Recording my live comedy

  • Thread starter Thread starter omnomnom
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Does the H2N have this ability to plug in off the mains too? I'm so ignorant about this I genuinely thought they all ran off batteries.
 
Yes, it does. But the plug is only in the accessory pack, along with some other useful goodies, some of which ought to be with the H2n itself, such as a windshield, a carry case, and a handle. The tripod could be useful, and some people can put the remote control and extension cable to good use.

20 hours is, I feel, optimistic for battery time, but it depends partly on which batteries you use. I use rechargeables and they run out quicker than this. Maybe 8 hours or so.
 
If you can't plug in the H4n at the club, two sets of rechargeable batteries and Stamina mode will keep you going all day.
 
I'm still not convinced that the H2n can record three tracks at once (one from the desk or direct from your mic and two from the internal mics). If it can't then you're stuck with either a direct line from the desk or just using the mic, neither of which will reliably give anything like professional results. You need to record your voice to one track and the audience to a separate stereo track.

Even if the H2n can do this the proper connectors on the H4n make it by far the better choice.
 
How long are your comedy sets? I would assume even an hours worth of battery life will give you plenty of time to hit record a few minutes before you hit the stage.
 
Farview said:
How long are your comedy sets? I would assume even an hours worth of battery life will give you plenty of time to hit record a few minutes before you hit the stage.
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There's several kinds of sets I do. The first is a standard 20-30 minute "club set", the second is a compere set which involves me going on in between acts all night, and the third is a tour show which is an hour.

Right. So it looks like the H4N is the best choice. I'm particularly excited about this whole recording me on one channel and the audience on the other then syncing them up. Would I need any extra equipment to do that? Am I right in thinking I can plug the H4N in at the sound desk and that'll be enough? Or do I need some sort of separate mic to go in the audience and pick up the laughs? Bouldersoundguy, you mentioned something about a splitter? What's that?
 
What we both said was that if you use a simple passive splitter at the stage end - then your recorder will be at the right end for you to turn it on and off, and record the local sound of the audience, with the stage mic going to a separate channel - it needs no input at all from anybody else, and to do the same from the sound desk needs an extra mic wiring, and some simple routing - but that may fall on deaf ears some places - especially if their sound desk and op are simple. You have a splitter and an XLR-XLR cable. You plug this into the mic, then the cable that goes to the sound system goes into one output connector and the cable to your recorder goes in the other. The only bad news is that if you want to go home, you need to unplug the mic for a second and replug it, without your splitter. If that's ok - all is done!
 
omnomnom said:
Right. So it looks like the H4N is the best choice. I'm particularly excited about this whole recording me on one channel and the audience on the other then syncing them up. Would I need any extra equipment to do that?
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A computer and about any DAW (digital audio workstation) software. Then there are monitors and audio interface. An acoustically good space to work in is also pretty important. All the things that benefit mixing music also apply to mixing spoken word of whatever variety. Most DAWs operate nondestructively on the files. You can always take them to a studio to have them mixed by a pro.

omnomnom said:
Am I right in thinking I can plug the H4N in at the sound desk and that'll be enough? Or do I need some sort of separate mic to go in the audience and pick up the laughs? Bouldersoundguy, you mentioned something about a splitter? What's that?
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The onboard mic would get the audience, the XLR/TRS combo connector would get your vocal mic.

There are several options. one is to put the recorder somewhere near the sound desk and get a line level feed from your mic through the desk.

Alternatively you could use a splitter that takes the one cable from your mic and sends it to two places. The splitter could be at the sound desk so your vocal mic is connected to the desk's input and your recorder at the same time. You might also want a long XLR cable for this setup.

A third option is to put the recorder and the splitter on or just in front of stage. The onboard mics capture the audience from the front and the vocal mic, by way of the splitter, goes into the recorder and also back to the desk. Putting the recorder at the stage end gives more separation between your voice and the audience since the onboard mics aren't picking up as much of the PA as they would from the sound desk. Having a long mic cable with you would be a good idea.

If you do put the recorder where it picks up the PA be sure to center it perfectly between two (left and right) speakers or place it well off center to substantially favor one speaker, while also keeping the audience balanced in the stereo image. I usually go for centered positioning of the stereo mic because it captures the audience in a nice way. But you really have to center it perfectly or, because of the speed of sound, you get different arrival times from the two speakers which reduces clarity.

