Learning Blind Tech With Desiree Renae Demonstration and Info on the Zoom Podtrak P4 Next

0:00 Typing in the dark can I find our spark? Blind tech magic learning love and bark. With Deseret Renee guiding us today, feel the keys and play, let the tech light our way. Jargon in our head code, we [music] got a thread. Smart and witty cats [singing] out of words unsaid. Screen reader sings, is that new age bullying? No, it's tech exploring, makes our spirits swing. Eyes [music] closed, we're singing, our speech is believing. Together we're achieving, no hurdles deceiving. >> [music] >> Deseret is leading, all the knowledge we're feeding. Laughing while we're reading this tech quest succeeding. Hello everyone, and welcome to learning blind tech with Deseret Renee. That's me, Deseret Renee. Happy New Year. Happy

0:48 2026, and there's a lot of great things going on already this year. So, I had a birthday, and I won't tell you which one it was, cuz then I'd tell you how old I am. But, >> [laughter] >> I did have a birthday over the holiday break, and for my birthday, I received an awesome present that I probably wouldn't have bought myself, because I already have one, kind of. So, I got the Zoom PodTrak P4 Next. >> [gasps and sighs] >> Next is the keyword. So, I already had a Zoom PodTrak P4. But that recorder while mhm, kind of accessible, wasn't fully accessible like the Next

1:34 is. And I say fully accessible, but there are a couple of things that still have trouble, and one of them is, uh, the file list, as you'll see in a minute. But, everything else has voice guidance. So, I'm able to hear everything in the menu system. I can set my own date and time. I can change my inputs and all kinds of great stuff. So, thank you to Zoom Corp for doing this for us and putting this voice guidance on a lot of their recorders, including this one, and also the essential line of products. So, for today, I want to demonstrate a few features of the PodTrak P4 Next. Now, I will tell you

2:21 that there is a great resource out there, and that is, uh, the Access On Podcast. Jonathan Mosen does a very in-depth awesome demo of the PodTrak P4, and he shows you what it sounds like when you do different things and you plug different things in. I always love his demos so much. Perhaps, uh, my wallet doesn't like them so much, because usually it makes me spend money. But, that is a good place to start if you decide to get a PodTrak P4 Next. So, I'm not going to reinvent the wheel completely. What I will do is show you some resources, and I'll go through a few things about this recorder that you may find helpful to get you started. But, like I said, if

3:08 you want a really in-depth review, you should listen to that podcast. And it's the Access On Podcast put on by the NFB. I can't remember which episode number it is, but it does say demonstration of the PodTrak P4 Next. So, with that, let's get started with today's demonstration that I have for you. So, the first thing I want to do is take you to the Zoom Corp website to tell you how to find the software and the manuals and different things for the PodTrak P4 Next. Now, it is a little bit different to find it, because when I just did a main search on the site for PodTrak P4 Next,

3:54 I found the product page, but when I went to support and downloads, it gave me the operation manuals, but only for the old PodTrak P4, not the Next. So, what I want to do today is kind of compare the two. They work pretty much the same way. They have a lot of the same features. However, the Next edition has the voice guidance, whereas the older PodTrak P4 does not. So, I want to tell I want to take you to that page. So, the first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to go to zoomcorp.com. Zoom. Navigation region. Link Zoom Facebook page. Link Zoom YouTube channel. Okay. So, this is the home page

4:40 for zoomcorp.com, and you have to do corp so that it's the corporation and not Zoom, the teleconferencing or whatever, uh, software. So, from here, I'm going to look for products. So, I'm just going to start tabbing. Zoom Twitter account. Zoom change language help center. Home page link. Sign in {slash} zero. Two act open search. Search form input. Blank. Placeholder. Search dot dot dot search. Two act menu. To activate press enter. With eight items. Products. To activate press enter. Okay, so there's products. I'm going to press enter there. And it doesn't let you know that it's loaded, but it did load some content underneath here. So, I'm going to press H to go to the first heading here. LiveTrak L-6 Max heading level one.

