Review of Zoom H1 Handy Recorder

I bought this in May 2017, as the only choice I had of buying this kind of product (a self-contained microphone and recorder) from a local shop, so was unable to compare different products, and paid a premium for the privilege of buying from a real shop.  While paying that premium may be off-putting, it does have advantages.  You have the product, there and then, instead of waiting for a delivery at some random time.  You can inspect it before purchase.  You have somewhere to go back to if there's a problem, etc.

It handles loud audio quite well, I've tried almost-yelling into it, close-up, and didn't over-drive it.  Though, if I'd been running it on auto-level control, and the gain was up due to it receiving low audio prior to me yelling into it, the first moment will distort before the gain manages to drop down.

The auto-level control is similar to the AGC used on old-fashioned cassette recorders, with a fast gain-down action but with a longer delay before it starts a fairly fast gain-up response.

While auto-level controls seem a convenient feature to avoid having to manually set controls, they all suffer from annoyances.  It only takes someone to cough, or drop something noisily, for that momentary loud sound to smack the gain down, and the next thing that you wanted to hear became inaudible.  A fast-acting limiter would be useful to squash those momentary interruptions without distortion, and a slower AGC action that worked on an average of the signal over a longer time-constant, would be more accurate at automatic levelling of volume.  That would take care of things like recording lectures and speeches, and some kinds of musical performances.

For better sounding recordings, manual gain is the way to go, but pressing up and down buttons isn't the most convenient way of doing so, especially tiny ones.  It would be handy to have an auto-set function that monitors sound while you press it, then holds that gain level when you release it.  While you can switch the auto-level control on and off on this device, when you switch it off it goes back to the manual level that you previously set before you switched the auto-level on.

Other devices, e.g. my TASCAM DR-40 (that I bought later on), have an (optional) automatic feature where it drops down the level when loud sounds occur, and leaves it there.  That has the problem I outlined above (loud coughs, etc., squashing the audio), but with no automatic recovery from the situation.  One loud bang, and everything after it is far too quiet.  Though you could switch it on, let it set the level, then switch off the auto-level feature.

It seems more suited to close-up work than distant or ambient, the level can be quite low with a moderately high noise floor when the gain is up.  Other than that, sound quality-wise, it does a good job.  Clarity is nice, and the stereo ambience is pleasing.  You can, of course, elect to just use one of the sound channels when later editing your files, treating it as a mono mike.  It's not usually a good idea to sum two stereo channels together when single-channel audio is required, though still quite acceptable with very close together X-Y oriented mike capsules.  And not necessary when doing close-mike work, it's not that directional.

I've used it to record at open-mike nights, with the mike placed near to the performers, about a metre away from their speaker bin, close to a piano, recording the room, a variety of conditions and it's done well in all of them.  The beauty of digital recorders is that you don't have to acquire the sound at near full scale to avoid recorder/playback noise problems, you can leave a very good amount of headroom to allow for post production.  Once I found a decent recording level on the mike, it's been left set there ever since.

It's very lightweight, bit plasticky, covered with that funny rubber-feeling coating.  The stuff that degrades over time, and then leaves grotty sticky black marks over everything that touches it.  As well as seriously annoys my skin allergies.  I wish they'd stop putting that crap on products.

And it's another of those all-black affair with tiny writing on it is not the easiest thing to use in the dark.  I notice that there are other non-black versions available, from some places, but they seem to be special limited-release editions.  A fair bit of audible handling noise, not really suitable for hand-held recording.

It has 3.5 mm jacks for input and output, which is probably the worst connector in existence for using as a mike/line input.  Likewise for using it as a line/headphone output.  Size-wise, there really wasn't much alternative, though.  Fortunately I don't really intend to plug anything into it, just using it stand-alone.  They're not a reliable connector, and often require fiddling around to get a plug and socket working together that really aren't a good fit, not to mention that tiny cabling going into plugs like to break very close to the entry point.  The other issue being that using a switched jack for the input risks having no input after you unplug something because 3.5 mm switch contacts do wear out.

It is obviously more of an acquisition device than a playback one.  If you want to play back a recording, there's no convenient way of fast-spooling through a long recording (the fast spooling speed's only about two or three times normal play speed, and it does it silently).  The counter display shows a countdown to the end of the playback, meaning that if you wanted to find something a particular amount of time into the recording, you'd have to work out how far it was from the end of the recording, instead.

