Speaker 1: Welcome to Touch Technology Review today, I'm going to show you how to set up your Zoom H6 audio recorder for recording videos just like this or for recording podcasts. Now there's a couple of different ways you can do it depending on the microphones that you have. So I'll take you through all of the steps involved, no matter what microphone you're intending to use. You could be using the available microphone, the XY capsule or the mid to side capsule that comes with the Zoom handy recorder, or you might have access to external microphones like I do, such as the Rode NT1. You could have any number of different microphones and this recorder is capable of inputting up to four inputs for audio along with the built-in recorder as well. And for those of you that have lav mics, I'm going to show you a couple of different ways to connect a 3.5 input such as the ones available on a lav mic into the Zoom H6. So without any further delay, let's get started and set up the Zoom H6 for your first audio production. So if you are using one of the capsule microphones, the process is really straightforward. All you need to do is plug in the microphone at the top and then tap on the left and right buttons on the top of the interface and you should be pretty much ready to go. You can then use the dial on the capsule in order to dial up and down the sound until you get the correct input. Now the only way you're going to know if the audio is at the right level is by monitoring the audio with a set of headphones. So make sure when you are first setting up the audio recorder that you plug in a set of headphones. If you only have a very standard in-ear headphone, you could use that, but preferably if you do have them, some over-ear headphones such as the Sennheisers that I have here or could be AKG, any brand of over-ear headphones is going to allow you to get a much more accurate picture of what the sound is like coming through those inputs. And you can monitor the signal to noise ratio, which is really important. If you dial it up too high, you're going to introduce a lot of noise depending on the microphone that you're using. So generally as a rule of thumb, I tend to have it dialed anywhere up from four to six if I'm using any of the capsule microphones or if I have my own external microphones. Now when it comes to using the XLR ports on the side and adding an external microphone, of course the first thing you need to do is plug in the microphone via any of the XLR ports. So if you only have one microphone, you could use any of the ports from one to four on the side. If you have multiple microphones, if you're doing a podcast or a larger video production, you could use all of the XLR ports and we can configure each and every one of them. So the first step is to determine whether your microphone requires phantom power. Most studio condenser microphones such as the Rode NT1 will require phantom power. Phantom power is necessary to deliver power to the microphone. Without it, you won't hear any signal whatsoever. So by default, when you first turn on the Zoom H6, the phantom power will be turned off. In order to activate the phantom power, click on the menu button on the right hand side of the unit, go into the input and output section, which is the second icon down on the left and you can navigate to that section using the scroll wheel, which sits just above the menu button and then select phantom. Click on the individual input that you want to apply phantom power to or if you're using all four XLR ports with four microphones that require phantom power, click on all and then select on. Your microphone has already been plugged in and you should now be getting a signal into the unit. Use the dials on the top in order to adjust the input level anywhere from the range of three to six or maybe even seven, depending on the sensitivity of the microphone that you have and depending on the noise levels that you're picking up. Before we move on, just a very quick tip about using phantom power microphones. Make sure that you turn off the unit before you plug in or unplug the phantom power microphone because you can actually cause damage to the microphone when the unit is still powered on. The last step is to plug your microphone in first into the XLR ports, turn the unit on and then start using the device. Now for those of you wanting to use a 3.5 microphone, you can use the 3.5 input, which is on the XY capsule. Now if you have a lav mic or lapel mic, some of these microphones also require phantom power, but they only need two to 3.5 volts of phantom power, not the full 24 to 48 volts that you get in the XLR ports. So thankfully the 3.5 input on the XY capsule has the option to supply phantom power to lav microphone. So in order to activate that, once again, go to the menu, click the second menu on the left hand column, which will take you to the input output settings. Click on plug in power and select on, and the 3.5 input will now supply power to your lav microphone safely. Now if you do want to use more than one lav microphone with the Zoom H6 audio recorder, you can use 3.5 to XLR adapters and put those microphones into the XLR ports. However, a word of caution here in that the XLR ports will only supply 24 to 48 volts of power, not the 3.5 output that is required, and they could therefore overload the microphone and cause damage. So in order to do that properly, you should use the Rode VXLR Plus, which costs around $39 and that is a 3.5 to XLR adapter with the voltage downgrade from 48 to 3.5, and you can then safely plug in your lav microphones into the XLR ports on your Zoom H6. And finally, I wanted to talk about how the Zoom H6 records your audio files when you're using more than one audio source. When you're using the XY or the side to mid capsules that come with the Zoom, you're going to get a simple stereo file for you to use in your productions. When you're using the inputs on the side, by default, you're going to get a separate track for each input. So if you have four microphones plugged into each of the XLR ports on the side, you'll end up with four separate tracks of audio, which you can then mix into your audio production software, whether it's a video editor or a software editor, it doesn't matter. You'll sync them up in production and you can edit them with independent audio. And I find that is the best way to approach the recording of multiple audio sources, especially if you have multiple guests on a podcast, for example, so that you can silence out the other guest while the main guest is speaking. And you can also take care of any issues that might pop up with the multiple sound sources. So in my opinion, it is generally better to keep them as separate audio files and deal with it in post-production. But some of you want to actually record two audio tracks into a single track, in which case you can link up tracks one and two or tracks three and four as a combined stereo track. So in order to do that, you need to go into the settings, into the MS Matrix, and you can then opt to join tracks one and two or join tracks three and four for a stereo track from each input. When you do that, you'll see on the display at the front that your tracks are now joined together. And if you want to unlink them, you can go back into the menu, into the MS Matrix and unlink them. Or you can do that using the top grid of buttons by tapping on tracks one and two simultaneously and then tapping again to unlock them. You can do the same with tracks three and four. So hopefully that information has been of use in order to get you set up recording your first video or podcast with the Zoom H6 audio recorder. If you have come to this video out of curiosity and you're still thinking about buying one and you want more information about the product itself, I've actually completed a unboxing and review video and I'll leave a link to that in the description box below. If you want to see more from me, don't forget to hit that like button and consider subscribing to the channel and you'll be notified of up and coming video releases. See you on the next one. Bye for now. Transcribed by https://otter.ai