Phil - MO - Posted - 12/27/2016:  10:11:46

My wife records us on stage with an H1 Zoom and I make cd's for the group to check how we are doing.

I of course get crowd background noise, but overall pretty good recordings.

I tried plugging the H1 into the headset out 1/8 jack on a Fender Conference PA system and recording. I thought it would eliminate crowd noise.   Lot of static and very poor overall.?

Why?

Phil

Kenson Ashton - Posted - 12/27/2016:  16:25:23

I would say either the headset jack on the pa or the input on the zoom may be the issue. Or possibly the cord that was used to connect the two devices could be your issue as well. Try your same process on another pa to confirm

Alex Z - Posted - 12/27/2016:  21:04:22

Likely electrical mismatch of impedance and/or level between the headphone output of the PA and the mic/line input of the H1.

Someone knowledgeable about the H1 input specs and the Fender PA headphone output specs might chime in.

Alex Z - Posted - 12/28/2016:  07:35:40

Looks like the Passport Conference has a volume control on the headphone-out.   Assuming you're going from the 1/4" Passport out to the 1/8" H1 mic/line in, turn the volume control all the way down. Then as you record raise it  bit by bit to see if it will give you a suitable matching level at some point.

The Passport output could be overdriving the H1 input.  Headphone out is a signal amplified enough to drive the small speakers in the headphones.  Microphone level is very small compared to that.  Line level is larger than mic, but still way under a headphone level.

The adjustment of the volume control might get you in the ballpark for a decent recording.  Again, start at zero, raise very gradually, listen the the recording as you increase the volume.

Phil - MO - Posted - 12/28/2016:  19:32:35

Thanks for the replies.  A quick follow up since I hate it when somebody doesn't answer if any of the suggestions worked.

I tried recording on the Zoom H1 with the 1/8" output from headphone on my laptop and CD vocal trainer and it works fine on both.  I did check the headphone jack on the Passport out with headphones before plugging in the H1.  Just didn't check out what I was getting when we were playing. 

It may well be that the headphone jack on the Passport is overdriving the recorder and I don't see any separate volume control for it. The H1 does have settings for input volume control and other settings.   Will check out again when I get a chance since everything else seems to be working OK. 

Phil - MO - Posted - 12/28/2016:  19:55:18

Another quick followup. When all else fails look at the instructions. The H1 Zoom has an AUTO Input Level setting which I was using but the setup instructions say if the Peak/Record LEDS blinks rapidly, the sound might be distorted. In this case go to manual and lower the input level. Hope this is it, because I believe it was blinking.