Trouble using external mic to record videos.
I'm trying to record videos on my laptop, and having major problems with sound. The inbuilt mic isn't great, so I'm using (or rather, trying to) my Zoom H2n as a USB microphone. This works perfectly well for audio-only applications: I can record sound into Audacity using this setup with no issues. But it all goes horribly wrong with literally any video recording program I've tried. I'm currently using OBS.
If I set the sample frequency (on both devices) to 44.1kHz, the result has no bass frequencies whatsoever, and there's rattling buzz of distortion on every single sound. If I set the devices to 48kHz, the sound is much more normal, but has random pops every few seconds (whever I'm making any noise or not). It's also lower in pitch by a semitone, which is an issue as I'm recording music. I can't find any other settings in OBS, on my PC or on the Zoom which address these issues. Anyone have an idea what might be the cause of these problems?
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funeralxempire
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Is it possible your audio recorded at 48khz is being played back at 44.1? Does it playback at the correct speed but lowered, or does it playback both slower and lower?
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Is it possible your audio recorded at 48khz is being played back at 44.1? Does it playback at the correct speed but lowered, or does it playback both slower and lower?
I'll do some experiments with a metronome to check that...
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funeralxempire
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Is it possible your audio recorded at 48khz is being played back at 44.1? Does it playback at the correct speed but lowered, or does it playback both slower and lower?
I'll do some experiments with a metronome to check that...
Hopefully that's the problem, if it is all you need to do is speed it back up to the correct playback speed.
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The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.
If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing. —Malcolm X
If you feel useless, just remember the USA took four presidents, thousands of lives, trillions of dollars and 20 years to replace the Taliban with the Taliban.
The speed seems to be correct, which raises the question of how on earth my PC dropped the pitch without slowing it down! I gave up in the end and recorded the audio on a seperate device. Handled synching by the simple expedient of pressing both record buttons at the same time, one with each hand... given the low quality of my webcam video, the result was close enough. Better than yet more hours swearing at my laptop in bewildered frustration. I'm just going to have to give up and splash out on a camcorder. But not til next year.
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I think the problem may be in the USB drivers for your Zoom H2n? And the audio settings on your laptop.
When it comes to recording with USB on laptops on windows and to some extent Mac OS, if the drivers aren't given,
then you could get problems as you mentioned.
The Zoom H2n looks really interesting type of handheld recorder. As it certainly appears to be cram packed with features. Certainly rare to find a handheld recorder that has 5 built in microphones that can be used to create various configurations.
However, the more parts in a device, the more complex in terms of operation and the more parts to account for (and which can go wrong).
I would be inclined to record with the Zoom H2n as a standalone device, and then transfer the recordings onto your laptop and line up the audio with the video.
On the Zoom's H2n's website, it says as well as having a USB output which allows you to use it as an audio interface, it also has a 1/8'' stereo jack output which you can plug into any audio input on your laptop.
It also says that the H2n can record directly onto an SD card, up to 32 GB.
The site also says that the H2n comes with wavelab, and a lite version of cubase.
fairly good app for editing audio files. I believe cubase also allows you to import video files, which will allow you to sync the audio to the video.
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