Comments on: USB device problems with Mac OS X Leopard?

By: Derek

Derek — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 05:35:38 +0000

If your problem is that the Zoom won’t mount as a USB storage device, then you will need a card reader (or another device, potentially, like an SD-capable digital camera that can connect via USB) to get the file onto the SD card. That’s the whole problem.

But if the Zoom will mount as a USB storage device and you can move files to it, there you go: there are other improvements in the new firmware that are worth applying anyway.

By: john

john — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 01:04:03 +0000

A question about the firmware update:

Step #3 says: “Copy the “SYSTEM.BIN” file into the root directory of the SD card via a USB connection.”

Does this mean that I need an SD card reader in order to copy the system.bin file into the root directory of the SD card by way of a USB connection?

Is there any way to do this without a card reader? With just the H4 alone connected?

Thanks so much!

By: Eric

Eric — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 11:31:33 +0000

Could somebody e-mail me the H2 firmware 1.20 and 1.30 updates?

arrowedc@gmail.com

Thanks.

-Eric

By: miaka

miaka — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 08:43:14 +0000

This problem is kind of treaky. My leo doesn’t mount my camera disk when I am connecting camera through the cable but on my bfs computer it works just fine! He has a macbook pro and I have macbook. I don’t really understand why his mounts it and mine not and we both have leopard.

By: Derek

Derek — Wed, 21 May 2008 06:36:34 +0000

I’ve been able to mount the H4 as both a USB storage device (to access the SD card) and an audio interface with Leopard once I added the new firmware to the H4, so I’m not sure where your problem is.

Generally, however, I just use a card reader for the SD card and don’t connect the H4 to my computer at all, so if all you need is to get the files from the card, that’s a good option.

By: mike g

mike g — Mon, 19 May 2008 03:47:04 +0000

so i’ve downloaded the new driver so that my h4 will work on leopard, but my h4 still won’t come up on my computer (obviously). Are people who are using this new driver just putting on the h4 through other computers not running leopard? is this the only way?

By: Derek

Derek — Wed, 07 May 2008 04:41:08 +0000

Have you set it as an audio interface instead of as a stereo or four-track recorder? You’ll need to do that while it’s connected as USB.

By: Tommy

Tommy — Tue, 06 May 2008 14:56:12 +0000

i wanna use the H4 as a mic for recording different instruments directly in to ableton live, but my iBook G4 only opens up the already recorded files. those i recorded before i plugged it into my mac. why won’t my mac use the H4 as a mic? do i need a zoom driver? and where do i find the zoom drivers for mac? i feel like such a mac n00b

By: Jim

Jim — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 01:00:04 +0000

I am confirming that I have had the same problem with the H2 not connecting to Leopard. However my H2 was running ver 1.1 firmware. After updating to Firmware ver 1.2 now it connects fine to leopard.

Easy to install highly recommended. In fact the firmware update was to address this issue.

The update can be found here.
http://www.zoom.co.jp/english/download/software/h2.php

Cheers

By: cedric BRESSET

cedric BRESSET — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 00:42:21 +0000

same problem with h2 of zoom can not connect to my mac book leopard, connection failed .

cedric

By: Derek

Derek — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 22:31:19 +0000

As I mentioned in a newer post, I did this too and it worked fine. My H4 even gained some new features it didn't have before, and the screen font improved. Firmware magic!

By: Pi

Pi — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 11:56:05 +0000

if you are having trouble connecting your Zoom H4 to Leopard, you have to upgrade the Zoom’s operating system.
Simply go to

http://www.zoom.co.jp/english/download/software/h4.php

I followed the instructions carefully (make sure you know your current Zoom H4 operating system version because you have to download a certain upgrade based on what you’re currently running on your H4) and then was able to connect to my MacBook Pro running Leopard no problem.

Best of luck to all!
Pi

By: Derek

Derek — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 23:21:22 +0000

Oh, and Andy, that sounds like something to contact Zoom support about. I was able to perform the upgrade without trouble, but they should be able to walk you through it more thoroughly.

By: Derek

Derek — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 23:16:29 +0000

I haven’t encountered those sorts of issues with GarageBand or Reason, even on my old G4 eMac, never mind a new iMac.

