Zoom H1essential Handy Recorder

Before we hit the road, my WFH setup at home had a large diaphragm on a boom clamped to the desk. I was able to position it close to my mouth while still sitting barely off-camera. It’s a pretty great setup that doesn’t work even remotely well for life on the road.

I immediately started looking for a portable condenser mic that would work well, and quickly discovered the Samson Go. This tiny gem of a mic sounds pretty good (about on par with a modern built-in laptop mic), could easily clamp onto my laptop screen, packs up small, and only costs $40. While not spectacular, it’s a decent step up from the built-in mic on my MacBook pro, especially if you can get it close enough to your face. It’s not a great mic, but it is a great mic for its size and price. However, I also found that they aren’t particularly durable. After breaking a couple of those, I decided I needed something a little better.

Why a handy mic?

While traveling, I expect all of my gear to sustain quite a bit of wear and tear. A handheld field recorder fits the bill quite nicely, while also having a very high-quality microphone built in. They pack a lot of punch in a small package.

After a fair amount of research, I landed on the Zoom handy recorders as a solid option. At that point, it came down to balancing size and features to decide which model I wanted. I was pretty split between the H1 due its size, H6 due to its features, and H4 as nice middle ground. I’d also decided that I wanted one of the newer “essential” models, since I didn’t want to bother with an older model that was likely to be discontinued soon. It doesn’t hurt that the essential series introduces 32-bit floating point audio to the handy series.

Floating points? What?!

I thought I might want to actually use the thing as a field recorder from time to time, and don’t mind post-processing the audio, so I liked the idea of a 32-bit floating-point recorder. This is one of the biggest changes from the older handy series and the essential series.

I gotta let my inner software engineer out for a minute here.

For the uninitiated: fixed-precision numbers are stored as integers within a range. In 24-bits, you can represent why whole number from roughly -8,000,000 to 8,000,000. Floating-point numbers, on the other hand, basically store decimal location along with that number (so you can have 1542234 + 3 to represent 154.2234). That’s not exactly how it works, but it’s close enough. With a 32-bit floating point number, you have the same basic 16 million values plus the ability to drop a decimal point into any one of about 250 places, allowing you to represent a range of roughly -3.4x10^38 to 3.4x10^38! That’s a dynamic range of over 1500 dB!

What does that mean in practical terms? With fixed-point recorders, you manually set the gain high enough to avoid the noise floor, but low enough to not clip and distort. You have a pretty fixed dynamic range and have to be careful to not go outside that range. Floating-point recorders, on the other hand, represent the audio stream in a way that effectively has no upper limit (with the right mic and reckless disregard for physics, you could record a star exploding without audible distortion). It means that a 32-bit floating-point recorder is a “set it and forget it” kind of thing. You hit record and you’re off to the races. No need to bother with gain staging.

The essentials

H1essential

The H1e doesn’t have the extra inputs or flexibility of the larger models, but it makes up for it in size, weight, and price. It’s tiny, built like a tank, and is only $100. The big downside is that it only has a single TRSS input (so 2 inputs + the 2 built-in mics), so you’re pretty limited there. I intended to use it as an audio interface for guitars and small synthesizers, but it falls short immediately when you do that, due to ground loops and line noise. If you don’t mind recording directly to the thing, then copying the recordings later, you can get pretty decent quality recordings.

If you ignore its crappy inputs, though, and stick with the mics, you won’t be disappointed. You also won’t be able to replace them if they break or if you need something different. You get what you get.

Interestingly, when using the h1essential as a USB microphone, it switches to a 16-bit fixed-point mode. That makes it so when recording a video or something, you can get okay quality audio track in the video itself over USB, while also storing a noticably higher-quality floating-point version on the recorder itself. I’d definitely prefer 24- or 32-bit when used as a USB mic or audio interface, but you can still sound pretty good with 16 bits.

H4essential

The H4e brings a little more to the table. At a pretty decent markup from the H1e, you get a better display, some XLR/TRS inputs with phantom power, and a basic mixer. You also get better mics (which, like the H1e, can’t be replaced) and it behaves more like a “proper” audio interface (in 32-bit floating-point, no less). You get a lot in a small package.

H6essential

If you’re looking for features, the H6essential is pretty awesome. You get everything that H4e has, plus two more XLR/TRS inputs. Biggest of all, though, is the modular nature of this beast. If you don’t want two XY mics, you can swap it out!

And…?

After holding them all side-by-side, I chose the H1essential. The other options were tempting, but were frankly just too big. When working on the road, I don’t have a good place to attach a boom or mic stand 95% of the time, so I don’t have any choice but to hold the thing. An H6e is shockingly massive, meaning I’d be losing valuable storage space on top of being forced to hold a brick during meetings. An H4e is much more doable, but I just don’t find myself needing the extra inputs enough to justify the added cost and size. An H1e is the perfect size, though.

Road-worthiness

It’s great!. It’s small, solid, and if I ever damage it, I’m not breaking the bank to get a replacement. And even though it’s tiny, it’s just big enough to fit comfortably in the hand. In mono mode, the tiny condenser capsules somehow have noticably better audio quality than my large-diaphram mic at home. It also cleverly combines the mics in mono, giving it a really tight polar pattern, which helps a lot with making your voice the only thing it picks up. I’m impressed enough that when we eventually settle back down at home again, I’m seriously considering switching to an H4e or H6e instead of using a dedicated mic + audio interface.

And because it’s so light-weight, if the circumstances allow, I can stick it on a tiny a tripod pretty easily and not have to worry about it being super top-heavy.

And let’s not forget that it’s also a simple audio interface! In addition to not needing to haul an interface around with me to use my mic, I can record from a synth or sampler directly onto the recorder itself.

One other thing that isn’t a big deal until it suddenly is: they are pretty easy to find. If I’m in the middle of nowhere, there’s probably a store within an hour’s drive that has an H1essential in stock.

My only real complaint is that the USB port is on the side instead of the bottom, which makes holding it a little awkward. A commonly reported issue with it is the loud handling noise, but I’ve never really found that to be a problem. I try not to move it much, just to be safe, but it’s just not something I’ve ever had a problem with.

Get a dead cat (and other accessories)

When travelling, I never know where I’ll be for meetings. Sometimes, that means working outside or directly below an air conditioner. My workspace changes so much and is very often very noisy, so a dead cat goes a long way toward keeping it manageable. Zoom sells a small accessory set for the H1e that includes a small case and a dead cat for $40. That’s a bit steep for what you get, but it’s absolutely worth it.

Also, as mentioned above, sometimes I get to work at an actual desk or table. When that happens, a small tripod is a luxury (and if you do have a problem with handling noise, it collapses down to a small handle).

Accessory pack

Tripod

Overall impressions

It’s a great mic that is just about perfect for a life on the road. It checks almost every box, and does it with style.