What a generous and extremely helpful tutorial. Thanks! One thing I'll mention for the benefit of recording beginners like myself though is that while there is a free version of Pro Tools (which is very capable and probably more than enough for the amateur dabbler) you can't install 3rd party plugins into it. So the plugins Josh mentions aren't an option unless you buy Pro Tools, which isn't practical for a bit of home recording experimentation. This info might help save someone a bit of time and effort.

Best tutorial videos I've seen in a long time. Cheers from France !

Just adding another voice to the chorus of love for these tutorials. They're super insightful and helpful. Really nice job. I'd love to see how you approach mixing on field recordings where you're using the Zoom H6 with instruments running DI. They sound so good.

Thank you for putting this out there. It’s very well done and extremely useful to someone thinking about recording themselves, but unsure how to go about it. Not only are you a talented musician but you are also generous to share your hard earned knowledge. Love your music and videos.

Josh, you’re a legend. Love your channel. It’s inspired me to play/record and do more general music myself.

Josh. Gotta personally thank you for uploading these videos. Very informative. Love your musical work man.

Amazing stuff again. Very-very concise and clear, with tiny details that can be useful to even those who have tried their hands at sound editing. Thank you, Josh. Zs

I've been a big fan of your music for quite some time and now I've discovered this fantastic tutorial. You really are my favourite KZfaqr. I'm so thankful!

Josh, you are en inspiration. Great musician and great KZfaqr... So natural and simple and so eye-opening! Thanks for this triple lesson. All the best.

Thank you so much for all you’ve done Josh. You’ll never know how much of an inspiration you are! ❤

Awesome dude, exactly what I needed. Thanks so much for the bright explanation about something that seemed so hard before you showed it.

thanks so much for this video. I was looking for a review of the zoom h2 and was happy to find a review/tutorial from one of my favorite guitarists, and this whole series delivered much more than expected. Completely convinced me to buy a used h2 on ebay

Love saturation knob! One of my all time favourite plugins.

Stumbled across this series. Thanks so much! Incredibly helpful.

Many thanks Josh - big fan of your channel and this advice is right on the money.

Amazing tutorial. This is exactly what I have been looking for. I own a H4 and could never get the sound I saw in KZfaq videos. No one talked about the post production part, which is clearly so important. Thank you Josh.

Amazing job on these vids Josh. Extremely helpful. Thanks for doing this.

Thank you Josh, I think I will simply get this DAW with extras and work on it, you are certainly not making it seem impossible!!! :) I am so grateful!

I can only echo all the positive comments made by others in the last several years. Thank you, Josh, for such a clear and thorough presentation.

I appreciate these instructional videos greatly. I like that you aren't using the latest and greatest, but what works. Thank you

Nice tutorial Josh! I use a Tascam DR-07MKII and/or Line 6 Ux2. Amazing the power we have at our fingertips that allow us the opportunity to not only grow as musicians but to learn the technical skills to produce our own recordings without the financial burden of studio production costs! I wish you the best of luck in your new endeavors and will be supporting you when you make it big!

Thanks for those 3 videos, really accessible and well explained for beginners like myself.

Amazingly insightful series, Thankyou!

Thanks for this little series! Very helpful and interesting!

Wow, these 3 vids are great. Thank you!! Also, I love your latest album

Thanks for the walk through. I'm totally giving this a try this afternoon with my Zoom H1.

Thanks Josh! I've been waiting for this tutorial for a while :D

This was so good. Thanks for the easy to follow tutorial. Much appreciated. I'm going to give it a shot.

Thanks for posting. I watched all three. Very clear and useful.

Great video!! Thank you for sharing your valuable experience and knowledge, it's tremendously helpful

Thanks so much for the excellent tutorials 1-3.

Brilliant as usual......

Exceptional! Well done. I'm unpacking the same recorder I purchased in 2010 to put back to work with some Hero recordings. THANKS! Best Wishes!

Very good instructions!! I learned a lot, so thanks a lot. You are a great inspiration for me. I never understood though if you use the camera sound-track, in you final publication. I guess that, carefully processed, it will add some depth to the sound

Dude, thank you so so much! That's exactly what I needed.

Very helpful! Thank you.

