another thread about recording

[bloke]

I'm not a "recording artiste", but I would like for someone to decode the instructions of my Zoom H2N, teach me a little bit, and help me set it up for (what might be judged as) "a guess at optimum". I've got the thing to workin' before, but the recording level was a bit too low, there wasn't enough presence, and blah-blah-blah. I'd like to use it more as a tool to critique myself (as many others use recording themselves as a tool). I did this in the distant past with (adjusted for inflation) some $250 mics and a cassette deck, but I now have this and a pair of far nicer (would be "external") mics (German)...yet little knowledge of how to use the Zoom recorder.

I have a "tuba room", so stuff could remain set up...

If you're here for an instrument repair, I'd be willing to barter some of your expertise (and teaching) for some of my grunt work on your horn...but - if that's to occur - (please) be an actual expert.

(My son-in-law is an expert, but he's 12 hours away.)

video:
If I just any MP3's to be "amazing" enough to convert to MP4's (for youtube, or whatever), I already know how to stick an appropriate picture - such as this one - onto an MP3 to convert it to a 4...

[peterbas]

.

[bloke]

The H2N should be almost like plug and play.
Choose .wav
Choose the microphone setting, XY for a solo recording. Make sure the XY is aimed at the sound source
Put it around bell rim height, about 6 feet away. You can play with this, higher gives more articulation and lesser distance gives more presence. But if you move the bell while playing to close can give some strange volume effects.
Set the mic gain when playing the loudest part of the piece so that the recording level is max at -6 dB.

After, you can normalize the recording so that the highest peak is set at 0dB, and it doesn't sound having a very low volume.

I guess I need to rig up an adapter from my two German mics to a stereo 1/8" phone jack.
Maybe (??) those are sold pre-made, so-as I don't have to do any soldering.

again: I realize the built-in mics are "good", but (bought before they cost like a used car) I have a couple of pretty nice mics I'd like to use with that thing.

[peterbas]

.

[bloke]

Somewhere, I have a pretty good pre-amplifier from back when I used to wirelessly amplify my tuba at a polka band gig that lasted at a bar for a couple of years. I wonder if it still works...?? Otherwise, if something can make these wonderful microphones work with this device, it's probably worth buying a decent pre-amplification device.

I also somewhere have a four-channel mixer that I don't recall ever failing, so maybe it still works as well...(??)

Mainly, thank you so much for that very useful information.