Zoom PodTrak P4 review: Podcasting and the other Zoom

I recently said goodbye to an old friend – a 12-channel analog audio mixer I’ve used to produce podcasts since around 2007. It was always overkill, even when I recorded shows around my kitchen table with three or four guests. This mixer was better suited to making and recording music, but I loved the flexibility it offered. I decided to replace it with something that could both connect directly to a modern computer and give me some podcast-specific features that didn’t require quite as much fiddling and cabling as the mixer did. I chose the Zoom PodTrak P4, a four-port audio interface and recorder that’s marketed specifically to podcasters. I’ve used it for about a month.

Three Roads

I plan to do three specific kinds of audio work with the P4. First, I wanted to record a podcast from my home “pod closet” with remote guests, all connected by conferencing software.…