The Zoom H4n recorder

This is part documentation post, and part simple gear lust indulgence.  In my never-ending (and, let's face it, rarely-purchasing) quest for doing-it-all-in-a-compact-box, I had never thought of using "a handheld recorder" as the basis for the system.

Thus my stumbling onto the H4n from Zoom, today, was a bit startling.

I was not prepared for what this little gizmo is supposed to be able to do.  Check this out:

• Built-in stereo mic, rather cleverly arranged.
• Can act as an external mic for a video recorder.
• Changeable SD/SDHC cards for storage.
• Variable speed playback without altering pitch (i.e., phrase trainer).
• Various standard recorder features (autoplay, filesharing, etc.).
• Two combination XLR / 1/4" inputs with preamps. (!!!)
• Modes for recording in simple stereo, two stereo tracks, or true multitrack recording.
• Can apply DSP effects when multitrack recording.  (!!!)
• Onboard audio editing (including project-based editing when multitrack recording).
• Can act as computer recording interface.

Street price seems to be in the $270 range as of this writing.  If it really does all this, that somehow seems cheap.

Will cogitate further.

An interesting take on MIDI guitar.

Hat tip to David Neale for showing me this:

I've got no idea if it makes any sense for what I'm trying to do, but I'm going to put it on the radar for a while and chew on the concept.

iPhone thoughts.

A while back, when I first found out about the Alesis iO Dock, I started thinking about the iPad as the centerpiece of a minimalist do-it-all rig, that would suit what I (think I) want to do.  I still think it's a pretty good idea, and Alesis' new AmpDock seems to be a step above the iO Dock in several very important respects.  Had I an iPad of my own, I'd probably already be down that path.

Here, about a year later, due to a couple of really interesting discoveries and my first week on the road in several years, I'm starting to think about the iPhone as well.  First, and the software centerpiece of the idea, is the FourTrack app from Sonoma Wire Works:

Now if I'm reading everything right, this is one nifty app;  it's not just an app in a vacuum but a framework for plugging in other related apps like loops, FX, etc., and hopefully (more on which in a moment) hardware.  It strikes me as well-designed and easy to use, based on the YouTube presence (just consider this one, done by a user rather than by Sonoma itself.).  Oh yeah, and it's five bucks for all the starter stuff.  (Thus far it does not appear that people have been complaining that you have to make lots of in-app purchases to do meaningful things, which can be a gotcha with iOS apps in general.)  Sonoma also offers GuitarTone (an FX/modeling app with a free core and available paid upgrade plugins, which both works standalone and as a "tool" within FourTrack), several variants of the InstantDrummer app (creates drum patterns/loops and is also a "tool" within FourTrack, at $3 per "style" specialty), and even a boutique partnership app called Taylor EQ (like GuitarTone, also a standalone app and FourTrack "tool";  this one offers EQ to emulate or cement the Taylor guitar sound).  The set of apps also has the capacity for "audio copy/paste" and offers a creative way to conveniently get at your sound files for reprocessing in a traditional software DAW.  (Being a software developer myself, some of these tricks not only promise great functional utility, but actually endear the company to my "scrapper-friendly" aesthetic.)

This seems to solve, for me at least, the problem of some sort of serious competition to GarageBand in terms of being able to do both FX and basic multitrack recording at the same time.  For this, it needs only a serious hardware interface, and although Sonoma's own GuitarJack seems solid and well-regarded, and truly able to do much of what I would want to do on an iPhone (especially on the road), last night I stumbled onto the Tascam iU2.  Check this out:

This little box, through some creative cabling and switching, offers two simultaneous inputs for either 1/4" or XLR cables, optional phantom power, internal preamps, mic/line selectors (or a guitar DI on the left channel), standard MIDI I/O, RCA and digital outs, direct monitoring--in short, a usable 2x2 hardware interface.  Here's where it gets really interesting, though:  this unit can deliver to an iOS device through an external dongle for the 30-pin dock, or can go via USB to a computer like a traditional recording interface.  When connected to the computer, it's powered by the computer's USB cable;  when connected to the iOS device, it's device-powered--and you can take the device's power brick and hook it into the iU2's USB port, in which case your device's AC brick recharges the device through the iU2.  Now that's clever, and useful. 

So:  if you have access to a computer for recording, you can use that (like the PreSonus AudioBox USB I'd figured I'd get someday, which offers basically the same input features);  if you are fully portable or on the road, use the same box to go directly into the device.  It seems to have a nice small footprint:  4.4" square and not an inch thick;  it looks to be hardly larger than the Pandora PX4 I carried around for so many years on the road, but coupled with the iPhone it's tremendously more powerful.  And at $150 or so, it looks like once again I may be able to pay less and get more.

I have not validated yet that the Sonoma apps will recognize the iU2, but I'm hopeful. If I'm on the road enough, it may be worth it to me to also get the GuitarJack and the recommended microphone just for the ultimate in compactness, but after playing a bit with Line 6's MobileIn interface, I'd always prefer a separate dock dongle to something that puts angular tension on the device's docking port.  (I'd make an exception for the iM2 stereo iOS microphone, which won't have a 1/4" guitar cable dangling off the end;  I'm also hopeful that the Sonoma apps will recognize that hardware as well...it should be great for minimalist acoustic instrument or ambient recording.

