Zoom H6 Black

Great product

A really great versatile unit highly recommended

The most useful and versatile audio item you'll ever have

The ammount of uses this recorder has just makes it a smart choice. And the simple interface, straightforward, ease of use, there's just nothing bad to say about it. I dabble in music production, sound design, and filmmaking, and this will be useful for all of them. Also, specifically for music recording and filmmaking, I think this model is the best choice, 6 channels will have you covered and if you ever need more inputs you can get the extra two accessory.

Brilliant recorder

Took it to India and of course doubles as a sound card for running instruments into my DAW, cubase.

The best device if you need quality recording on the go. Super easy to understand and start using. Affordable

I wanted a budget solution to record a small choir in different locations: rehearsal rooms, performance venues etc. The built in stereo microphones are superb (really impressive range and sensitivity) + additional 4 microphones do magic. I used it to record sound for later mixing, overdubbing, video soundtracks. Still many features of this small device to learn. Really, I think this device is phenomenal if 4 external mics and a built in mic features are enough for you. Battery lasts forever, it could have a micro USB / USB-C port though.

Great as a portable, didn't work as an audio interface for me

Great as a portable, didn't work as an audio interface for me. For some reason that Zoom was unable to locate and fix, the H6 produced a background buzz as an audio interface. The H6 that Zoom inspected was considered defective by them, yet the replacement had the same issue on two different laptops. I now have a Livetrack L-8 with no issues. For an audio interface, I'd get something else, or test the product while I'm able to get a refund if necessary. As an outdoor/offline recorder this is great.

An improvement on the H4N from a handling perspective

Having four inputs with volume and PAD controls makes the H6 very flexible an easy to use. The battery life is a massive improvement. I like the quality of the recordings although perhaps the H4n has a slight edge

Recorded for every need

Super easy to use, quality build. Highly recomended for recording dj sessions.

A Great Field Recorder For Any Production at great price - including MOVIES!

I have owned this little recorder for 2 years now and I've realized that it has been a great purchase! (My review is long but detailed and hopefully helpful)

Here's what I have done with it;

I have used this recorder to record in different music situations - even a string quartet, using 4 external Condenser microphones and the Zoom's own LR capsule for capturing stereo room sound - it sounded fantastic! Here is the video of it: also recorded a classical pianist's video using this recorder and a stereo ORTF mic pair. Here is the video: more exciting - I am currently using this little beast to record all of the audio for my very first feature film "HIKE". So the Zoom is the field recorder for us and we also use a Rode NTG-2 with a blimp on it outside. on top of a Rode Boompole PRO - a solid combo! So I would say that so far we have had no worries combining the Zoom H6 with the Rode NTG-2. Indoors we use a Rode M5 condenser mic with the Zoom. After some post production mixing, the dialogue and sound effects and ambiences sound great and very professional! I also love that the Zoom has the capsules available since it makes recording stereo ambiences very fast and easy on the spot! Hopefully you will be able to see and hear the movie in the start of 2024!

Here are the things I love about this recorder and also the things that you should keep in mind:

For about 350 euros you are getting 6 channels of phantom-powered 96kHz 24-bit recording! That is a lot! Even in a forest with no electricity, you can just hook up the H6 with a power bank and easily record 4 external condenser mics at once, and on top of that add the 2 channels of the capsule mic in the mix as well!

The sound quality in my opinion is very good and not at all far off from a Zoom F8 or Sound devices. You just have to learn the basics of recording great audio - but this you need to do with any other recorder anyway to capture great audio.

Don't worry - the recorder from my experience is not very noisy at all. Most importantly, especially when recording dialogue on a movie shoot, get the microphone always as close as you can so that you can keep the gain lower - that way you will eliminate a ton of undesired noise from your recordings! Also, if you still experience too much noise in your recordings, I would advise perhaps getting a microphone that has a hotter signal, since from my experience that makes a lot bigger of a difference than upgrading your recorder itself.

