Zoom H5 User manual

HANDBOOK
03
–
ZOOM
H5

6
2
7
9
5
1. XLR point
2. Direct entry point
3. Mid-side Microphone
4. XY-microphone
5. Power switch
6. Control knobs for channel sensitivity
7. Record button
8. Channels (1, 2, L/R)
1
LEGEND
8

Alrighty then! So you’ve rented a Zoom H5.
Maybe because your terrifying teacher told you to
do so or because your overenthusiastic classmate
kept banging on about it.
Whatever the reason, you’re now stuck with an
alien device covered with buttons, dials and a
strange microphone - and now you’ll have to deal
with it. Fear not! This quick start guide will get you
up and running in no-time.
Please note that this booklet is a rework of
HANDBOOK 02 about the Zoom H6!
1. DESCRIPTION
So, rst things rst: the Zoom H5 is a eld
recorder that works on 4x AA batteries. It has two
XLR points on the bottom (1) and one direct entry
point on top (2). You can forget about the XLR
points for now, we’ll deal with those later.
The Zoom H5 kits in the WdKA.Rental are all
outtted with one direct-to-device microphone
which can be plugged into the slot on top of the
recorder (2). The direct mic is the one with the two
bits sticking out (4), and it is called an XY mic.
The XY mic records a more deep sound in front
of it with less emphasis on sounds from the sides.
The XY mic is generally well suited for sounds you
want more isolated (voiceovers, sound effects,
instruments, wildlife, that kind of stuff).
Obviously, there’s no real right way to use this
mic, so the above should be seen as a guideline
and not as a rule. In the end it’s all up to you and
your preferences, don’t forget this.

2. LETS GET STARTED
Okay, so lets do this. You’ve chosen your subject
and you want to use the mic on top.
1. Snap the mic of choice on top of the Zoom
H5 and switch the recorder on by sliding the
switch (5) to the right and releasing it.
2. Provided you put in fresh batteries, the
screen should go on, showing you a bunch
of volume indicators. These indicators stand
for the volume of sound coming into each
channel. The H5 has four channels: 1, 2, and
L/R, which you can also see on the buttons
below the screen. The numbers 1 and 2
denote the XLR points and L/R the direct
point on top.
3. As we’re using the mic on top we’ll have to
open up the L and R channels which, conve-
niently, are linked together.
4. So push the button that says L and you’ll
see that both the red lights underneath L
and R will ick on. This means that the L/R
channels are now opened and the recorder
is picking up sound coming in through that
channel. You can see the indicator on the
screen jumping up and down as it’s picking
up sounds from its surroundings.
Great. Now you’re technically ready to start
recording. However, to make sure that you don’t
get awful results that will plunge you into the
unending depths of audio hell, we have to set
the sensitivity correctly. The sensitivity of the mic
can be set with the dial (6), which 0 denoting no
sound and 10 full sensitivity.
[...] So what should be the setting?
Again, this depends on the situation you’re
recording in and the indicators on the screen are
your best friend. Simply put: if the indicators stay
too low then the sensitivity is too low and you’ll

need to crank it up a bit, if the indicators jump far
too high, then your sensitivity is also too high and
you’ll need to decrease the sensitivity
Depending on your subject, try and turn the dial
slowly and see what happens on the screen. Once
the indicators stay roughly in the middlemost of
the time you’ve found the right setting. If you
want want the numbers: it should stay around the
-12 dB
GOT THE SENSITIVITY RIGHT?
Awesome, then it’s time to record. To record hit
the record button (7) and the Zoom H5 will do its
job. Hit the button again to stop.
If you want to listen back to whatever you just
recorded, just plug in your headphones and press
play. Once you hit play the Zoom H5 will let you
hear whatever you recorded last.
TRY & AIM FOR THIS SPECTRUM

RECORDING
COMMANDMENTS
Thou shalt always use a windbreaker when
recording outdoors. Really, please do, because
even the slightest breeze will sound like a chain-
saw ripping through a Texan front door. Even
better: avoid wind completely.
Thou shalt always wear headphones while
recording. If you don’t, it’s like you’re driving a car
with opaque windows.
Thou shalt never touch the microphone whilst
recording. Same as with wind, even the smallest
ngers will leave you with tinnitus.
Thou shalt not move the recorder whilst
recording. Touching and moving the recorder
itself will be loud as hell so avoid doing that. Best
advice would be to put the H6 on a tripod.
Thou should use markers. A marker is a way
with which you can identify your recorded le
quickly. The Zoom H6 has an option to add
markers in the recorder itself, but the easiest and
most reliable way is to name the subject in the rst
few seconds of recording followed by a number.
For example, say you’re recording the sound of
a running tap, you would hit record, then say
“Running tap 1” and proceed with recording your
subject.
Thou shalt always prepare. This seems some-
what of a no-brainer, but it’s very important and
it rings especially true for recordings in the eld:
bring enough batteries, enough memory, check
the weather forecast and wind speeds, and decide
ahead what type of mic you’re going to use.
Thou shalt always format the SD card before
recording. To avoid any issues with the saving of
les it’s best to format the SD card beforehand.
To do this: Menu > SD CARD > Format