5:25 Okay. Now, I want to actually go backwards and find podcast recorders. So, I'm going to shift tab. Zoom header articles. With 59 accessories. Software. Microphones. Vocal processors. Multi-effects. Digital iOS mic track audio video record instant mic. Podcast recorders. To activate press enter. So, there it is. I'm going to press enter here. Mozilla Firefox. Zoom. Zoom. Five regions. Six. So, there's podcast recorders, and now let's again press H for heading. Podcast recorders heading level two. Visited link graphic FPO. Visited heading level three link PodTrak P4 Next. Okay. There's the PodTrak P4 Next. I'm going to go to the support page.

6:14 Separator. So, let's I actually just look for support here. Support. List end. Support list of seven item link product registration. Visited link support and downloads. So, I'm going to press enter here. Support and downloads. To activate press enter. Mozilla Firefox. P4 Next support Zoom. P4 Next support Zoom. Okay. Now, here's the P4 Next support page. Now, when I found this, I actually created I use Leacy. I created a Leacy cut. You could create a bookmark or a favorite, so you don't have to go through all of that again to find this page. Honestly, originally, when I couldn't figure it out, I asked ChatGPT where to go. So, it's just a little bit difficult to find. I don't know if it's because it's newer, and they haven't put the manual out on

7:03 the main page yet, but it's not there. So, PodTrak P4 Next heading level one. Main region. Software heading level two. >> There's software. P4 Next driver Windows Windows 11 64-bit And this is where, if you want to use the P4 Next with Windows, uh, using Reaper or Audacity, you need to have this software. When you plug it into a Mac, it automatically recognizes it, but when you plug it into Windows, you have to download the P4 Next driver. Documents heading level two. And here's documents. List of five PDF icon graph heading level three link Zoom product driver installation guide 3 megabytes PDF. PDF icon heading level three link P4 Next quick tour 6 megabytes PDF. PDF icon graph heading level three link P4 Next operation manual 5 megabytes PDF. Open software manual graphic. Heading

7:49 level three link P4 Next operation manual. Now, I will tell you that the operation manual in HTML did a little bit better for me than the PDF. When I loaded the PDF, I don't know if it's my version of Acrobat Reader, but I was having trouble getting it to move to pages and different things. So, I went to the HTML version. With five items. Open software manual P4 Next operation manual HTML. P4 Next operation specifications heading level one. Heading level two notes about this operation manual. This manual might be needed in the future. All the contents of this doc list of five bullet Microsoft and Windows are trademarks of them bullet bullet table table end. Bullet USB type C is a trademark of the bullet hold list notes about this

8:35 operation article end. P4 Next overview article. Heading level one P4 Next overview. Use examples article. Heading level two use examples. Recording podcasts in the field article. Okay. Recording podcasts in the field heading level three. Recording podcasts with guests participating by phone heading level three. So, when you do this version, you actually get a pretty structured thing here that you can move through. >> Live streaming heading level three. Terms used in this manual heading level two. Podcast heading level two. Audio interface heading level two. USB mix minus heading level two. I'm going to move by heading two. USB audio return heading level two. Sound pads heading level two. Sound pads can be pressed to play the audio files that have been assigned to them. This is convenient for playing interviews that have been recorded in advance. Opening and closing music and jingles. Head these tough and durable

9:20 mics do not require phantom power. Condenser mics heading level two. Podcasting flow heading level two. Functions of parts heading level two. Making preparations. Inserting micro SD cards heading level two. Okay. So, this is the HTML manual. I'm going to close this and go back to the support page. P4 Next support Zoom. Heading level three link P4 Next heading level three HTML. Documents icon heading level three link P4 Next description for screen reader users 36 kilobytes docs. Okay. Now, right under that is a description of the P4 Next for screen reader users. And it's in Word. So, I can press enter here. >> Document >> icon P4 next description for screen reader users 36 KB docs. P4 next description for screen reader users 36 KB docs. P4 next show all downloads.

