Zoom H6 Overdub Mixer

The Zoom H6 includes an overdub mode that allows you to listen to a previously recorded track while recording a new one. I'm far from an expert on this capability, I've only used it a couple of times for testing, but it seemed to work as advertised.

A Zoom H6 user posted on the Sound on Sound forum http://www.soundonsound.com/forum that he was having problems using the overdub mode because phantom power was unavailable on the XLR inputs, even though it was turned on in the "INPUT&OUTPUT" menu. I did a quick test and confirmed that my unit has the same issue, I was stumped.

I contacted Zoom-NA support by email and got a very quick response and a solution to the issue. It seems that going into Overdub mode activates a special version of the mixer screen with a range of settings for each input, and phantom power must be activated in this menu in order to use it while overdubbing. I would say that this info is not clearly available in the English language version of the PDF manual, perhaps someone else will point out where I missed the info.

In any case, I pulled out the Lumix GH3 and shot a quick video to demonstrate the use of this overdub mixer. Sound captured using an Oscar Sound Tech TL-40 lavalier directly into the GH3, edited in Edius.