Using 2 Zoom H1s for location recording

E

eco_bach

Well-known member
Hi
Picked up a Zoom H1 and love it so much going to get another.
Just wondering if there is any advantage (other than a backup) of using 2 zoom h1's on location (or any stereo mics for that matter).
Is it possible to easily 'mix' the source files to get a 'better' recording, in terms of stereo separation etc...
 
The only thing I capture in "stereo" on location are some wild fx and ambience. Room tone I do as mono.
 
I like those little recorders too. Don't know if your aware that they fit in a rubber wii (nintendo) remote protector, almost perfect, If you get the clear rubbber, you can still see all the controls and buttons. And it gives it a little weight, and if you drop it it will just bounce instead of shatter.
 
I consider room tone to be sound of the room, with no activity, recorded from the camera position and with directivity toward where the camera is looking.

Although not always, I tend to call it room tone when it is an indoor shot.

I consider ambience to be the same space, with all of the activity taking place in the shot. Also, I tend to call it ambience when it's an outdoor scene.

The greatest difference between the two is level. Room tone tends to be very low in signal level, requiring quiet preamps to capture cleanly. Ambience, tends to be a higher level, with more distinct identifiable sounds.

eco_bach said:
Thanks, could you clarify for me the difference between ambience and room tone?
Click to expand...
 
In terms of my original question, I've read that there is in fact slight drift between 2 different recorders, making sync extremely difficult.
 
eco_bach said:
Thanks, could you clarify for me the difference between ambience and room tone?
Click to expand...

Room tone is actually the natural noise floor of the room/set/location (or, the natural "tone" of the room). It is recorded just after a take, using the same mics that are used for dialog (and with the mics in the same places). If the actors are wearing lavs, those are recorded as well with the actors standing still and controlling breathing, swallowing, etc. The reason we record room tone (using the same mics as for dialog) is to help in cutting dialog together. By using the recording of that noise floor, two parts of a scene can be cut together without the background sounds disappearing between lines of dialog. Room tone is a general term, and is recorded for every single scene both indoors and out. It is a mono sound source, same as the dialog.

Ambience (or ambient sound beds) is what's laid in underneath the dialog to give the scene some life. It could be the sounds of a busy city street outside the office window, or the sounds of birds and other noises in the forest, or people chattering ("walla") and silverware clinking in the restaurant, or the sounds of the subway pulling into the station. Ambient sound beds are generally recorded completely separately from principle production, often in more ideal environments. Also, ambient sound beds can be for both interior and exterior settings and are generally in stereo (or, occasionally, in surround).
 
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eco_bach said:
In terms of my original question, I've read that there is in fact slight drift between 2 different recorders, making sync extremely difficult.
Click to expand...

This has to do with the clock, and differences in tolerance based on each manufacturer. You may have a camera and a sound recorder that are both set to record at 48kHz, but one may actually be slightly above 48kHz while the other is slightly below. When put together in post, you'll notice that the audio from one source may run slightly longer than the audio from the other. The easy fix is to figure out the difference and use time compression/expansion to match the second-system audio to the camera's reference track. Not a huge deal, really... just a little time consuming.

This is worse on some devices than others. The original Zoom H4 had worse drift than the H4n does, but I don't know about the H1. The way to solve it is to use two devices that can share a master clock, but if you don't have a Word Clock port (which the Zooms do not), there's no way to sync it to a master clock.
 
Thanks. Guess there's no way of knowing if this will be an issue for recording under an hour in length., using 2 Zoom h1s?
That was my most cost effective solution for a project I am working on. Otherwise need to invest in a H4N, wireless lav, an additional external mic, and some type of mounting brace-bracket to hold everything!
 
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