10:06 Show all and it downloaded it to my desktop. So, now I can >> P4 next P4 next support Zoom H1n >> enter and it will open it in P4 next Microsoft Word. Zoom P4 next for screen reader users. Alert, protected view. Um I typically enable editing just so it's a little bit easier to read, but you don't have to do that. >> P4 for screen reader blank. Place this product on a table in front of you so that the side with the eight round knobs and multiple buttons faces up. Orient it so that the four smaller knobs of the eight are nearest to you. Okay. So, it's going to give you a really good description and you can orient yourself to this recorder by reading through this description and they explain all the different parts and

10:52 basically they show you in the order they show you the top first which has the eight round knobs and then they show you the front and the left side the right side and the bottom and back which is where the batteries go and the Bluetooth adapter uh at at the very bottom. So, that was very helpful that they did that. I'm going to close out of this for now and show you what else is on this page. P4 next support Zoom H1n list end. Heading level two compatibility and optimization list visit document icon heading level three HTML. Visited Hindenburg software heading level three link P4 next operation manual 5 MB PDF heading level three link P4 next quick tour 6 MB PDF. So, you can take the quick tour.

11:38 Again, that's not going to be accessible. That's why they have the description for screen reader users. And the like I said, the HTML version of this manual is a bit easier to use at least for me than the PDF was. And like I said, it could be my version of Acrobat Reader or anything like that. So, that's where you find downloads for the P4 next. Now, I'm going to give you a little brief tour of the actual recorder. And so, I've plugged my recorder into my mixer. I plugged it into the headset jack. One of them There's four of them. Doesn't matter which one you use. Um of the

12:24 recorder. Now, I'm going to press the power button which is a little different from the old P4. It's actually on the top left and it's kind of a recessed button. And the nice thing about this is I feel like it actually is way more responsive. I always had trouble trying to tell if my power actually turned on or not. So, I'm going to press that button now. You do have to hold it down a little bit just to make sure that it comes on, but you'll kind of hear it. There it goes. Rec standby. Remaining time 1 hour 8 minute. Battery level high. Okay. So, that 1 hour and 8 minute thing is how much time I have to record on this

13:09 particular SD card that I have in here. Now, the other difference between this recorder and the old P4 is that the old ones took the SD cards with the adapter, the big bigger adapter. This one takes the little tiny micro SD. So, if you don't have that, if you have what you used with your old P4 and it's just a regular SD card you actually need a micro SD and then you can get the adapter with it if you need to put it into a computer or your Braille Sense or anything like that. So, the first thing that's really cool is the ability to go through the menu

13:57 system and it's completely accessible. So, if I press the menu button which So, there's there's two groups of four buttons and if you read the description, you'll kind of get a feel for this too, but on the right side um there's a group of four buttons and the very first button is the menu button. And then you move up and down the menus with the next two buttons and then you would execute something by pressing the one on the far right end. So, if I press the menu button from here Menu. File list. It starts out with file list and then I can go up and down the list. Sound pad. Mic settings. SD card. File transfer. Audio interface. System. Help.

14:44 File list. And back up to file list, so it wraps around. And if I want to select any of those, I would press the right key. Now, with the file list because this uses kind of pre-recorded messages there is no way to hear the name of the file. So, if I press next next next next I don't get the name of it. However, if I press play Playing. I'm recording now. Play 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 Rec standby. So, it will play that file for me. So, I kind of can figure out which file that I'm in.

