The Zoom H4N might be getting a little long in the tooth now and it’s had an update with the H4N Pro. But the original H4N is still a great recorder. Compact, good battery life and offers many features only seen on high end camcorders.
The H4n has some very noisy preamps though and this is the main downside of the Zoom H4N. As I didn’t want to have to buy a new recorder, not just because of cost, but because I didn’t want to relegate the Zoom H4N to history of my box of old equipment, I found a way to get around these noisy preamps.
Now this will work for any recorder and any camcorder with XLR inputs. I use a device called a Fethead.
A Fethead is an in microphone preamplfier and provides 27db of clean gain. It plugs into your recorder via XLR. What this essentially does is boost the output of the microphone to the recorder, allowing you to reduce the gain needed on your camera or recorder.
I use a Fethead with my Rode NTG2 as the NTG2 is quite a weak microphone in terms of signal, and the Fethead removes the need for me to increase the gain past 30 on my H4N. I use the Fethead Phantom with my Rode NTG1 with my Canon C100.
I have two different types of fetheads, a regular Fethead and a Fethead Phantom – which provides phantom power to your microphone. Both Fetheads require phantom power in order to work whilst containing circuitry to protect your dynamic microphones.
These really were a game changer for me in terms of capturing audio without having to break out the credit card for a brand new recorder. They work brilliantly with newer recorders and cameras as well. Links below:
Buy a Fethead
Buy a Fethead Phantom
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