I think as I jump in to study more and more and I start knuckling down on assessments and stuff one of the most under-rated pieces of kit I own is my Zoom Podtrak P4 Podcast mixer, I think most people take being able to have people in the podcast studio for granted, here in Victoria without the Zoom P4 my latest assignment with a guest wouldn't have been possible without that piece of critical gear.
Oh no... Zoom has thought about every thing with this piece of kit and I don't think there's something that comes in under that $400 tag that just is a just hit record and it's job done like the Zoom P4. The Zoom P4 was literally chuck in some good AAA batteries, a sandisk extreme pro 64GB card, plug in the Sontronics Podcast Pro, connected to the Rode PSA1, with the Samsung A52 5G powered by Optus handling the phone call over TRS.. and it was natural the volumes were level, the mix minus worked. The Sound pads are handy if you need to insert a edit break or something just as a visual quick marker like hey cut that there.
In the production world nothing ever goes to script and I feel like the Zoom P4 just made every thing so easy combined with the Alogic USB C card reader, just grabbed the files, dumped them to the Samsung T7 Touch and started working through the files on Pro Tools.
Its easy to get clear crystal clear audio from this device without any real production knowledge or recording knowledge, if you weren't editing capable or didn't have the time I wouldn't second guess and feel the need to have to edit the audio in post production software if it was purely a time management thing.
I think honestly that only fault I have with this machine is the fact that the unit is XLR and not XLR Combo's if it was XLR Combo jacks then that would be some next level awesomeness cause for some one like me I could plug in the Novation Circuit and trigger sounds or live jam on the circuit on the podcast, rather than having to do this in Post Production, any one who knows any thing would know that post production time is painful to say the least and sometimes less post production work is always a positive.
I will definitely in the coming weeks be making more content around the Podtrak P4. When I was in the studio and was working on my podcast assessment it saw me using the PodTrak P4 for the phone interview with Hip Hop Artist Ryan D. The Story behind YYB was the podcast that I used the P4 for, all my vocals, and all of Ryan's Vocals were run through the P4, this allowed a very clean mix - the vocals were recorded at the same input volume to ensure a level mix. I then did all my work in post production in Pro Tools, working with Pro Tools has become a way of life, for many years in my teens I used Pro Tools exclusively then I kind of just jumped the ship and went to Presonus Studio One but now I am back to working exclusively in Pro Tools and I think that my quality of work on the Podcast with Ryan is reflected by the sheer quality of the Zoom P4 and my post skills in Pro Tools.