The recorder doesn't have timecode since it is not built for the complete professionals in the top tier of movie making. But I don't use or need it anyway since my Panasonic camera also doesn't have the timecode built in. I just use the trusted "clap" technique for syncing and have always manually synced my audio and video anyway.

The biggest obstacle that I came across when using the Zoom H6 as a field recorder was not actually the recorder itself but getting a field recording bag for it. As far as I am aware, there still isn't a special field recording bag made for the H6 where you could have the bag in front of you and the H6 properly mounted so that you can easily see the screen when looking down and also adjust the knobs. But for now I am using a small camera bag instead for that. In that bag I also have a regular smaller power bank with a usb mini cable which supplies power for the H6 for a long long time! No need to mess with the batteries in the back. But I also do have 3 pairs (4x each) of rechargable batteries in case I only use the H6 itself with no bag or anything.

But often we also just mount the Zoom H6 onto a tripod or a stand with a 3/8 thread and I also mount the power bank and the Rode Wireless GO 2 system (providing Lavaliers for us) on it. This also works and is comfortable to use when we are not moving around in the scene.

The menu in my opinion is well designed and is simple to use. You just have to get used to operating the whole menu system with two buttons - but it is actually very simple! And even though it isn't a touch screen, from my experience it has not slowed us down at all.

The quality is solid from my experience however the only thing that I have come across is that the screen of my H6 seems to get dust under it over time. I'm not sure how to stop or fix it but it is actually not a problem at all since we can see just fine on the LCD screen.

Overall, I absolutely love this recorder and even though I have thought about getting a Sound Devices before, I don't think I will since the Zoom H6 can still do everything I need it to and it is so easy to use and has never failed on me on a shoot before. The sound quality is great, the build quality from my experience should last for many more years and I am now creating a FEATURE FILM with just this for all of the audio! That's how much I love and trust this recorder ;)

Simpler than a laptop with interface and decent mic pre-amps

I bought this to simplify recording set-up for small events and choirs.

For a spoken word event with slides, film clips, and music playback, I had the two radio mics for the presenters and a matched stereo pair for the room (no audience participation but we did need their reactions). The combination of operating position and required position for the room mics does not permit using the XY module in my situation. Having a compact recorder like this was much simpler than setting up a laptop with an audio interface, especially as there is only one laptop and it is already doing show control as well as video and audio playback in a very confined operating position.

For smaller choirs with no more than five singers per part, I like to have one mic each for bass/tenor/alto/soprano or maybe one for a solo and re-arrange the others. I didn't buy the XLR module (yet) so I have only four XLR inputs at present.

The set-up was pretty straightforward and the pre-amp quality suits me fine. I am a bit of a Focusrite fanboy but I also just want to be able to get the job done and I had no reason to complain about the quality of the inputs on the Zoom H6. With no laptop to set up or software to configure, I can travel a bit lighter and it's easier to find a comfortable operating position. At the venue, i can be recording pretty soon after arrival; with the recordings in the bag, I can pack down quickly and back to base to fettle the sound into shape. With just a little time in my DAW, I had the sound I wanted.

The machine feels solid to use. Arming tracks, enabling phantom power, and setting up stereo pairs or splitting back to independent mono is simple enough. I am quite used to the convention of having left on an odd channel and right on even. Zoom H6 follows this convention with no workaround, which does limit flexibility slightly but it's common enough that I personally don't find it a problem. Getting a recording underway is also very obvious, as it should be.

All-in-all, I am very happy with this device. It will seem limited for some uses but for the purposes I set out above, I would happily recommend Zoom H6 to other people.

Working as expected!

Happy to pick up the H6 for a new recording project.

My one problem with the unit is that there is no protection over the gain knobs, as there is on the H5... i'm always very conscious of the fact that the knobs/levels could change once secured in my RC900 portable case!

Happy with noise floor, handling and quality so far. Interface is easy to use.