Zoom H6 6-track and Rode NT2 microphone, all on a single microphone stand.
Category: Gadgets
These are posts about gadgets and any kind of tech.
The Zoom H6 is a great handy 6-track recorder. It can be used stand-alone, or as an audio interface to a Windows PC, Mac, iPad and (undocumented) Android. Recordings made on it are easily digitally transferred to a PC or Mac, to be imported into the DAW or editor of your choice – it is just a matter of hooking it up with USB and copying the tracks.
However, it is not so simple to digitally copy audio tracks into the Zoom – there is no process for this.
My 8″ has recently gone to a very good home, so I can now concentrate on using the 4.5″. This has distinct advantages – my garden table is shaded from the surrounding light (but still has a good area of visible sky), and it can be carried with one hand, so if I want to throw it in the car and go somewhere else, it is easy.
At the end of August I bought a Garmin Forerunner 235 watch, to replace my Fitbit. It was somewhat of an impulse buy (who, me?), but I am completely satisfied with it.
As some of you will know, I am overweight. As such, I have fat wrists. Actually, they don’t seem that big, in proportion to my arms, but they are big enough to cause the eternal watchstrap problem.
When I was using my Fitbit Flex, it meant that I had to go cap in hand to Fitbit support for an XL strap. They do not sell them, so each time you want one (I recently replaced one that wore out), you have to justify to them that you want a freebie, even though you might have bought your Fitbit from elsewhere, and it is no longer under warranty. I didn’t want a freebie, but as they don’t sell them, that was the only way to get a strap that fitted me.
Although I have had a Roberts Stream 93i radio for well over a year before buying one for my office, I am now using it a lot more for streaming from my NAS.
I ran into a puzzle where it appeared to *sometimes* be ignoring the album’s track order, even though the files appeared to have correctly embedded information, and in some cases even had the track numbers in the filenames.
A combination of changes at YouTube and Ricoh’s new video driver (UVC Blender) now means that it is straightforward to stream 360° video live.
I’ve experimented a little with it, and am not yet sure if it is good enough for what I want to do with it. The picture is what it has always been – not brilliant, but ok; but on Live streaming, I’ve experienced some very poor sound; worse than when just uploading video, and irrespective of whether I use the camera’s microphone or external mikes.
I love my Theta S camera, but I found when using it on a pole, it was a bit of a handful to hold that steady and get out my phone to trigger the picture. Moreover the frustration of having to log on to the camera’s own WiFi each time – fine for an extended session of images, but not exactly conducive to a quick snap.
The simplicity of this 3D printed device is wonderful – the camera fits into the housing, held in by the tripod screw; and a lever arrangement physically pushs the button on the pull of a string. Easy to rig, and simple to use. They even include a matching ring to put on the end of the string.
More 360° nonsense for those of you not yet bored.
This is getting surreal. Checking on what was up on HugVR today, I found the Canadian chap I was talking to last night experimenting with another guy in England, attempting a two way VR hookup.
Last night, long past my sensible bedtime, I found myself chatting to a chap in Canada who was broadcasting his lounge in 360°, on hugvr.com. Hugvr is still in Beta, but is a site for live streaming 360° video. I’ve taken to checking it out on my way to bed, as a large proportion of people playing with it are in the States.
For this chap, it is his job – he has started a company producing and consulting in VR for sales, education and entertainment; I’d come across him chilling and playing with kit, but when he knew I had the same camera as the one he was using tonight, he was interested in my opinions on quality. Then when he found I was an amateur musician, he really got excited, and got his guitar out, and we spent time discussing how cool live streamed 360° could be for virtual house concerts.
It was inevitable that my purchase of a Ricoh Theta S 360° camera would spur me on to buy more tech. The big hand syndrome, where handheld pictures and video have an out-of proportion hand holding nothing (the camera having removed itself from the picture) was easily fixed by a selfie-stick/monopod.
But it also led me to play with Google Cardboard, which is a deliberately cheap design for a Virtual Reality headset. In particular, video taken with the Theta and uploaded to YouTube can be viewed using Google Cardboard, and as you move your head, the frame of view moves accordingly. It is an amazing immersive effect, even with the crudest resolution of video.