Food for thought.  It's exciting...and getting cheaper, smaller, and better.  Technology's fun, isn't it?

__________________________
For anyone who might stumble across this post:  if you have contributory opinions I'd love to hear them.  How are Tascam preamps regarded, compared to PreSonus'?  Any serious loss of quality expected from the "converter" cables that take MIDI and XLR  to 1/4"?  And for that matter, how about the RCA line outs;  any difficulties or problems with those?  Anyone have personal experience or knowledge about the Sonoma apps?  Are the above ideas totally off the rocker?  What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?  (We never did get a good answer to that, did we?  :-)

Sartori in Tangier: documenting a wee bit o'Crim.

Ran into this late last night, when I needed some real, honest-to-God noise.

Wow.  Robert delivers.

I've always loved this tune, even before I ever heard a live recording of it.  And then, when I finally did...well, there is just no preparing for what you see when you watch the 80s King Crimson do this piece live.  The first time I did, my internal monologue went something like this:

Wait, Belew's on drums?  But the whole theme is there...no, Robert's not playing anything yet...holy shit, that's all Tony?  What the...yes, yes it is.  Okay then, who's going to play the keyboard part?  Okay, there it's winding up, but who's doing it?  Robert's nowhere near a key-...oh, he's playing it through the guitar?  Yeah, well, that's kind of like the sound on the record, or rather it was a minute ago before he added another power grid's worth of "live wire" sound on his way up the ramp...and HFS, just look at him go!  Either he's going to pop an aneurysm, or I am, because this is just unbelievable.

At the time I had no idea what a guitar synthesizer was, and the only live Crimson I'd heard before was of the '70s band, which featured an actual keyboard (Mellotron), so I was just not ready for those sounds to go with that picture.  But hell, there they were, and anyone who has heard both the studio recording and any live performance from that period can tell you they are two completely different animals.  While absolutely being the same tune.

There's a lot of King Crimson that works well--really well--when my head needs to just light off a flamethrower and torch noise with noise.  "Sartori" is at least near the tippy top of the heap, and may actually rest there.  Here it is, as a document, if nothing else.

The great Partial Capo Experiment begins.

And so a very good man, Steve Cornish, did sell me a Third Hand capo this evening,

and verily I did place it upon my Ovation (strung to C2G2D3A3E4B3) in the initial position 220000, and began to play.

Oh dawggy, this is going to be an interesting ride.

I'm exhausted now--was tired when I started this, but like hell I was going to go to sleep without at least trying it out--but nonetheless tonight I tried 220000, 220002, and 001111.  With the 220002 configuration I also brought the first string up a half-step so that the open pitches were DADAED, which was interesting to say the least.

Very eye-opening session.  Harvey Reid is the primary advocate of the partial capo, and he seems to have a lot of ideas about how to use it.  Most interesting for me is the concept that open pitches can be altered while notes up the neck remain the same, and you know what, that shit works!  It opens up all kinds of open position fingerings you never thought of, while retaining the ability to play all the closed positions that you already know, up the neck.  I was kind of expecting some cool factor on open string drones and bass notes, but I had not expected the impact it would have on melodic phrasing, especially in that "C-minor" centric arrangement of 001111.  On the guitar (as opposed to the mandolin) the stretch to hit the m3 interval from a root note on the 5th fret of the next lower string is, indeed, a stretch, but with with a 001111 partial capo, you've got very comfortable access to that m3 and m7 and it's niice.  Sure, technically you "lose" the major second, or rather you must now play it stopped on the root string, but this is a surprisingly easy tradeoff.  My fingers just figured it out spontaneously, and then started playing things they don't normally gravitate toward.  And then to go up the board you just...go up the board, find your root note, and play like you normally would.  (Well...like someone who likes to tune the guitar in fifths would.  :-)

Harmonics are going to be absolutely wild with this, and I suspect I'm going to have to just treat them separately for each possible configuration.  Having an arrangement where the nodes offset each other from string to string is probably going to spawn some interesting stuff, and I look forward to it.

More to come.  Just offhand I'm interested in checking out partial capoing over the third, fourth and fifth frets as well, and should start to experiment with some altered inner strings.  Who the heck knows where it might lead?

Monster in the making.  (Or, at least, inveterate geek.)

The iPad as do-it-all musicking device?

Musicians, please check my logic here, and post comments either way.  I make no pretense at grand wisdom here, but rather am trying to learn.

Abstract

I've been putting a lot of mental energy into trying to re-approach what I want to do with "music gear", taking as holistic a view as possible and trying to find the best balance between capability, simplicity, and expense.  I have recently started using an iPad 2 as part of my "day job" work, and in looking at what is available for that device, my existing mental conversation about re-approaching gear has been rather turned on its ear.  After a few weeks of cogitation, I'm now at the point where I am trying to figure out why I wouldn't make the iPad the central figure in this quest.

So, I'm going to write it down here and ask people to help me shoot arrows at the idea.  If you find it interesting or know someone else who might, please, by all means point them here.