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Zoom Q2N


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I'm thinking of getting one of these as ive started dabbling with a few videos for the band in lockdown and think it could be good for recording some rehearsals too. Seems to have good reviews. Has anyone used one of these or would a 2nd hand DSLR and external mic be a more practical buy? 

 

Cheers for any thoughts.

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We've got one and don't tend to use it a lot for our gigs, for the following reasons:

- If you're using batteries (it takes 2xAA), they don't last for the whole gig. Sometimes they don't last for an entire set either. Even with bona-fide 'good' batteries.

- Audio recording isn't particularly good quality, compared to almost all of our other devices (some cheap, some expensive). However, video is excellent, so the mediocre audio isn't a deal breaker.

- Its lens is very wide-angle. Excellent for shooting the entire band in a small, enclosed space like a rehearsal room, or a small studio. Useless if the stage is farther away, though, because its digital zoom function decreases the resolution and quality of the video.

When we use it for an entire gig, we hook it up to a battery pack with its micro USB port. We've discovered, and overcome, a glitch I'll be happy to describe if you're interested.

The device is apparently sensitive to the quality of the MicroSD card you use. The faster the card, the better. The higher its quality, the better.

 

Edited by Silvia Bluejay
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In reply to your second question, a DSLR will take very good video, but usually the on-board audio will not be good enough. When I say, in my post above, that the audio of the Zoom Q2n is not as good a most of our other devices, well, the only device that the audio from the Zoom comfortably beats is the DSLR. DSLR audio firmware and sound cards don't appear to be optimised for recording music, even when they have a stereo mic (which most do nowadays).

One of our answers to that problem is an expensive solution: a Zoom H1n audio recorder in the flash shoe on top of the DSLR, and a mini audio mixer screwed in under the DSLR. We use THIS audio mixer - other makes and models work just as well. All devices properly connected to each other, and the result is sound and video of very high quality recorded on the DSLR's SD card. Bulky solution, and a bit fiddly, as well as way more expensive than the Zoom Q2n on its own.

Another alternative we use is an old, no longer sold Canon Powershot, whose video output is by modern standards rather pitiful, but whose audio firmware/compression algorithm appears to be very, very good, and always makes the band videos sound as good as - and sometimes better than - being in the room during the gig.

We choose the best solution according to the type and location of each gig. Our default choice, unless video quality is of paramount importance, is always the old Canon Powershot.

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16 minutes ago, Silvia Bluejay said:

One of our answers to that problem is an expensive solution: a Zoom H1n audio recorder in the flash shoe on top of the DSLR, and a mini audio mixer screwed in under the DSLR. We use THIS audio mixer - other makes and models work just as well. All devices properly connected to each other, and the result is sound and video of very high quality recorded on the DSLR's SD card. Bulky solution, and a bit fiddly, as well as way more expensive than the Zoom Q2n on its own.

I might have misunderstood- but why do you need the SR-PAX2 mixer?  Can you not just plug the H1n straight into the camera?

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48 minutes ago, Silvia Bluejay said:

No, it doesn't work, the camera's sound card will override the H1n.

Perhaps it depends on the camera.  What camera do you have, and how does it detect whether it's an H1n or a SR-PAX2 at the other end of an audio cable?  I have a Fuji X-series camera, and it definitely accepts an external mic straight into its mini-jack input.

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Don't think it depends on the camera - the audio output from H1n + camera is of the same, low quality as the camera's own output. Whether it comes from the H1n (which we find to be excellent on its own) or from the camera, it's highly disappointing.

The audio mixer output we get, still through the same H1n, is on another level entirely. That's despite us no longer using two separate mics connected to the audio mixer via XLRs (which we used to do, but it was a mega-faff, so we soon abandoned it).

This article describes our experience quite accurately, at least as far as the devices we tried are concerned.

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Thanks for the comments. So from what you've said the Q2N doesn't have as good a sound as the H1N which is a shame as all the blurb seems to say it is Zoom sound quality with a camera too. Ive been tempted by the simplicity of the Zoom but think I may get more use from a DSLR and our singer has the tascam equivalent of the H1N so that may be an option. I dont mind editing it and have been teaching my self davinci resolve so mot too fussed if best sound and best video are on the same file as long as I can edit them together.

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6 hours ago, Silvia Bluejay said:

- Its lens is very wide-angle. Excellent for shooting the entire band in a small, enclosed space like a rehearsal room, or a small studio. Useless if the stage is farther away, though, because its digital zoom function decreases the resolution and quality of the video.

 

Does that mean it's not shooting true 4K...?

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3 minutes ago, Silvia Bluejay said:

Having said that, anything that only uses digital zoom will have to reduce the image quality in order to zoom in. It's only optical zoom that can keep the quality unchanged - up to the limit of the physical zoom lens itself.