15:31 If I'm playing the file Playing. A page. Okay. Oh, wait. Then, I can actually use my sound pad buttons which are the other four buttons to move around the file. Again, you don't get any feedback when it's not playing. But I can get it if I press play. A page. If I hold it down, it skips through. So, this is a work thing that I recorded just to test out the mixing capability with the computer. So, anytime I want to go back to record standby, I would press the rectangle record button. It also functions as a

16:16 stop button. Rec standby. And now I'm back in the main menu. Menu. File list. So, that's kind of how to use the file list. Now, the sound pad is going to be kind of similar. So, if I go to the next menu option here Sound pad. and I press the enter key on the right >> Sound pad level. I can have the level Sound pad A. So, the sound pad level works for all the sound pads and if I want to go into sound pad A Sound assign. I can sound assign >> Play mode. play mode >> Level. level. So, I can set the level individually. Sound assign. And back up to sound assign. Now, the sound assign is cool because

17:04 you can actually change what sound is playing. Now, I only have a couple of sounds on here for now. I want to put some more on here because the cool thing is I can put anything in the sound pad folder. It has to be a wave file and but if I put it in there, then when I press one of the sound pad buttons I can play things like this podcast episode on Zoom. I can play different sound effects. I can do all kinds of fun stuff. So, it's very similar to the old P4. But you have a little more control over the levels and you get obviously the voice

17:51 feedback, not for the names of them. Again, if I go into sound assign I'm getting the file names, but it's not going to read it, so I have to hit play. Yikes. That's a crazy sound. Okay. Okay. So, those are the four sounds that come with it by default. And like I said, you can put sounds in a folder with the sound on your SD card and it will find those for you. So, that's a pretty cool thing. Menu. Sound pad. Now, I'm going to go down. Mic settings.

18:37 Mic settings. So, this is for all the different mics. I'm going to press enter here. >> cut. Low cut. >> Limiter. Limiter. Low cut. So, if I go into >> Limiter. limiter Mic one on. Now, I've got the limiter on for mic one. And what that does is kind of tries to eliminate some background noise. Mic two on. Mic three on. And I can turn it off and on for each of these. >> Mic four on. Mic one on. >> then back to mic one. And then if I want to go back to the menus, I press the left key. Limiter. Low cut. >> Go into low cut and that's again to kind of cut off some of the lower bass frequency noises. Mic one on. So, it's

19:24 on or off. You can't necessarily change the kilohertz the way you can do on the essential line of recorders. So, it's on or off. I leave it on just to kind of get rid of some of that stuff. So, I'm going to go out now. Low cut. Mic settings. SD card. And then we get SD card. And Format. You can format it. >> Quick test. Test it. >> Full test. Format. And that's about it for that. >> SD card, file transfer. Now, I'm just basically using those four keys on the top right and moving to the menu and the menu key also functions as a back key, so you can go back out of something. Now, if I had an SD card in here and I

20:11 go into file transfer, I can actually turn this if it's plugged into a computer into a hard drive so that the computer can see it. You don't have to take the card out of the recorder if you want to transfer your files to the computer or from the computer into a folder. Audio interface. Or you can turn it into an audio interface. And that's where if you have it plugged into the computer, you're going to be able to use it with Reaper and Audacity and Zoom and all of that. Now, I will tell you when you use it with Zoom or Teams or a streaming thing like that, you're going to want to USB level. Mode. have the mode set to

20:57 Stereo mix. >> stereo mix versus Multitrack. >> multitrack. So, if you have it set to multitrack, then when you're in Reaper, it shows you all of the inputs possible and you can select them, you can make tracks out of them, do different things. But the stereo mix works better if you're going to use this for streaming. Stereo mix, stereo mix. Set. So, I've set that. Multitrack. Mode. Mix minus. And of course you have your mix minus, which is one of the really big selling points of this recorder. It basically makes it so that you don't echo if you use it with a phone or computer. And so, people will hear you coming out

21:44 of the mixer, but they will not be hearing themselves. They won't have that echo going on. USB level. And then we're back to USB level. Audio interface. Rec standby. Menu. System. And then you go into system. Accessibility. Accessibility, that's where you find all the voice guidance settings. >> sound. You can have a sound. Voice plus beep. Beep only. Off. And I Voice voice plus >> it at voice plus beep. Beep only. Guide sound volume. And the volume I have it set to loud because otherwise it's just not loud enough to do this particular demo. Guide sound. And we're back to guide sound. Accessibility. Play key in recording. Play key in recording, so the