3. USING EXTERNAL MICROPHONES
Okay, so that was pretty easy, right? So let’s
explain those XLR points we were talking about
earlier. Without going into too much detail, XLR
is a type of audio cable most commonly found
on microphones, mixers and instruments. You can
recognize them by their metal jackets and three
pins (or three holes). The Zoom H5 has two chan-
nels for use with XLR-cables (the channels 1 and
2) located on the bottom of the device (1). The
number of the channel can be found above the
respective channel.
If you have an external microphone (like a
clip-on mic or a dynamic mic) you can plug the
attached XLR-cable into the Zoom H5. Depending
on what channel you
plugged it in you can
now open that channel
in much the same way
you opened the L/R
channel on top.
Please note that
you can also plug
jack 6.3 into the
XLR inputs!
In our case click the button that says 1. Once
it goes red, the Zoom H5 is picking up sound
through the attached device and you can start
recording. Obviously, this same method applies to
all other channels as well. Use the control knob of
the corresponding channel to adjust the sensitiv-
ity. Again, make sure the indicator doesn’t jump
into the red or fall too far into the yellow.
The great thing about the Zoom H5 is that it
can record three (four, strictly speaking) channels
simultaneously. To do this, just repeat the previous
process for each channel used. The Zoom H5 will
subsequently save each channel as a separate le
allowing for full control over the various tracks
upon editing. Please note that this only works
with WAV-format les.

4. TRANSFERRING THE FILES
Okay! So what now? You’ve recorded all the
stuff you want but now you gotta edit the whole
thing.
Worry not, the Zoom H5 records all of its les
on an SD card so transferring the les is super
easy (unless you’re a MacBook user without a card
reader or USB-hub, but in that case nothing in life
will be super easy for you). Alternatively you can
also use the USB cable to transfer the les to your
computer.
Maybe this is a good place to touch upon
formats, briey. The Zoom H5 is capable of
recording in both WAV and MP3. Basically, WAV
is a more detailed format with a higher quality but
it also has a greater le size. MP3 is lower quality,
but smaller in size. We won’t bother you with all
the ins and outs of kHz and kbps but the main
thing you should take away from this is that the
higher the kHz (kilohertz) and the higher the kbps
(kilobytes per second) the higher the overall quali-
ty, but also the greater the le size will be.
Generally speaking we’d advise you to stick with
the standard WAV 44.1 kHz 16bit, but if you want
to up your game you can switch to a higher stan-
dard as following: click on the menu button, scroll
to the RECORDING tab, click on the scroll button
to enter the tab, and click it another time to select
REC FORMAT.
Again, please note that recording in MP3 will result
in one track, regardless of the amount of channels
used. Basically, the Zoom H5 will merge all the
sounds into one le as opposed to WAV. While
recording in WAV the recorder saves the sound of
each channel separately on the SD-card allowing
far greater creative control in the editing process.
Also, please note that these separately saved
WAV-les can only be seen on the computer,
not on the Zoom H5 itself.

5. AUDIO EDITING
For the actual audio editing there are a bunch
of programmes you can use, in a variety of price
ranges. Here’s a list of the most common sound
editing software, in no particular order:
Adobe Audition
Ableton Live
Logic Pro X
Sound Forge
REAPER
Of course, you can also just use the audio-side
of Premiere Pro to mix in your sound or play
around in the sandbox of Garage Band.
If you wanna know more about these apps, just
ask Rob at the Image & Sound Station. If you’re
interested in further training, you can also ask him
about possible courses or trainings. I’d also advise
you to watch a bunch of tutorials on YouTube
about sound mixing and editing.
One app we would like to
specially mention is Audacity.
Audacity is a pretty good - and
free - app for audio editing.
It’s ugly as hell, but it’s been
around for years now and it has
loads of options.

Written by S.D. van Gelderen
WdKA.Rental
2022