Gadgetory

what's up guys Lew here back with another unboxing video and today we're taking a look at a very interesting item this is the h6 from zoom and as you can probably tell by the appearance on the box this is a heavy duty and very serious audio recorder I've been using zoom products for a little while now in fact I'm recording this audio into the h2n which is sitting right behind me here this thing is more robust more intense it includes a number of different options for getting good audio whether that be for video or for just straight-up audio recordings for music or anything like that so let's go ahead get inside the box and I'll give you guys a closer look at what to expect if you pick up a zoom h6 so Before we jump into today's video I want to talk a little bit about my official website unbox therapy comm I know some of you have visited it and asked questions regarding how I built it who's hosting it etc it's been a little bit of a secret up until now but I can finally share it with you I've been using a service called Squarespace and they make it incredibly easy to get your own website up and running just like it was for me I invested very little time and I got something that looks pretty damn decent in my opinion they've got so many templates to choose from that you can set something up to your taste I'm pretty much certain of it and they got in touch with me they reached out and said hey listen we'd love to support you we'd love to sponsor your show and I was like really man I'm using the service anyways that's how I built my site so anyways it's just with some great synergy there and so they reached out and said listen if your audience wants to get a quick little trial we want to make that available to them so there's a link down in the description so you can check out Squarespace for yourself or you can just type it in you can go to squarespace.com slash unbox and then from there in order to sign up and get your free trial of the service and I think 10% off as well just go ahead and type in the offer code unbox 8 I know you guys are going to be impressed by the service so do not hesitate so as I just mentioned I've owned pretty much every zoom handy recorder that has ever been on the market this is supposed to be the best ever so I'm very excited to take a closer look and find out if that's the case the back of the box might look a little intimidating to some but it's really actually quite convenient as you can see it's a modular design meaning you can mix and match whatever you need depending on your particular application this box here includes two different microphone capsules but then you can go out in the future and buy some extension capsules if you need them so for example there is a shotgun mic there's also an extra two XLR inputs if you're using a lot of outboard gear and you need six multitrack channels this is just really really cool for an audio guy like me on the inside of the box you have some paperwork actually quite a bit of paperwork you've got a manual in a number of different languages there's also a copy of Cubase le 6 so if you don't have an audio recorder for your computer then you can go ahead and use that that's because this device also functions as an audio interface and in case you're wondering I'm using it as an interface right now I've got a shure sm7b into the device and the audio you are listening to is coming straight through the zoom h6 I'm actually really impressed with it at least what I'm hearing in my headphones right now you can let me know down in the comments if you're happy with equality as well I think it's an improvement over my previous setup inside this nice little hard case that you can travel with you're getting a closer look now at the first microphone capsule this is the stereo capsule you see it has gain control right on there I'll install it onto the recorder in a moment but first let's take a look at the other items inside the box the next is a mid side pattern microphone this is very popular for indie filmmakers when you want to get a little bit of ambient noise to go with say some conversation or if you just want to get I don't know street sounds or something like that this is really popular for sampling it also has a gain control right on the module as well next there's a USB cable included this will be used when powering the h6 as an audio interface or if you just want to use it as a file transfer cable assuming you don't have an SD card reader you just don't want to they've also included a 2 gigabyte SD card to get you up and running recording audio straight out of the box there's some batteries in here and I've heard some pretty good news on preliminary reviews that people are getting 10 11 hours of battery life on just those four double a's when using this as a stand-alone product there's a foam windscreen included this will help with some of those pops and things that come out of your mouth when you're recording in close proximity whether that be for interviews or otherwise that will fit on to the stereo capsule if you choose to use it so here's the main attraction the zoom h6 you've got the battery compartment on the back of the device you can also see a tripod mount there that can be used to mount you know directly onto a tripod or if you want to mount on top of a DSLR in the hot shoe or something along those lines this thing is just really really versatile the top of the device is where most of the controls are you have a nice big record button you also have these gain knobs for each of the four XLR inputs and a minus 20 DB pad on the side of the device is where you'll find those XLR inputs that I just mentioned those will also work as instrument inputs too you have an SD card slot volume up and down headphone jack and the power switch is also on that side flipping it over to the other side you'll find your USB port as well as a menu button a jog wheel to control the menu interface on the device and two more XLR slash instrument inputs on the bottom slash front is where you'll find your line out port as well as a remote control port the remote control is not currently available at the time of filming this but it will be available shortly and will give you the ability to stop and start recordings without actually being right beside the device the microphone modules feel really secure to me actually you press these two little buttons on each side and you can remove the module or install it the first one you saw there was the mid side pattern and here is the stereo one which is probably a little bit more common more people will probably be using this on a regular basis but once it's installed it feels solid and how like it's not really going to go anywhere the foam screen appears to have a cutout specifically for the stereo microphone so if you're going to use this thing for field recording and interviews this will likely be what your setup looks like the next thing I want to do is power up the device install the four double A batteries and then boot it up in order to show you the screen that's included it has a nice sort of angle to it so if you install this device on top of your DSLR you don't have to be right over top of it to take a look at your levels instead you've got a nice little angle to glance at and that's especially important when you're doing multitrack recording so if you've got four different sources going into the h6 you can monitor each of those four levels and see if you're clipping you know if you need to turn down the gain etc so as you can see here there's a quick little setup process and after that you're ready to start recording whether that be the SD card or straight into your computer which is what I'm doing right now as I explained earlier I've got the USB cable connected I've got a microphone going into the first XLR port and it's the shirt sm7b if you're not into audio very much you might not know that microphone it's a very popular broadcast microphone but it's notorious for needing a lot of power from the preamp on your recording device in order to sound good I've got the preamp on the h6 set to seven out of ten right now and I'm getting a nice clean signal with very little background noise so anyways I'm impressed at this point alright guys that wraps up this unboxing and first look at the zoom h6 audio recorder if you're interested in pricing and availability I will put a link down in the description if you enjoyed this content please remember to leave a thumbs up down below thanks as always for watching and I'll catch you on the next episode later guys you