H2 Recorder on-board MP3 conversion

As promised, the results from the head-to-head in the speed of MP3 conversion between my oldish laptop (using Audacity) and the Zoom H2.  I recorded 60 seconds of audio, and looked at the total time taken to get that file from WAV format to MP3 and saved on my hard drive (the bit rates were the same and the final file sizes were within a KB of eachother):

Zoom H2:

MP3 encoding – 4.38 mins

Copying – Instant

Laptop:

Importing – 13 seconds

MP3 encoding – 53 seconds

I thought there was a difference, but the results show that the Zoom’s encoder should only be used if you are desperate.  And in no sort of hurry – it is postively glacial.

Beaker Practice 2

Due to organisational difficulties (i.e. I forgot to tell anyone) the only person who heard last week’s recording was Leo, who declared that it was a bit too accurate. I have been flicking through the manual to the H2 Recoder but apparently there isn’t a “Make Us Sound Like a Real Band” button. Perhaps there will be a firmware update later this year.

(I love blog writing by the way. I know that only five people are going to read this but I get to write in the way I would if I knew millions of people were glued to their screens. Kind of like a telephone voice, but with undertones of Napoleonic hubris. Great! But I’m not the only one who takes the internizzle a little too seriously):

In the spirit of all things internet, our band are called Beaker, we have a MurdochSpace page where you can hear better versions of our songs, and we are playing the final of the Very Prestigious Edinburgh Bandclash on Wednesday 23rd April.

Anyway, last night’s recordings are up. There are a couple of longer session tracks and a few individual songs. I have cut down the amount of time getting the songs into MP3 format by recording in 2 channel mode rather than four; also managed the problem of the microphones topping out by setting the limiter to “Studio” (which seemed logical). Am going to do a timed experiment to see whether MP3 encoding is faster through the laptop or the on-board encoder – results will be posted later.

I was particularly pleased with the end of session jam we did based on a sequence Pete was playing around with. Only got the last third or so, but was quite fun.

Individual Songs:

caths-song

the-one-that-isnt-called-love-fool

end-of-session-jam

Sessions:

rehearsal-1

rehearsal-2

Band practice 09 April 2008

Some clips of practice yesterday using the Zoom H2 recorder – it was overwhelmed on a couple of occasions (by Leo’s vocals I think) but I am quite happy with the results. Next time I will switch the limiter on and see how well that works.

Slight niggles persist though. The H2 has four microphones so records front and rear sounds in separate files, which then have to be combined and converted into MP3 format to be a little less cumbersome format. Both these things can be done internally, but the combining process itself took three hours for a thirty minute recording. I know from past experience that the conversion to MP3 is also incredibly slow, so I copied the files to my computer in WAV format (took about 7 minutes) and then converted them through Audacity (another seven minutes) which is a lot quicker than it would have been on the recorder. I then realised that you can do the same without copying the files over in the first place.

The tracks are our proposed set for the Edinburgh Bandclash on the 23rd April. We did two run-throughs – the second is divided into two.

Post any advice, and enjoy!

sr000fr.mp3

Practice 2 part 1