Happy to be corrected if I'm wrong!

Basically: if it's true 4K, you can crop in up to 2x and still be in HD territory for the edit. Any more than that, and you'll begin to see degradation (see below).

It's quite common practice with 4K footage to crop in to create faux secondary shots, even in the broadcast world.

500px-Digital_video_resolutions_VCD_to_4K.svg_.png

Edited by wateroftyne
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57 minutes ago, Gottastopbuyinggear said:

Happy Q2n user here - but intrigued by your comment.  Is the glitch related to using an external battery pack?  That’s how I usually power mine.

Yes it is. I even returned the first Q2n I bought, and the second did/does the same. It's clearly a software glitch.

As I mentioned above, I am talking about the older, non-4K model.

When powered via a power pack into its micro-USB port, the Q2n works regardless of whether it contains batteries or not. (No surprise there.) We soon decided that it was easier to always keep batteries in it, as I quickly got fed up with re-setting the date and time whenever I used it. To keep the date/time stored, you don't need fresh batteries, even old ones will do, as long as they're not totally dead.

So far so good. You power it up via the pack, set it running at the start of the gig, and it will record video of the whole gig in a series of chunks of around 20 minutes which you then stitch together as needed.

Periodically I did replace the batteries, when they died completely.

We spent a couple of months deliberately using the Q2n for every gig or event of any kind, to test it properly. And... it worked either absolutely flawlessly for hours on end; or, on certain days, it didn't. You set it running, and it would stop recording after a random number of minutes. Could be 5, 30, 50... it stopped recording and just sat there, turned on but idle. Nothing that we did would cure that: we turned it off then on repeatedly, updated the firmware, bought new, faster, better microSD cards, connected it to a different power pack, you name it. I even had an email exchange with a Zoom engineer who was very apologetic, but had no idea how to help me.

Then, one day, it hit me: thinking back, I realised that the problem happened every time I put  new batteries in the Q2n but still powered it via the power pack as usual. As soon as the batteries were no longer brand new, usually the following time we'd use the Q2n - again with the power pack - the problem did not appear.

No idea why. I emailed the engineer, who was completely uninterested in and/or unconvinced by my discovery.

The problem hasn't reappeared since then, because I make sure to never have new batteries in the Q2n when I need it to record video for more than a few minutes.

Of course, the Q2n works fine every time it's powered by the internal batteries as opposed to the power pack, but it usually doesn't last an entire gig (or, depending on temperature or other environmental factors, even an entire set). It turns itself off and displays a battery empty message, which is a different behaviour from the problem I describe above.

Go figure... 9_9

Edited by Silvia Bluejay
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I’ve got a Q2n and am very impressed with the audio and it’s ability to handle high SPLs. The video isn’t bad - certainly good enough for FB and YT. I’d echo the fact that it eats batteries so I also use it with an external power pack. I hadn’t noticed the new battery/random stop issue that Silvia describes but then I never put new batteries in it anyway because of using it with the power pack. 

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This was shot both with DSLR and zoom Q2N, in contrast to the comments above, IMO the sound quality of the zoom is excellent whereas the video it awful. Note the contrast between the video of our singer (using a canon 5D mk 2) and the guitarist (using the zoom). In the end it was a compromise in using the excellent zoom audio capabilities and syncing with the superior video handling of a DSLR camera and a decent phone camera (drum cam). So to surmise, zoom 2QN for excellent audio recording used alongside better cameras for the actual video. Even a cheap (and I'm talking £20 quid 1080 ebay action cam) will produce better video quality, but its worth investing in the zoom for its audio recording alone.

 

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TBH I don't think it's worth investing in the Zoom at all (unless the 4k model is a lot better in general) for anything professional, video or audio. It's a cheap device that has a lot of practical advantages, especially to film live in awkward places, or where there's little space between the camera and the band, etc. I wouldn't want to record a proper promo video with it.

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6 minutes ago, Silvia Bluejay said:

TBH I don't think it's worth investing in the Zoom at all (unless the 4k model is a lot better in general) for anything professional, video or audio. It's a cheap device that has a lot of practical advantages, especially to film live in awkward places, or where there's little space between the camera and the band, etc. I wouldn't want to record a proper promo video with it.

yeah true, it's handy for rehearsals and live gigs to chuck up onto FB, just to keep the candle burning. But I'm using my DSLR far more for actual video, we're thinking of going down the "all audio into desk into laptop mode" eventually

Edited by skidder652003
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Yep, they're spot-on for rough'n'ready stuff on social media, but get proper stuff for anything else.

This was with my Q4n (not Q2n) - completely acoustic (apart from my bass combo, obv.). The mics are really pretty useable (I added a little EQ, 'verb and compression in post), and the image is OK after a bit of lens distortion correction.

 

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