Zoom H4n Review

Zoom H4n Recorder

The Zoom H4n recorder is the Swiss army knife of indie filmmaking. With the Zoom H4n you can easily and greatly improve your independent productions.

Zoom H4n Recorder

The Zoom H4n recorder does not come cheap, although it is significantly cheaper than other field recorders of this quality. You can pick a new one up for around $250 and a used one for around $150.

So why should you save up and go for the Zoom H4n audio recorder:

• Study and fool proof design
• 2 XLR or 2 Line inputs
• 48 phantom power build in
• Omni directional mics
• Small and compact
• Battery powered with optional net power

Zoom H4n backside

I have been using the zoom in combination with the Rode NTG-2 and it works like a charm for an indie budget.

Most indie filmmakers that start out worry about camera quality, lenses and light but record audio using their camera. This will greatly reduce your production quality since it will distract you from enjoying the film.

The zoom H4n gives you al the basic functions you would need as an indie filmmmaker and more, to record your voices and background sounds, like doors, cars music etc. It will last you a long time since it is build like a tank.

Drawback of the Zoom H4n

Operating the Zoom H4n is also very easy and straightforward. When doing the Zoom H4n review I ran into the problem of a very long loading time when I inserted a Sandisk class 10 32 GB SD card. It took over 30 min to load.

When using smaller cards I don't experience this problem. Although this seems significant you normally only experience this once when turning the Zoom on, since 32GB will last you a long time even when recording high quality audio.

Overall the Zoom H4n review showed that the recorder works great, just get the Zoom and don't look back until you can afford to upgrade. I would even recommend getting a better shotgun mic first before upgrading your recorder.