Zoom H6 Essential Handheld Recorder for Musicians, Podcasters & Filmmakers

As a blind person, I have been using this recorder with ease due to the voice guidance included on the recorder, which includes the ability to set the clock without someone reading the screen. Various updates since my purchase almost a year ago have improved upon the voice guidance, to tell me when inputs are enabled or disabled, for instance. the noise floor of the recorder is low enough that under most circumstances, it's below the sounds being recorded from the recorder. 32 bit files make the need to set any level on the recordings superfluous, but you can get around this by going into the mixer and turning up the volume of the various inputs before recording. However, for someone who doesn't know about the benefits of 32 bit files or how to deal with them after they're recorded so as to normalize volume levels, etc, this may not be as useful to some. There are some improvements that I hope can be addressed in future updates. 1. At the current moment of writing (January 23, 2025), if you are only recording one track of input, there are two files being made. One file is for the single track you are recording, and the other file is for all tracks combine, which in the instance of creating a recording with only one track, will only be a duplicate of the track being recorded. In my opinion, this wasts space on the MicroSD card, doubling the amount of space a single recording should take while making it. 2. While updating, there is no audio prompts at certain points, especially when you know it's time to restart the unit for the update, unless something undocumented has changed in firmware 2.0.2 that I don't know about. 3. When going through the list of files, no names are provided, but there are already the numbers available for the clock, why not use those to find the files you'd like? For now, you can play each file you're going through and stop it if it isn't what you want to review, or simply connect it to your computer and review the files that way. 4. There is no limiter available on the line-out. This has been very useful on my Zoom F3, I could see it being quite useful on the Zoom H6 as well. So far, this has been a reliable and excellent recorder for my use cases.

This is a thing of dreams for a jack of all trades creative. I can mount it on my camera, I can walk it around and get insanely high fidelity nature sounds, I can interview people, commentate, record music directly IN to it. With multiple stereo inputs! It seems to be built quite ruggedly, it can run on USB C or rechargeable AA batteries, I can use it as an interface, or standalone, I get access to 32bit float; which I now dont think I could go without. This is a pocket sized device, capable of recording a full band with STUDIO level quality. This thing delivers all day. I'd only recommend against it if you want the poseable stereo capsule mic of the newer models. I'm much more of a fan of the inputs, and the capsule mic on this has a great stereo field as is imo.

I have one of these and I use it for my podcast. It is great when I’m only recording four channels. There is no higher quality product for recording on the go. Battery life is good but I’d hook it up to a power cord, it’s super easy to use, and looks great. As far as value goes it’s a bit pricey for a 4 channel recorder but you won’t get a better one for the price that’s portable and can record straight to an sd card like this, although there aren’t a lot of features like efx. There are some mixing boards that are similar or slightly more in price, that might be better for you if you’re recording music in a single location. If that’s what you’re looking to do then RCF makes great boards.

Amazingly clear sound; I bought it for archival recording of my symphony orchestra's concerts - to work in tandem with a video recorder. Unfortunately, and despite the Vid Recorder's features and jack, it doesn't accept the Zoom recorder's output, but - that's clearly a problem with the Vid Cam and NOT this amazing Zoom recorder. It's really compact, but delivers great sound even with the built-in criss-cross mikes. Easy to use, amazingly adaptable for four-input/track recording in such a compact package - I'm really pleased with the complete, true-fidelity recorded sound. It's difficult to record the performance sound of my orchestra without a full overhead mic situation, and especially due to the lousy acoustics of our home hall, but this Zoom recorder's capabilities, bargain price and could-hear-a-pin-drop clarity of recorded sound is spectacular.

I bought this to record my voice lessons and rehearsals, and it does a great job capturing clear audio. It actually really shines on acoustic guitar as well, and gets great battery life. If you need more than the 4 AAs provide, you can hook up a phone charger or portable battery, and it will run directly off that power. The small gripe I have is that they use 2 dacs at different levels to capture audio, so there is no option to set levels. While that is good in theory, it also means that if you are in a noisy space, you get more of the noise than if they just had the 1 and you set the input level manually. Still, it records great audio with the built in stereo xy mics, and is easy to use.

This is how gear should be designed. 32 bit float is very helpful and the interface is super clear, with straightforward physical buttons where you need it. I recorded podcasts during a convention with this thing and 3 external mics/cables. I used the onboard internal stereo mics as a backup. Battery life is decent, but plug in where you can if you're going full-blast like I was. I did three 2 hour interviews, and the third interview was over 2 hours - somewhere approaching the third hour, my batteries ended. But for lesser situations, you should be fine.

This 32-bit float recorder has excellent features can record at 48,000 or 96,000 sampling rate. The included microphone is good enough. It sounds pretty clear. There is a lot of handling noise, so don't expect to be holding it. I did have to get a pop filter as well for it. And it does take AA batteries, or you can get rechargeable batteries. And usually I just use it with a plug-in USB-C cable to keep it powered. You can use this as an audio USB interface as well if you want to record multiple inputs into a digital audio workstation.

No gain adjustments? Sounded great.... then they pushed a firmware update.....to do gain adjustments, but not through a knob obviously, you have to awkwardly press buttons and fiddle with everything on multiple screens and it made this entire recorder a joke honestly. I'm not happy with zoom about this device...it's awkward and unusable the way they set this up and there was ZERO indication they were going to come out with a version with gain knobs...the 'studio' version is exactly this unit without the horrible pain of having to jump through multiple screens and awkward adjustments to do anything....I would NEVER HAVE BOUGHT THIS if they had marketed the studio version at all. I feel like I got horribly scammed and I honestly don't understand what scenario you'd ever want this version of this recorder. I do a podcast with bands and this makes podcasting horrible - this would be horrible for recording a drum kit or any other musical ensemble as well... it's not remotely simple - it's the worst UI wrapped around 32 bit recording because the device is simply missing physical knobs... NOT HAPPY WITH YOU ZOOM - BUY THE STUDIO VERSION IF YOU CARE ABOUT YOUR RECORDING SOUNDS AT ALL

Cet enregistreur vous facilite la vie, très intuitif d'utilisation. Parfait pour enregistrer plusieurs pistes. Pour ma part, j'ai un micro par enceinte et le micro intégré dirigé vers la guitare + un micro sur perche pour la voix. Parfait.

llebo unos meses con ella, y hasta ahorita me a funcionado muy bien. la uso mas como interfás pero e echo algunas grabaciones y tiene muy buena calidad, aun faltan descubrir como funcionan bien algunas otras configuraciones, pero sin dudarlo la recomendaria para un uso desde iniciante hasta profecional.

Love this product. Works in professional audio recording environments.

Beware that XLR/TRS preamps are pretty noisy & mic levels are difficult to tweak buried beneath the menus. The navigation for file system is archaic and follows (date_hhmmyy) naming convention. However its okay to capture room ambience. For direct sources as long as the source is atleast 6 feet away you should be fine. The output speakers obv have no headroom so playing back heavily distorted guitars and drums can be done at around 85-90% volume if you are reviewing the recordings. Overall it will compress less than your smartphone mic & records PCM WAVs without turning your PC/Laptop on. If that is your use case then my suggestion is get a touchscreen one.

Fantastic recorder -- and at €159 on Amazon.ie an absolute steal -- I was looking at lower models in the range and spotted the H6E was cheaper. 32 Bit Float, 4 XLR inputs, decent XY interchangeable mic capsule. Excellent sound quality, ultimate convenience, and at that price I'd give it 10 stars if I could.