During our first visit, I used my cassette recorder to make some simple recordings of the space. Usually when I make recordings, I use the cassette recorder or an old Sony minidisc recorder. Both are useful devices – the cassette recorder has a great texture to it, and I love the saturation i can get out of it when I put line devices into it. The minidisc is stereo and has a decent stereo mic.

However, for the new installation I need to make recordings that are as good as I can manage (within my budget, of course). After a bit of research, I settled on The Zoom H2 Handy Recorder. It records in a number of formats, sampling rates and bit depths (low quality MP3 all the way to 96kHz/24bit). But the real handy thing about it is that it has four microphones. They are set up so you can make 4 channel surround recordings. This is ideal for field recordings of spaces.

My only niggles – the body is a bit plastic-ish, it doesn’t feel too solid. Also, it runs on AA batteries, I haven’t managed to get much life out of my Nimh rechargeables. I always have to take some spares with me when I go out recording. Which can be a bit of a pain. Perhaps I haven’t found the right batteries yet?

Zoom H2 Handy Recorder.