Oddly, the file datestamps are set at the end of the recording, rather than the beginning.  So, if you'd recorded something from 10:16 am through to 11:09 am, the file's datestamp will be 11:09 am.  This is counter-intuitive, the opposite from everything else that I've used, not really the “creation time” time of the file, and not how anybody would write things down when making notes on a running log (normally, you'd note down the start time and recording length).  When you have a lot of recordings to deal with on a product, coherent file names and dates are very important.

Most functions are directly controlled with switches and buttons, there's very little wading through menus.  Setting the clock is the only convoluted thing that I can think of.  While easy enough to understand how to set the date and time, the short timeout period (about 10 seconds) where it gives up waiting for you to set the clock and aborts, is annoying.  More so because you've got to turn the device off and on again, while holding down a button, to be able to set the clock.  Worsened by it completely losing the time quite frequently, and needing resetting when I've switched it on to use it.

Over the years, having to reset the clock when I just wanted to start recording immediately has been a major pain.  I don't know what the cause is, the battery terminals have a very firm on the battery, it doesn't seem that they are the cause of its clock failing during transport.  When I've inserted a freshly charged battery (externally) before a job, I've taken to setting the time and leaving the mike on a for a minute while I check through the bag of accessories.  It seems less prone to messing up its clock that way, than if I set it and switch it off shortly afterwards.

Choosing MP3/WAV bit rates and depths is just a case of using two buttons (⏪ and ⏩), after you've flipped the MP3/WAV switch, to cycle through a short list of options 'till you reach the one you want.  And whenever you switch between MP3 or WAV, it uses your previous settings, allowing you to leave the gadget preset for the best WAV settings for you to post-produce some recordings, and a convenient MP3 settings for recordings that you're just going to record then replay, as is.

It's limited to 32 gigs as the largest size SD card it will work with, though I have to say that is an obscenely huge card for recording sound recordings to.  And a very full card slows the mike down when you start and stop it.  Using a larger card (if you could) would only worsen that.  Some people may have tried larger cards, but I wouldn't trust it, there are a variety of issues involved in the maximum memory size devices can use.  About the only problem I have with that limit, is that it's now considered a small card size, and some shops only stock larger ones.  I don't like to re-use cards, they're not that reliable, and I'd rather not have one die on me mid-recording.  Considering that I might get several months worth of WAV recordings on one card, it's not a major cost issue for me.

I've always switched the device off before inserting or removing SD cards.  I don't know if it can handle hot-swapping, and despite the inconvenience of the lengthy shut-down and start-up time, I've always played it safe.  Even if a device appears to handle card changes while powered, I wouldn't put much trust in it, there's so much that can go wrong (such as someone removing a card before the device had finished writing to it).  There is a tiny amount of in-built memory, but apparently it only stores a few seconds of sound.  Little more than allowing you to make a test.

I have had someone knock the mike over while running (doing a three-metre arc as the stand crashed onto concrete), and the battery flew out when it hit the ground.  The recording was (obviously) interrupted, but most of it was still there.  It seems to dump the file in chunks.  But I had to fiddle around with a variety of different programs before I found one that would replay the file missing its important meta data.  The mike, miraculously, seems to suffer no damage.  It had a big foam windshield on, and was mounted in a Røde shockmount (which also survived).

There is no convenient way to mount the mike.  It has a threaded hole in the plastic body to suit a 1/4"–20 thread (the same as traditionally used on domestic camera tripods).  That isn't a robust thing, nor quick to do and undo.  Slipping it into that shockmount has been my solution to quick and simple putting the mike somewhere, as well as some sound isolation from bumps and other noises.  It's a shame they didn't make a holder for it that would screw onto a standard mike stand.

Another manufacturer's solution was to screw a plastic cone (a fake mike body) into the back of the recorder so that could slip into a mike holder, but it sticks out awkwardly, and the plastic sections suddenly came apart after a few years (dumping my mikes on the floor).

Battery life seems good.  It'll do several hours worth on a single AA battery, and doesn't badly drain the battery when switched off.  I use rechargeable NiMH batteries, and I've been using the same set of Fujitsu batteries for several years.  They came in a pack of four, this Zoom mike uses one, my other Tascam mike uses three, one of life's little ironies that worked out well, for a change.  The mike can't charge batteries, that's handled externally.  The mike will switch itself off if left doing nothing for a long time.  I've never timed it, but it's long enough that it doesn't switch itself off while you're fiddling around between recording things.

Yet another device with tiny buttons, very close together, that require you to use the corner of your fingernail to press them.