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Making The Best Out Of Something Broken

April 15, 2014 by Jack Menhorn

It is fitting that with our theme of “Broken” this month I would accidentally wash my Zoom H1 Handy Recorder in the washing machine. I had taken the H1 with me to GDC just in case any cool sounds popped up for me to record (they didn’t). So when I got home and tossed the backpack in the wash to get the San Francisco grime off of it I completely forgot the very light H1 was inside! Fast forward to me opening up the washing machine and finding the H1’s body sans-capsules and the capsules and their housings in various places in the machine.

photo 1
The H1 Aftermath

So like you are supposed to do with any electronic you get wet; I did not turn it on and I waited for it to dry out (notice the condensation inside the screen). After 2 or so days I thought I’d give it a shot, put in a fresh battery and very much to my surprise the thing turned on! So like you are supposed to do with any electronic with exposed wires; I stripped the ends and started touching them together!

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/144807469″ params=”color=0066cc&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_artwork=true” width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

Just touching the wires together got an OK pop and distortion, I assume the sound I got was all digital so there wasn’t going to be much gradation or differences in the type of sound I got simply from touching the wires together.

photo 3
Got a nice crackly sound

It wasn’t until I started running the wires under water or spraying them with liquid did I get more interesting sounds (second half of the above recording).

photo 4
Windex

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now the recording won’t win me any awards but it is decent source and was simply me making the best out of a crappy situation. Everything still works so if I didn’t have the soldering talents of a toddler I could make the H1 almost as good as it was before. But since the capsules weren’t fantastic anyway; I am more inclined to just use the H1 with the line-in for hazardous contact or hydrophone recordings (the H1 had already proven itself taped to the underside of my car hood with a lav). The capsules I might be able to do something fun with my Arduino so everything should work out in the end. The H1 is a pretty sturdy recorder, despite how cheap it feels so if you’re in the market for an $89-99 recorder, this might be something to look into.

All that said: if someone wants to send me a Sony M10 I’ll give you my address.

Filed Under: featured Tagged With: broken, broken 2014, contact, lav, zoom h1

Comments

  1. Chris says

    April 15, 2014 at 5:58 pm

    Haha! that’s a nice one!
    Isn’t this the essence of sound design?!
    Love it when such things happen, except for the broken equipment of course. ;)

    ps: sorry for your loss

  2. rene coronado says

    April 16, 2014 at 1:42 pm

    i actually quite like the sound of the wires just touching together. I may have to do some of that. :)

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