Thankyou so much , I am a 67 year old crap guitarist with an even worse voice, but you young man, have given me hope of creating a sound that people may not laugh at , thanks again for posting from GARRY in the UK.ps, I will see how much that program Pro Tools is ,

Cool Man! Can't wait to see some of your Premiere editing magic! :)

Loved it Josh. Thanks :)

Looking to try recording for a while and always felt a bit intimidated by the whole process and the array of options. I've seen a few videos that just lost me.This was just an amazing, simple and concise explanation. As they say "Keep it simple, stupid". thanks so much from North of the border.

You're brilliant.

Thank You so much 😊

Great Video Josh, Although I have not done any recording of any kind I often wondered what type of recorder you used. Thank You so much for sharing. Dale

This is such useful info! Thanks man

Excellent video! Thanks! I have had my recorder for awhile and I'm just getting around to using it, shame on me. This was very helpful indeed!

Brilliant thanks mate!

Amazing information thank You

Brilliant

万分感谢！！！太棒了，受益匪浅

Thanks so much bro

One tip I picked up for recording acoustic guitar and minimizing boom, is to use a really thin pick. A Dunlop .46 on a 12 string sounds real nice.

Fantastic mini-series! I have read some badmouthing of ProTools among what I would call "purist" types, some of whom assert it's one of the factors in the phoney'ing up of popular music over the last decade or so. They're not as down on ProTools as on AutoTune, but there's still the complaint that post-session manipulation results in an inauthentic recording--authenticity defined as a finished recording that's as close to a live performance as possible. It's likely a certain number of these complaints are coming from people not really acquainted with ways in which recordings have always been manipulated in post-production--in previous decades by analog means (active-filter EQ, analog-delay circuits, spring-generated reverb, etc.) instead of nowadays by digital signal processing. Another misunderstanding, I think, comes when people assume that a microphone and recorder "hear" music the same way a human does. Leaving frequency-response differences aside, human hearing is the result of _psycho-audio_ perception of which the actual sound waves striking the ear drum are only part. I have some experience in recording amateur male choral music in live performances. I didn't really know what I was doing, but in every case the recordings (all analog) failed to capture the impact and nuances of being present at the live performances. To a certain extent, this was a mic'ing issue. The 2nd bass and 1st tenor sections seemed almost to drop out entirely. In amateur groups, those sections are weak anyway since true basses and 1st tenors are few and far between. If a few were out sick, there went the performance--at least as it came to the recording. In person, though, the performances were always thrilling and well-received by the audience. Why? Because the microphones and recording gear heard the _sound_ . The audience heard the _music_ . The difference was all in their minds. The same is true of various manipulations in photography such as the use of lens filters that take out the UV and blue-bias of natural light, polarizing filters than darken a blue sky and minimize glaring reflections, or fill lighting of outdoor subjects (all analog). I've known amateur photographers who avoided those devices thinking they were artificial manipulations. Not surprisingly, they were often disappointed because their photographs didn't capture what they saw--the result of the _psycho-optical_ process of human seeing. What they got were optical _images_ , what they wanted instead were _pictures_ . Images vs. pictures, sound vs. music: it's the same kind of problem. The purpose of these sorts of adjustments with filters/lighting or with ProTools is first and foremost to bridge the gap between the apparatus of recording or photography (both now largely digital) and the ultra-analog and psychological realities of human perception. The means of doing so can easily be abused and suffer from a lack of subtlety, finesse, and taste. Perhaps that's what causes some to complain about ProTools and AutoTune. Sorry for the verbal diarrhea. It helped me think through some of these issues, and maybe it could be useful to someone coming across in the future. Thanks again for the lessons.

very helpful, thanks man.

Great tutorial series Josh.... so, where are the next 10 episodes? Big fan

I would love if you made a video of how you sync your video and audio files together

Just got my H2N watched all of these.. good stuff.. I’m still curious how you got all the background noise out of the recent video you just shot by the ocean with Carson. Phenomenal

Great stuff! Is there any place where you talk about things you've done to deal with the room and how you decided what to do? I can see foam and other things in the background. You said a little bit in one of your replies here, but there's probably a bunch to learn and you are really good at boiling things down to the essential and then explaining things clearly.

Hi Josh, your videos are very entertaining... and now you have these informative tutorials that are very valuable for DIY musicians. :) Thank you so much. I was just wondering how come the camera audio doesn't even have ambient room noise? When I try recording with the camera, there is always that ever present ssshhhhhh sound.

V.good Information.

