2 Odd Zoom H4n Issues - Help?

[Travis Cossel]

So I have two issue with my Zoom H4n right now.

The first involves recording and naming files. For some reason the Zoom is not recording and naming files sequentially. So for example, the first three recordings made might be 001, 002, 003 ... but then the following recording will be like 008, followed by 009 and then a jump back to 004. On both days the card was formatted at the start of the day, so there were no files already on the card. Any ideas?

Secondly, for some reason the recorder has become REALLY sensitive. It used to be if I place the recorder near a PA speaker I would have to set the level around 40-65. This weekend at a wedding I had to go all the way down to 1 for the level to be normal. This is recording using the onboard mic's. I've check lo-cut settings and everything and can't seem to figure out what has changed. Again, any ideas?

Thanks!

[Jay Massengill]

Was the card actually formatted in the Zoom H4n and not some other device?
I can't remember right off if the H4n allows a choice of a "quick" format or a "full" format. If you aren't doing a full format it may be reading some previous file number info and is numbering around this old data when you use it again.

Is it a known good card that's compatible with the H4n?

With the record levels, the "normal" level for the combo inputs is "1", for the onboard mics it's a broader numeric range. On the old H4, it was the broader numeric range for both onboard mics and the combo inputs. I'm not sure what's going on with your recorder. Did you previously use an older H4 and are you sure you're using the onboard mics?

[Travis Cossel]

- card was formatted in the Zoom H4n
- no choice for quick or full format, just format
- card has worked fine over dozens of previous projects in this particular Zoom H4n (Sandisk 2GB)
- in the past when I have used the onboard mic's or XLR input the levels range was always 0-100
- definitely sure I'm using the onboard mic's
- never used a previous version of the H4

Here's what I know. I used the H4n on a corporate job last week where we hooked into a soundboard via XLR (with a -25db pad). Our levels were set around 20-25 for the seminars we recorded. We also did 'red carpet' interviews and used the Zoom with a Shure handheld mic connected via XLR (minus the -25db pad) and the levels were set around 50-65. We shot like this for two days with no issues.

A few days later we had a wedding coming up and thought about experimenting with using the XLR input (feed from a board) and the onboard mic's (for ambient sound) at the same time. We changed the input setting so both inputs were active. On the day of the wedding we changed our mind as we didn't have a -25db pad with us and the XLR feed would have likely been too hot for the zoom. So we changed the setting back to just the onboard mic's only and set up the Zoom at a 45-degree angle to one of the band's speakers. We immediately noticed at this point that we had to have the level set to '1' in order to have the sound not peaking on the Zoom. Normally in this exact situation and setup we would have the levels set to around 30-40.

I looked through the settings but can't find anything that would have made this change happen.

Also, the file naming issue happened during the corporate shoot, but to my knowledge it hasn't happened previously.