Using A Zoom H2n As a Mic?

[Lucia]

Hello UtaForum! I registered to ask a silly question.

I am fairly interested in recording an American English UTAU, but I'm just starting to get through the literature, tutorials and such. But before I get started, I've got a little bit of cold feet, and wanted to know if my MP3/WAV recorder, a Zoom H2n, would play nice with UTAU recording. Over USB, it only has up to a 48 kHz sample rate due to the speed of USB 2, but it has up to 192 in soft and when used independently. I get the feeling recording over to a computer would be more ideal here, or am I mistaken?

Anyways, newb question out! Thanks for your time reading this.

(If no one minds, here's my natural singing voice. I'm very much an amateur, but I love singing : )

 

[수연 <Suyeon>]

I've never heard of this mic/recorder and your sample isn't acapella which would be the best way to gauge whether it would be good for utau recording. Utau hates ambient and digital noise and if the frequencies that it captures isn't suitable for your voice, you could end up with a sound that's either thin and tinny/metallic or muddled/unintelligible. Could you record a sample of you speaking or singing into the mic without any musical accompaniment?

 

[na4a4a]

The Zoom H2n will be alright as a mic for utau. You only need 44.1kHz for utau (utau doesn't support anything above this)
Just set it to M/S (mid/side) and be sure to turn the side mics all the way down to avoid recording room ambiance.
While you're at it you may actually try enabling the compressor/limiter on the H2n to level out your recordings. (I normally suggest not using any compression on your samples because people generally do it wrong but the one built into the recorder shouldn't do any harm. If it does then just turn it off.)

If recording to the Zoom use wav, not mp3. However I suggest using usb to the PC so you can make use of the various recording tools such as OREMO. Quality-wise there is no difference between the two setups.

Regardless of how you record, just make sure the resulting wav files are mono. You can always use Audacity to make stereo recordings mono if needed.
When going from stereo to mono the side recordings should cancel each other out but still turn that down as much as possible just to be safe.

It wont be as good as a dedicated LDC since the Zoom is more of a field recorder but it should work just fine.

Other than that just do normal things, turn fans off, avoid room verb and noise, use a pop filter, etc.

 

[Lucia]

The Zoom H2n will be alright as a mic for utau. You only need 44.1kHz for utau (utau doesn't support anything above this)
Just set it to M/S (mid/side) and be sure to turn the side mics all the way down to avoid recording room ambiance.
While you're at it you may actually try enabling the compressor/limiter on the H2n to level out your recordings. (I normally suggest not using any compression on your samples because people generally do it wrong but the one built into the recorder shouldn't do any harm. If it does then just turn it off.)

If recording to the Zoom use wav, not mp3. However I suggest using usb to the PC so you can make use of the various recording tools such as OREMO. Quality-wise there is no difference between the two setups.

Regardless of how you record, just make sure the resulting wav files are mono. You can always use Audacity to make stereo recordings mono if needed.
When going from stereo to mono the side recordings should cancel each other out but still turn that down as much as possible just to be safe.

It wont be as good as a dedicated LDC since the Zoom is more of a field recorder but it should work just fine.

Other than that just do normal things, turn fans off, avoid room verb and noise, use a pop filter, etc.

Thanks. Complete newb, and I generally have a fairly quiet environment during the night, so I might do most of my recording then. Day isn't so bad, but I live in a triplex and my neighbor's kids love playing outside.

Again, thanks for alleviating this newb's qualms.