Very nice vid, I don't have the Zoom H2n, but I do have the Zoom Q2n 4K, same principle really? It has an x/y mic setup. Saves me getting the mics out of the cupboard! So much easier! Cheers from Spain

Thank you so much! I would like to see you lay down tracks like guitar banjo mandolin and harmonize with yourself. Where did you pickup your talent blue grass family ?

Excelent video, helps me a lot. One thing I dont know, is how to remove the "hiss" from the place or mic, i dont know

Having just come back from guitar camp, I would like to continue playing and recording with some people who unfortunately live in three different countries. I really enjoyed the video of " The Weight". Could you talk a bit about that process and what equipment you and everyone else used in making it?Also, which video editor do you use?

I'm surprised by this content, this will help me so much with my future productions. In my country is hard to find a Zoom h2, the quality difference between a h2 and h1 is big or they are equivalents?

forgive me if you have covered this in previous post(s), but my question is how (or at least what tools do you choose to use) do you piece together the video track from your camcorder, and your audio track from the zoom H2? thanks in advance.

Thank you very much Josh for that very clear and instructive tutorial. I have one question though: how do you then syncronize the sound and the video? Keep up the good work man!

When using a combined camera/recorder like the Zoom Q2n, what is the process for editing the audio? Do you strip the audio out of the MOV file, edit it in Pro Tools or Ableton and then somehow put it back into the video file? Struggling a bit with this and would appreciate the help. Thanks

Would love to see an update to this video! Are you still using this same process more or less? Or have you you altered anything in the years since this was recorded?

i've spent thousands on studio gear... just to see this guy bust out a $150 (sweetwater) handheld recorder and kill me on quality... superb!

Thanks for this great tutorial! I have the Zoom H5 and hope to get some good takes on it. I have a home studio setup, but you get amazing results with so little. I have one question. do you not use the compressor built in the Zoom, just plug-ins later?

Can you please do more videos like this

Very good tutorial...but what’s the song you are singing on the video?

You make it look really simple, tanks. I have a question ¿which video software do you use? because i can see you are runnin on windows.

Wow! and can you tell me the name of the song??

Thanks. Can you advise on the best position to record a grand piano?

Excellent info Josh, very clear. We use an old Zoom 16 track, but I'm contemplating Pro tools at the moment. Do you have any advice for Pro Tools regarding the the operating system i.e. should we move from PC to MAC for this software?

Hi JT, is it better to record directly into protools instead of going through the Zoom H2 mic option?

When editing are you using headphones?

is this still your go to compressor or na? I personally can't tell but a few people on the main channel were wondering wether you were using the vulf compressor - how do they compare? Haha I'm not even at the level where I can care about this sort of thing but your perspective would still be really cool

Which software u using in this video..?

I know I'm a few years late, but I was wondering if you've had experience with Zoom H2's having a particularly loud buzzing noise? I used mine for the first time today, and I'm trying to figure out if it's my setup or my settings, etc.

Honestly I'm struggling to believe this is all you use for your videos, the Zoom H2 and some light mixing. I'm gessing you send it away to be mastered? I have the Zoom Q2n-4K, after watching you I'm considering just using that instead of setting up mics, worrying about placement, spending ages looking for "that" sweet spot....... Great videos Josh! Edit: I've just watched Carson doing Blowin in the Wind, outside, and the sound is amazing, like a record on the radio.(like your videos too!) He appears to be using just the H2 as well! I'm definitely gonna try my Q2n-4K now!! I wonder if the mics are similar....do you know what actual mics they use inside them? Anybody?

It's the XY that does it. The camera mic sounds rubbish with its tiny mono in comparison. Instead of pop-screen just place the mic 2 inches off axis instead of blowing straight into the membrane.

phew.... how did everyone else go with the saturation knob...? It felt like I jumped through a lot of flaming hoops, but was red flagged for something in the end and couldn't get it..

hey Josh how about some lifehouse you and me you would sound great

Hi Josh! I have Zoom H2 and when I am recording I have much more noise in the background of the track. I am using Medium Mic Gain (usually) and putted on the settings you adviced in the previous videos. Any idea where might be the problem?

What PC do you use for video and audio editing/mixing?

Potentially dumb question: do you ever use your Zoom simply as a mic and record straight into your DAW rather than first saving as a .WAV?

"okay so i was wrong about..."