it so much that I  
>>>> decided to buy one as a replacement for my old portable DAT  
>>>> recorder.
>>>>
>>>> And I did actually find a place for it in my laptop looping rig  
>>>> - as a mic pre amp, merge box and input reverb unit :-)  I feed  
>>>> the H4 with one acoustic flute mic and one line level EWI synth  
>>>> clarinet. Then I put a simple stereo cable from the H4 into the  
>>>> PCMCIA sound card Echo Indigo i/o on my lappy. That's a minimal  
>>>> set-up that sounds decently ok. Two instantly connected  
>>>> instruments of which one is electric and can be used for heavily  
>>>> distorted sounds that would not be possible with a microphone.
>>>>
>>>> Greetings from Sweden
>>>>
>>>> Per Boysen
>>>> www.boysen.se (Swedish)
>>>> www.looproom.com (international)
>>>> http://tinyurl.com/fauvm (podcast)
>>>> http://www.myspace.com/looproom