Also, when the stereo mic picks up the PA it will be slightly delayed relative to the vocal mic. You can easily shift it over in the DAW software.

Simple, right?
 
Thanks for all the help so far. Got my hands on a H4N last night and I have to say, seriously impressive piece of kit!

Final question* and I promise I'll leave you all alone :) Which of these is better for my needs? Both are the same price.

Zoom H4n + Official Accessory Pack
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Zoom-H4n-Of..._1?ie=UTF8&qid=1415633846&sr=8-1&keywords=h4n

OR....

Zoom H4n with Bonus 16GB SD Card and Mini Tripod
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Zoom-H4n-Bo..._2?ie=UTF8&qid=1415633846&sr=8-2&keywords=h4n

*there's every chance this won't be my final question
 
I would go with the accessory pack. It should have the ac adapter, which you need. It also comes with an attenuation cable that allows you to feed a video camera's mic input, which could come in handy in the future.

I'm sure you can get a better deal in an SD card (you may as well get a 32 gig one) and the shoe mount may, or may not be useful to you.
 
Hello!

I got a Zoom H4N and have been editing live recordings with Audacity. I'm having a little trouble with learning how to do multi track recordings (recording my mic on one channel and the audience on another).

Can anyone find a tutorial online that'll show me how to set this up on my Zoom? Also, how is best to hook my Zoom up to the sound desk? What cables should I get? And where should I plug the cable into the desk?
 
Since this topic started I bought a zoom H4n, I didn't need to buy anything extra, it came with the mains unit, so it was just a case of shoving in a card, connecting the audio and away it went - my sound team patched it in a few minutes and it's been recording two channels ever since - works really well and that's about it!
 
rob aylestone said:
Since this topic started I bought a zoom H4n, I didn't need to buy anything extra, it came with the mains unit, so it was just a case of shoving in a card, connecting the audio and away it went - my sound team patched it in a few minutes and it's been recording two channels ever since - works really well and that's about it!
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You have a "sound team"?
 
If the OP doesn't use this thread (or forum) as part of his set I'll be sorely disappointed...
 
Most likely a pair of XLR-male > TRS cables will do the trick.

You can use a sub-out off the board main, or auxiliary outs, or effects sends for your patch.

If you arm all four tracks during recording you could use the built-in mics to get audience sounds, and the direct signal off the board for your performance.

You will probably need to edit volume envelopes on the Zoom mic tracks while mixing so that your vocal is more upfront and doesn't have so much room sound, but still captures the response of the audience.
 
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rob aylestone said:
Easy one. Do it all the time. Your microphone goes to one channel of any of these recorders from the sound desk, and you record the room sound on the other channel - either from the recorder's own mic, or another mic fed into the sound desk and just routed to your recorder.
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This would likely be my preferred way of operation. It removes all the potential issues of the differences between various venues and risks like the local operator changing levels in the middle of a good punch line! Assuming a dynamic mic, this can be as simple as a basic "Y" cable (and if you need phantom it's still quite doable, just with a bit more caution.

It also occurs that a decent place for the audience mics (i.e. the recorder) might be somewhere onstage--makes cabling and control easy and might also keep the expensive little box away from less-than-honest fingers. Worth trying anyway.
 
Will you tell us a freaking joke already? It's been two months.
 
NotThatBright said:
Will you tell us a freaking joke already? It's been two months.
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Ha, fair enough. Here's a recording of last night's gig in Darlington and me chatting to the audience. Let me know what you think and if you have any tips for recording or editing - https://soundcloud.com/freddyquinne/emily-in-darlington

Also, my friend tells me if I want to hook my zoom up to sound desks I'm best off bringing my own cables. Would any of the following be useful for me to get?

Twin RCA Phono to 2 x 6.35mm 1: Amazon.co.uk: Electronics

http://www.amazon.co.uk/3-5mm-Stere...&qid=1419887509&sr=8-10&keywords=audio+cables

http://www.amazon.co.uk/6-35mm-inch...cp_6_1ARV?ie=UTF8&refRID=05PC4KZYYJQX8CEPPQS9
 
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