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I'm a professional music producer and DJ and am looking for a small portable device to take on gigs to record both the music and crowd sound in high quality. So far my investigations have led me to products such as Zoom H4n where I could use the 4 track option to record both using the built in mics (for the crowd and sound from the speakers) and the XLR inputs for the music direct from the mixer. I've no idea how well this would work though

I wondered if anyone knew of the best way to tackle this and which product would best serve.

Thanks

Comments

moonbaby Wed, 05/09/2012 - 08:48

The Zoom will do that fine. I recently picked up a used H4n and it is surprisingly clean. What you WILL have to deal with is positioning the unit to best pick up the audience and ambient sound with the internal mics vs. the direct sound from the mixer. This will be a trial-and-error experience.BTW, I would not depend on the XLR inputs on the Zoom to accept line level sources, either. Unless the mixer has a "-50/+4" level switch for the outs, I would expect it to be a line level (about +4), and this will easily overload the XLR ins on the Zoom. In which case, you would want to run line levels to the 1/4" portion of the Neutrik input sockets.