As an online journalist, this was a very useful review for me. One question, though -- I've seen some criticism about the mic input line being noisy. Has that been your experience? Since the internal mics appear pretty powerful, perhaps an external mic wouldn't be needed in most circumstances, but these reports gave me pause.
There are a lot of factors to determine how far away to pick up good sound. I've used the H2n in large football stadiums to record marching bands from the press box. The sound was great. Admittedly, marching bands are very loud, but stadiums are also very open. Therefore, you have to factor in the loudness of the source, the make of the space and your gain settings. In addition, you need to factor in ambient sound sources. Being in the press box kept crowd noise to a minimum, which helped with the band sound. A filled conference room with people who are talking in the background will impact your recordings. Ideally, you should be as close to the source as possible and try to minimize ambient sources.
Would this work for recording nature sounds or sound effects? Let's say I want to record a crow cawing outside, would this work? I can do a lot of editing, I edited the sound of the in built mic of my DSLR to something decent.. But I would like a handheld device with the best quality to be able to do this. So my question: Would this one work for that, and if not.. which portable recorder would be best suited for this?
Sound effects is all about isolating the desired sound from the environment. The mics on the H2n are not really suited for the this purpose. I would recommend a good Rode shotgun mic and recorder with XLR inputs that provide phantom power for the mic, such as, the Zoom H4n - a.co/7N60DE7.
great primer! so question. I'm doing some interviews in a diner. the background noise is a nice effect but I don't want it to overpower me the other others speakers.. any suggested settings?
I suggest using the Mid-side setting for the mics. You will be able to get the speakers and control the volume of the background with the side stereo level.
Depends on what quality of audio you need and where you are going to place the mic. 2 channel surround and auto gain will work for placing the mic in the middle of a conference table and get you pretty decent audio. I've used mid-side front mics with manual gain for outdoor concert bands. The recording was very good from the back of the location. I've also patched into an in house audio board to record from from the house mics. That worked really well, too.
