I purchased a ZOOM HN4 stereo hand-held recorder and am trying to transfer WAV files to Audacity in order to burn a CD of lecture material. I’m using a Mac OS X 10.10.5 with Audacity 2.1.2.
I attach the ZOOM with a USB cable but cannot get the data to transfer upon playback b/c the only ‘recording device option’ I get is “built in mic” (on the computer).
does anyone know how to transfer audio files (from a SD disk) from a digital device to Audacity? My sole purpose is to burn CD’s of a lecture for distribution. I’m wondering if I need a better USB cable, but am completely mystified and have been working 12 hours on this!
I use a Zoom H2, and I think this basic method also applies to the H4.
If you computer has a flash card reader, the easiest way to transfer recording is to take the flash card out of the Zoom and put it into the computer flash card reader (if your computer does not have a built-in flash card reader, USB flash card readers are very cheap - you just have to read the specs carefully to ensure that you get one that is compatible with the flash card that you are using).
When the flash card is inserted into the reader, it should appear in the computer as a new “drive”. You can then navigate down to where the big audio files are located, then copy them over to your computer (drag and drop). I don’t recall exactly which folders the audio files are in, but they are easy to find because they are big WAV or MP3 files.
Ensure that you “copy” rather than “move” because the Zoom uses its own file management system to keep track of where the files are. If you want to delete files from the flash card, the safest way is to put the flash card back into the Zoom, then use the Zoom to delete them.
In times past, you could plug your H4N (Not HN4) into the computer and there is an H4 setting where you tell it to do File Management instead of being an External Microphone. After that, the H4 should mount itself on the OS-X desktop.
Transfer your brains out.
Let us know if it worked and which system you used.
Last night around 2:00 a.m. I stumbled across a Youtube called “How to import files to computer (Mac & PC)”. He said to: power up the H4n, connect the USB cable from ‘device’, to computer, select ‘USB card reader on H4n to connect’, click the (‘device’) HD icon on desktop, select ‘stereo’ (or 4CH or MTR) file, then select the files you want to transfer, drag to iTunes (or have iTunes open), double check to confirm files were transferred to iTunes, then eject ‘device’ by clicking button to the right of its’ icon.
Works like a charm to burn CD’s. I’m now transferring my brains out - thanks to both of you - I wish the makers of Zoom had a forum like this, and I will continue to use and learn about my Audacity software.
- martyz