IS THE ZOOM PODTRAK P4 STILL GOOD IN 2024?

over the last couple years in the realm of podcasting gear it's all been Road this and Mackie that and for good reason Road has been setting the bar since the OG roadter Pro came out but as I was doing up the video on the best podcast setup for 2024 stay tuned for that by the way it is coming up get subscribed so you don't miss that the Pod track P4 came up as probably the best bang for your buck from multi-person podcast and that can't be right can it I mean surely someone somewhere has released something at some point to put this thing to bed I mean it has been 4 years well and nobody has and I don't know if anyone realizes how long ago 2020 was in tech things have come a long way since then at the time it was a massive rush to supply the podcasting industry and the roadter pro was sitting on top of the pile for podcasting gear and when I say on top of the pile it wasn't even close the zoom L8 had come out but was mostly ignored by podcasters because it was way too much of a learning curve and it had some quirks that meant it kind of fell out of favor the task G mixcast 4 was still a year away and the Pod track P4 and p8 came out later in the year in 2020 it was Bleak for everybody but rad they had been unchallenged in their Supremacy for around two-ish years and while some announcements were kind of attractive they all seemed to fall kind of short and while most people were really looking forward to seeing what the Pod track p8 was going to bring to the party this P4 was kind of an afterthought for a lot of people now don't get me wrong people bought into this unit because it was cheap and it was popular but all the buzz was saved for the roadter pro and all its possible Challengers but what is fascinating when you look back at all that the only two units that are still standing and still being discussed for that matter are the roadter series of course they've moved moved on to the second and this the podra P4 now the roadter series is understandable as I mentioned it has moved on to the upgraded second in the series as well as the whole fill out of the series but this P4 it stayed the same how is that possible is this really that good and what is it about this thing that makes it so good well that isn't as easy to answer as you might think you see this pod track P4 isn't the best at well anything the build quality is zoom and that's the best way to put it more precisely it's Zoom plastic well I don't normally hold that against Zoom this is more of a comparative look at the unit and well Zoom plastic doesn't stack well in comparisons I mean you can even hear it what's worse about this is it isn't even the most specked out unit up for offer either sure it does multitrack through the SD card but it's only two channels as an interface with your computer just left and right probably the most damning spec on it is that it's 16 bit and 441 for resolution and I got to tell you that was rough in 2020 and it hasn't really gotten much better four years on the world really has moved on to at least 24bit and 48 KZ what's really fascinating though is the preamps on this are the same as the zoom h8 which have an EIN of neg 124 now that isn't Stellar or going to win any awards by any means but they still outclass the brand new H Essentials series that's embarrassing how does that even happen Zoom now moving on the Bluetooth is optional as long as you buy the dongle which is a bit of a trigger for me I'm not going to lie but again 2020 was a different time and it wasn't the biggest issue back then so I can let it slide here now then after all that I'm sure you're questioning my sanity when I say that this is still one of the best podcast interfaces on the market how do I explain explain that well we have to switch gears here now I usually praise Road for being the one to usher in the new generation of audio gear that breaks down the barriers between beginner and pro things like self noise DSP all the things but I should mention that Zoom was on top of that with the 70 DB of gain that was on the podra P4 and p8 and 2020 that was unheard of on anything consumer even prosumer and it definitely wasn't on anything anything with the podcast name on it these specs were saved for gear like artua or universal audio even the original roadter Pro only had 55 DB of gain 70 DB was lifechanging for some sure it wasn't the cleanest gain but you could actually comfortably use an sm7b on your podcast this is the sm7b going through the Pod track P4 it's on channel 2 I know you probably can't see it because the screen is tiny but you're going to have to take my word at it uh we're sitting at 6 on the gain dial and we're getting some pretty decent readings around neg n to neg 12 on this thing which is actually pretty impressive uh let's see exactly what it sounds like as you go up okay it's going to turn into ASMR why do I end up doing a lot of ASMR with zoom products okay by the way we're going to get loud in 5 4 3 2 take it away but that's not all hey it has four inputs also it has a line in for phone calls with mix minus also Bluetooth for phone calls with mix minus hey we got sound pads it has DSP or at least some of it separate headphone outputs and if you squint and look real close you can see the screen they have on it yeah it's right there sorry I had to but then you're probably thinking well all that's great but you're basically just describing what is the status quo right now perhaps with inferior specs but nothing I just mentioned was the reason that this thing is goated in 2024 because there's one spec or feature that this thinging had that not a single manufacturer could compete with and perhaps why no manufacturer has been able to Dethrone it and that is the accessibility of it this thing hit the market at $200 which was stupid cheap even when you consider inflation and yes it's only been 4 years but considering all the things that Co did that's like $240 by today's standards but even more impressively this thing currently sells for $150 and it's funny because I don't know if Zoom knew what they had when they released this way back the big buildup was happening for the ptra p8 as I mentioned that was supposed to be the roadkiller but price to performance since it shared several of those specs that this thing had including that resolution that p8 was a hard sell at that price but on the other hand this thing hit the market hard and it was embraced big time by a lot of people and it was revered as the poor man's roadter Pro though I don't Zoom called it that this thing had legs and honestly it still does which gives this thing a bit more of an honor than most people are willing to admit these days this the Pod track P4 is one of the best price to Performance podcast mixers of all time however that bag a question what the hell Zoom why is there no V2 on this thing think about the absolute ownership you would have over this section of the podcast community and really all it would take are slightly better preamps and perhaps some baked in Bluetooth I mean you could even keep your precious plastic even that screen won't matter I guess a Boy Can Dream so if you're planning a podcast that requires two or more channels and you're trying to keep things cheap right now in 2024 this is still the go-to recommendation and perhaps if Zoom won't upgrade it maybe another company wants to take a shot at it that's an open invitation we shall see again stay tuned for that best podcast setups for 2024 it's coming just around the corner cheers guys and I'll see you in the next [Music] [Applause] [Music] video

Channel: Dark Corner Studios

Views: 5,745

Keywords: Dark Corner Studios, Aiden Wolf, podtrak p4, zoom podtrak, podtrak, p4, p4 in 2024, podtrak p4 in 2024

Id: cGivHTIXR_Y

Length: 8min 27sec (507 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 11 2024