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I’ve been doing a podcast now for several years. A few months ago, my recorder was starting to wear down. I had never seriously considered what a professional piece of recording software could do, but I knew I seriously wanted to up my game.
On a colleague’s recommendation, I went down to Abes of Maine, where a super helpful company salesman, listened to my needs and recommended the Zoom H6 Handy Recorder with Interchangeable Microphone System.
Most recorders I’ve worked with can record between two and four tracks. This does six simultaneously. The Zoom H6 can support SD cards up to 128 gigabytes. It is compatible with high-speed SD cards because it is recording high-resolution audio. The quality I’ve managed to achieve makes me wonder why I didn’t plunk down the cash for this in the first place.
When recording, the battery lasts for about 20 hours with four AA batteries, but it can also be set for phantom power. It comes with a USB cable for the power and 3.5-millimeter AV cable, as well as a wind-cover for the mic.
You have two convenient recording options because the Zoom H6 comes with two standard default microphones that slide into the top of the device. There is also an MS stereo microphone and an XY Microphone. Both are gorgeous. If those don’t work for you, there is a shotgun microphone that you can buy separately.
The Zoom H6 has four XLR inputs, and you won’t be able to run instruments into them, but you’ll be able to feed four microphones into the recorder at once. On one side of the Zoom H6 are the menus for the LCD display, and the USB power slot. On the other side, there’s a volume up and down button; a hold button to lock off all the controls when you’re recording so you don’t disturb your preferred settings; and the SD card slot. There’s also a mount on the back in case you want to attach a tripod.
There are a bunch of buttons on the front of the Zoom H6. One thing I didn’t know you could do (that the nice people on the Abes of Maine live chat taught me) is that you can also raise and lower the quality of your recordings and toggle between formats like raw WAV or in MP3.
The Zoom H6 also comes with Cubase editing software, which the live chat was also kind enough to walk me through.
The ‘L’ and ‘R’ are for the XY Mic. To record from the XY mic, you press the LR buttons and hit the record button. To stop recording, hit ‘Stop’ and mark where you are by hitting the record button a second time.
When you want to use the XLR ports, you simply press the number corresponding to the desired XLR port. Also on the front, there are four level control knobs that correspond to the XLR ports. Of course, you can also set the levels while you’re recording.
Since purchasing this piece of equipment from Abes of Maine, I’ve received a lot of positive reviews on my show. Thanks, Abes of Maine!