My guess is that it might have something to do with the Yamaha audio interface or its drivers. Have you tried, just as an experiment, using the iMac’s built-in audio input to see if you get similar behaviour?

By: manny

manny — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 11:20:05 +0000

I just purchased my first Imac yesterday… the 2.4 gig… I purchased a yamaha mw8cx audio interface, and some nice yamaha reference monitors to set up a neat home music studio. I found straight away that while using garage band and reason there are some horrible stutters and popping sounds coming from the programs audio out and out through the speakers… These programs were behaving the same way my pc did in the past when the CPU couldn’t handle the song capacity.. It is unbearable to compose this way, especially with reason, as it just can’t even handle a small composition (a few midi files at once without making the noises). This is ridiculous considering my old P4 pc could handle more than this. I read online that the mac has issues with midi and audio interfaces, external sound cards etc, so i disconnected them and reset the onboard sound, but the audio programs are still coughing and spluttering unbearably. It’s not quite as bad now, but still… not cool at all. And yes I did adjust the latency and sample rate settings on the programs, but that didn’t do much…

Well guys, sorry to bombard you with my disappointment, but I would be really grateful if you could point me in the right direction here. I LOVE the Imac, but it’s primarily for music, which just isn’t happening.

So I’m not quite sure what to do as I spend $4000 or so this weekend setting up my studio so I can use Reason, Garageband and Cubase to compose and record music, and it’s just not happening.

By: Andy

Andy — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 13:33:52 +0000

I´ve had the same problems as above. On my emac os10.3
all works fine but on macbook os10.5 the H4 doesn´t apear
on the screen.
I´ve downloaded the upgrade(2.10) from my old emac and put it into the H4 but when starting it upp it wants to uppdate from 1.00 to 1.20(it is already running 1.20)
All that happens is i get an “error” sign.
Any solutions?

By: Duende

Duende — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 17:17:08 +0000

I have the H4 but haven’t tried it yet on Leopard, however I am having problems getting external disk drives and external DVD writers to work on my MacBook Pro. Many the time I need to reboot to get it working again.

By: Derek

Derek — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 04:46:38 +0000

The best way is probably to get the audio file from the recorder to your desktop first — just hook up the H4 as a USB Storage device, then drag the audio file(s) from the H4 “disk” to your computer.

Then import the audio into Pro Tools. I can’t recall whether PT LE imports MP3s directly. If not, you’ll need to convert to AIFF or WAV first, which is easy to do with iTunes or Audacity.

By: Sean

Sean — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 06:34:11 +0000

COuld anyone help with my ZOOM H4 related question? Is there a way to import into pro tools LE using the USB outlet? I have been doing it by the 1/8 line out jack because I can’t figure this out. Any advice????

Sorry, I am new to digital recording, in general.

By: Zoom H4 Incompatibility with Leopard « Your Story

Zoom H4 Incompatibility with Leopard « Your Story — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 12:26:43 +0000

[...] Yesterday I sent this email to a podcast Inside Home Recording [...]

By: Ian Kath

Ian Kath — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 11:37:50 +0000

Thanks Derek

A continuation of this issue and the email I sent above is that there has been an update of the system software for this problem and is available at Zoom. I’ve written about it at http://yourstorypodcast.com and how I installed it.

By: Your Story : How We Play the Game of Life » Zoom H4 Incompatibility with Leopard

Thu, 08 Nov 2007 11:26:16 +0000

[...] Yesterday I sent this email to a podcast Inside Home Recording [...]

By: Derek

Derek — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 05:18:08 +0000

I’ve done some testing, and I can confirm that the Zoom H2 has the same problem with Leopard — works fine as an audio interface, does not show up as a USB storage device.

Both modes work perfectly under Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger on my eMac. And plugging in the SD card directly (outside the H2 or H4) works on both machines. So I would guess on first blush (as I said in the original post, and given that other devices also have similar issues) that this in an Apple problem, not a Zoom problem.

By: marc vanden eynden

marc vanden eynden — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 20:25:57 +0000

Thanks for this article. I am experiencing exactly the same problem with MAC OSX10.5. I just bought the H4 … very frustrating this bug!!!!