I am a huge fan of my Delta 1010 audio card (by M-Audio).  I love the card and its driver so much that I’ve made sure to keep a PC with a PCI bus in my house and haven’t made the move to a Mac Pro because I’m concerned that the Mac driver isn’t as powerful and feature rich as the PC driver.  Indeed, I was incredibly disappointed when I bought the M-Audio Firewire 1814 card for my Mac and discovered that the driver was lacking at least one of the features I love most (keep reading and see Delta 1010 and Skype: a powerful combo for this podcaster).

Last night I upgraded my Delta 1010 driver to the most recent version, Delta_V32_5.10.00.5065.exe.  To my horror, M-Audio has decided to remove all of the flexibility and power I have come to enjoy with my Delta 1010 and dream to have in my 1814.  They have removed a series of audio routing options that have wiped out the ability to record the mix-monitor track without sending it back through the audio chain — a feature that allows me to record a local microphone and the input (or monitor mix) as separate streams in Cubase.

If you are a Delta 1010 owner, I highly recommend that you do not upgrade beyond Delta_WDM_5.10.00.5057v3.exe.  That driver is solid, powerful and feature rich.

I had the chance to take the Samson Zoom H4 portable digital recorder for a test drive in December (thank you to Steve’s Music in Ottawa). At first glance it looks to be a distant cousin of the Sony PCM-D1 — at a fraction of the cost.

The Zoom H4 has many of the same features as its direct competitors — the M-Audio MicroTrack 24/96 and Edirol R-1 (I can’t bring myself to consider the R-09 to be in the same league) which include internal mics that capture a great sonic spectrum and have nice stereo definition, and an interface that’s easy to understand.

There are significant bonuses with the H4. This device comes with two combination XLR-1/4″ inputs with phantom power (a huge feature), a built in limiter and other digital processing effects, and four-track recording with amp modelling (for all you musicians out there). All that and it fits in the palm of your hand.

The downside to the H4 is that the switches at the side of the unit are stiff, and I found the “joystick” control to feel delicate — I was concerned about breaking it.

The Zoom H4 is a great addition to the market and offers yet another great option for anyone looking to buy a portable recorder. Be sure to consider all features carefully and pick the unit that best suits your needs.