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| This Zoom PS-04 tutorial is an attempt to help you get started making your first recording. To Read or Not To Read: jump to numbered steps I don't usually read the instructions before I use a piece of new equipment. I want to see how easy it is to use right out of the box. Apply this test to the Zoom PS-04 palmtop studio and you might have problems. Unfortunately, the manual is not written in as user-friendly a manner as you might like and the frustration level gets a little high. But I was stubborn.
I installed the batteries and memory card, attached headphones, and switched the unit on. The display does a little three or four second dance while the unit boots up - cute. From my experience with other multitrack devices and software, I knew I needed to arm a track before I could record on it. So I pressed the first circular button under the display, just above the first slider. The word "REC" appeared on the display in the first track position. I pressed the "REC" button under the faders and it turned red. I pressed the play/stop button to the left of the Record button and the numbers started moving. It was recording! I spoke into the internal mic on the lower left front. I didn't hear myself in the headphones, but I thought that was normal. I pressed play/stop again. The numbers stopped (the display says "wait" so I wait). To play back, I rewound by hitting the first button under the faders, then the play/stop button (without hitting record first). I see the numbers climbing, but nothing is coming out the headphones. I check the headphone level on the left side of the unit. I check my connections. Nothing. No sound. Now I take out the manual. Oops. I needed to either plug in my guitar, or press the "MIC" button and record using the mic. The mic button was blinking, so I thought the mic was on by default. It glows steady when the mic is on. Well, I probably would have had it light when operational, and be dark when not, but whatever. I press the "MIC" button until the button light glows steady and repeat the recording process. It works. Like magic. I've just made a recording. Here it is: "Moody" November 13, 2004  lo-fi wma (267k) hi-fi mp3 (1m) Moody is my first recording on the PS-04 (well, actually, my first recording the first day consisted of "testing... testing..." that sort of thing). This is my first music recording, made the second day! (To really hear my first test, click here --> lo-fi wma or here --> hi-fi mp3 ) Get In the Rhythm: Ok, so maybe I cheated a bit. I did read about drums and bass. In order to enable drums and bass, all you need to do is press the "RHYTHM" button, then move slider one for the drums and slider two for the bass up and down a little bit. The default for a new recording is that drums and bass are off. To turn them on, you need to press "RHYTHM" during playback, and set their levels using fader one or two. That's all you do. To turn them off again, press "RHYTHM" during playback, and bring the levels to zero on faders one and two. I took a five month break from recording while I did other things. Creating a New Song Project: Now I wanted to make a new song. I didn't want to get rid of what I'd recorded, but I wanted to make a new song. So I read the manual (reading small parts of the manual took much longer than it took me to make the recordings). The manual says I need to start a new song by creating a new project. It said to do that, I should press the "SYSTEM" button at the top left. I did, and got to the project menu. I hit "ENTER", then used the combination of cursor and jog wheels, bottom left and bottom right, and the "ENTER" key to select "NEW", and select HI-FI, then hit "ENTER", and was taken to the top screen, which showed me a string of zeroes, indicating I was at the beginning of the song. I made another recording. "Moody 2" May 22, 2005 lo-fi wma (268k) hi-fi mp3 (1.01m) For Moody 2, all the recording and mixing was done on the PS-04. As with Moody, the output of the PS-04 was delivered to the line input on my computer's sound card, and recorded using AudioGrabber. Next, I converted that to Mp3 (again, using AudioGrabber). Finally, I converted the Mp3 to a low bit rate WMA file (better for streaming for those with dial-up connections) using Winamp. Going "All Digital": I was jazzed. This sounded like the real thing. However, one reason for getting the PS-04 was to go digital all the way. I had been playing back the songs on the PS-04 and recording on the computer using the line input on my sound card. I knew this probably introduced noise and other undesirable factors, so I used the Zoom Card Manager to pull the audio tracks off the card. I plugged the card into a card reader, which was plugged into the USB port on my computer. The PS-04 stores audio files in a proprietary format which can't be opened using a standard audio editing program, so the tracks need to be converted to wav files first. The Zoom Card Manager will do that. I told the Zoom Card Manager program to convert to wav at 44.1khz for the highest quality. But there were no drums and bas on the tracks. Then I read the manual and found I needed to "bounce" the drum and bass tracks to tracks three and four. Then I used the Zoom Card Manager to locate and convert all the tracks at once, mixing them to a stereo wav file. That worked. Here is the result. "Moody 3" May 23, 2005 lo-fi wma (221k) hi-fi mp3 (885k) Moody 3 is a remix of Moody 2, but the mixing was done on the computer, not on the PS-04. Using a card reader, I moved all the files off the SmartMedia card and stored them in a folder. I made a drum track in HammerHead, then converted it to a 31.25 bit rate in Audacity, and placed it in the folder where I had saved the files I got off the card. I opened Card Manager, and imported the new drum track as a V-Track, placing it under my original rhythym guitar track. Then I mixed the tracks in Card Manager and exported them as a wav file. Next, I opened that wav file in Audacity, cleaned up the beginning and ending, and saved it as an mp3. Finally, I converted that mp3 to a lo-fi wma file using WinAmp. Unlike Moody 1 and 2, which say they are in stereo but are not, Moody 3 is actually a stereo track, not binaural mono, because I panned the tracks in Card Manager before exporting the project as a mixed wav file. Using the Internal Drums and Bass: Now I was really cooking. However, the really great thing about this generation of Zoom recorders is that you can edit the internal drum sounds. You can do that by pressing buttons on the PS-04 or you can use a third party program. This next selection is an example of doing that. "Moody 4" October 13, 2006 lo-fi wma (172k) hi-fi mp3 (660k) Moody 4 was created on the PS-04, starting with a random sequence which I edited using the Song Editor from soundside.de. The drums were bounced to tracks 3 and 4, the bass to track 2, and the guitar was recorded on track 1 using the internal mic with an acoustic patch. During the bounce, I adjusted the level of the bass on the fly. I mixed and exported to wav using the Zoom Card Manager, cleaned up the beginning and end in a wav editor, and converted to mp3 with Audiograbber. The lo-fi wma file was done using WinAmp. back to top Small Memory Card Capacity: Another thing I learned is that the files on the card can be brought over to the computer to free up more space on the card. I moved these the way I would move any files on removable media, by dragging and dropping into a new folder created for the purpose. If you have the original 32mb card, you'll be needing more space. 128mb is the largest card size the PS-04 will recognize, so don't be tempted to buy over that amount to try to force the PS-04 to use more memory, because it won't work. Well I needed to clear some files off the card, but which ones? It turns out you need certain files for Card Manager or the PS-04 to work. These are the project.ini, mac_prm.ini, rhythm.seq, (and fastd.fst if you use F.A.S.T., explained in the manual), as well as the aud files which contain the recorded audio. Card Manager will not function without them. Except for mac_prm.ini, the other files are numbered by project, and the aud files are also numbered by track. Incidentally, if you can't find a smartmedia card, use an xd card, and an xd-to-smartmedia adapter. Works like a charm. Also, if you are looking for a manual, you'll find it at the Zoom site here: PS-04 users manual. (PDF file size 1.51mb.) Numbered Steps: jump back to top If you like written steps, here they are: 1. Install batteries, memory card, and attach a set of headphones. 2. Turn the unit on and wait for it to boot. 3. Press SYSTEM and create a new project. 4. Arm a track. 5. Press the MIC button until it glows steady OR plug in a guitar. 6. Press RECORD and set your level (too high and you'll get clipping). 7. Press play/stop and you'll hear a count-in before the unit goes into record. 8. When done, press play/stop. 9. Press rewind, play. If you can't make a recording using the steps above, re-read this page from the top and try again. back to top I moved on to other things after a while, but then recorded an entire album using the PS-04. You can check it out by going to GRANDPA HOWARD'S SONGS FOR KIDS 
Help Section Don't have a player? Get Winamp Get Media Player Go to Howard's Music Coding Tutorial - Read here how to put your music on your website. Go to Howard's Web Page Help - Read here how to set up your own website, or how to improve a site you already have. (opens in new window) If you came here from a place other than the 2090.org Forum, here is a link to that: PS-02 and PS-04 Forums (opens in new window) Some recordings I made on my PC are available here: Howard's Digital Music (opens in new window) If you like online music stores, this is one of the best: zZounds.com (opens in new window) back to top | home | music | cardmanager | coding | contact | |
 GRANDPA HOWARD'S SONGS FOR KIDS  PS-04 with XD to SmartMedia adapter plugged in.  PS-04 with Zoom Mic Stand Adapter as desktop stand.  Detail of Zoom Mic Stand Adapter.  PS-04 on Mike Stand the proper way. A word about fidelity: Make all your PS-04 recordings in HI-FI. Don't even bother with LO-FI. As such, the bit rate will only be an odd 31.25khz, rather than the 44.1khz CD standard. Even so, they will be high quality... unless you do what I did at first: I assumed the default patch when the PS-04 turned on would be flat, no effects, no eq. Wrong. It's default is Guitar 001, which has a little gating effect, and rolls off the highs. If you want truely flat, press "TUNER/BYPASS". There are more things you can patches, but they are beyond the scope of this article.
 Get great prices on musical instruments and recording gear at zZounds.com  
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