Re: Zoom H4 for laptop looping

[Per Boysen <perboysen@gmail.com>]

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