High quality sound is always nice when listening to an audio program. Podcasters are becoming more aware of this and are taking measures to ensure that their recording quality is good…better mics, editors, ect.

That is all great when you can control your enviornment and where you are recording, but some of the most interesting things to record and do shows about happen away from the studio. You can buy a portable digital recorder, but the small condenser mics give a “tin can” sound to your production. What is a podcaster to do?

Enter the Handy Recorders by Zoom. These portable recording devices offer better than CD recording quality in a hand held unit that can go anywhere. The microphones are already on the unit, and they can record their data to a SD memory card. They run on AA batteries and can go for an extended period, five or six hours, of time before they need to be changed. The unit has a stamina mode that can increase that time to 11 hours!

I purchased the H4n, http://samsontech.com/products/productpage.cfm?prodID=1994&ref=hivelogic and have found the more I use it, the more I find places to use it. The line has several models at different price points to fit all budgets.

I have started to use it for podcasting programs where I need to travel to someone rather than recording in my studio. The unit is simple to operate, and does not get in the way of what I am trying to accomplish with deep complicated menus or small displays.

I have also used it as a secondary sound source for video productions. A recent production required the camera to be over 20 feet from the subject of the shot. The subject needed to move and I did not want to use a wireless microphone. The H4n was put on a mic stand at the foot of the performance area and recorded the entire program, with auto levels control, it recorded everything correctly. It was a snap to load the audio into a video editor and sync it with the video.

One of the coolest features of the H4n is that it will serve as an audio interface with your computer. When connected with a USB cable it can do the job of a card reader or allow you to use the microphones on the device as a sound source for your computer. The unit has two XLR microphone jacks at the bottom to allow you to connect your own microphones if you wish and you can assign the on board microphones and the XLR inputs to their own individual tracks and do four track recording. The unit can even provide phantom power to the microphones!

I have been using it in the classroom with students with good results. I have been teaching students to play recorders and it has allowed me to be able to quickly record students playing a selection and then play it back to them on a boom box speaker system for them to evaluate the performance before our next attempt. It has allowed me to teach listening during performance in a whole different way.

Go check one out for your programs and see if can add a new deminsion to your programs.