Homebrewed Music

LAMPG – Look at Me Play Guitar – is certainly not the most absurd video genre we find on YouTube, but then that’s not a very high barrier, is it? For those of us who are not stars already, most of our videos will get only a handful of hits, make no money, and bring us no recognition, fame, or even infamy. But with all this I still find it more fun to make a good video than a bad one, so I’m always trying to learn to make these little movies better. (more…)

While the folks on the high end forum at Gearslutz may debate the relative merits of multi-thousand dollar a/d converters, I suspect that most of us home recordists feel that consumer level a/d and d/a does the job. We’re a lot more likely, though, to ascribe big differences to microphones, looking to different mics for different sources, different tonal flavors, different styles of music. But really, how much difference will we hear if we choose between two very different mics? (more…)

I had a lot of fun the other day shooting a self-duet video but I ran into a couple of snags trying to use the Zoom H6 metronome and overdub functions. Perhaps my experiences can help you out. (more…)

The H6 has four XLR inputs built-in to the body with individual phantom power options. I noticed in an earlier comparison that the preamps behind these XLRs seemed very high in quality, basically indistinguishable from those in my RME UFX interface in a quick and dirty comparison. I set out to do a more careful comparison to see if my initial impression was correct. (more…)

Zoom has been pushing MS or Mid-Side recording technology in their recent products. The ones I know about are the MS decoder in the H4n followed by the rear-facing MS mics in the H2n. Their latest video camera, the Q2HD was the first with the distinctive ball shaped mic array housing. Now the new H6 recorder includes an MS module also featuring that ball shape, and in the “announced but not shipping” category we have the iOS mic, the iQ5 using that styling as well. Doug Young was the first H6 owner I talked with and he immediately identified a self-noise issue with the MS mic module. My initial explorations all focused on the XY mic module and the external connection preamps, but now I’ve had a chance to experiment with the MS module a bit. (more…)

I’ve been interested in the new Zoom H6 since it was announced back in April of this year. I’ve long hoped to find a multi-channel portable recorder with performance comparable to a nice consumer audio interface at a friendly price. In other comparisons I’ve done the lower priced battery powered gear added a bit of noise that I don’t hear with a comparably priced audio interface, even when using the same mics. But technology moves on and there have been some terrific new preamp-on-a-chip products released in the last couple of years, so Zoom’s claim of improved preamps seemed plausible. Now that I have my unit I’m trying those comparisons again. (more…)

There are a number of comments I expect to hear when microphones are discussed. Someone is likely to call the Rode NT1a harsh, strident, shrill, or some similar indication of high frequency problems. And when asked to recommend a mic for recording acoustic guitar, the ADK A6 is one of the more common responses. So how obvious are the differences between these two mics in a four way blind comparison? (more…)

In a previous entry discussing YouTube audio I mentioned that Google/YouTube changes the details of their upload formats, transcoding, and streams without much fanfare. Happily all the changes I’ve seen so far have been toward higher quality, and lately they’ve upgraded the audio streams again. (more…)