22:32 play key can do different things. If you go into this, >> mark. you can pause and mark it. Mark only. >> Mark only. Pause only. >> Pause only. I'm going to do pause only >> only set. >> for now >> because I don't really necessarily use markers. Most of the time when I use this, I dump everything into Reaper and then I can go and edit it that way. Play key in recording, recorder mode. Recorder mode, so I'm going to press the menu or the enter key here. Multitrack. And I can record in multitrack, which is actually what I want Master only. because >> Multitrack. If I do multitrack, it does do a main track

23:17 with everything, but it also will split up the different microphones and inputs onto their own track. Multitrack. So, it's very similar to the other P4 PodTrak P4. Recorder mode. Date time. And then you can set your date time, which I couldn't do on my old one myself. Display. Display. Battery type. Battery type. >> Auto power off. You can have it auto power off if you're on battery. Firmware. And then this is where you would update the firmware. You'd have to put the firmware on the SD card and you would get it from that support page where we were and put it on the SD card and then it would update the firmware. Reset all settings. Reset all settings. Accessibility. And back to

24:04 accessibility. System. Help. Help? 2D code is on screen. Help doesn't do anything. >> [laughter] >> So, I think they don't have any pre-recorded things for help. >> Help. So, that is not a menu option you can use. File list. And then you're back to your file list. Now, when you're out of the menu Rec standby. and in recording standby, these buttons do different things. So, the menu still will function as the menu key on the on the left. And then the second button Tone off. is a tone button. Tone on. And that basically changes the sound

24:50 of the microphone. So, you can listen to yourself with headphones and decide what you like better. There's also a Comp on. compression Comp off. on and off. The compression actually is pretty neat. Um, it does compress you, but it does kind of give it more of a punchy sound is what Mo Zein would say. He said punchy. So, it definitely does do that. And then you have AI noise reduction. On, done. You have your AI noise reduction and I've turned it on. If I want it off, AI noise reduction off. >> [snorts] >> Now, when you use the AI noise reduction, the only time you're going to hear it in your recording is if you use the main

25:37 mix, not the multitracks. And that's a good thing because if you do it and you just don't like the way it sounds cuz it does kind of garble it a little bit, but it's pretty good about getting rid of a lot of background noise and we live in a high traffic area. And so, it works really well to get rid of that. But I typically use other methods in my editing and and things to reduce those noises anyway, so I don't always use the AI noise reduction. But it's a neat feature to have, especially if you're out recording in a public place that's noisy and you want to make sure you can isolate the voices. So, that's basically a tour of those buttons. Now, you also have just like

26:24 the old P4, you have the knobs that do your microphones. That's one, two, three four. And you have mute buttons. Mic one mute on. Mic two mute on. Mic three mute on. Mic four mute on. So, now I've got them all muted. Mic one mute off. And I can turn the muting off. So, it lets you know whether it's muted or not. I like these buttons a lot better. They're quieter. So, that's pretty nifty. And then right below the knobs to control your microphones, you of course have your headset knobs. The last thing that's

27:12 really important is the switch that's on the right side, the top right of the recorder. Right now, I have it switched down. If I go up with it, Input four. XLR. it turns my input four back into a microphone input just like the others. But if I go down, Input four. Stereo mini. it's going to let me plug in a Bluetooth adapter for my phone or a stereo adapter and that'll go into the recorder. So, different from the essential line of recorders, this one does not have a line out. It does have two USB-C ports and so one

28:00 of them is for power only and one is for the computer. And it actually will tell you when you plug it in which one you're plugging in, which is really nice cuz I always forget which which port do I need for this? So, if I plug a power cord in for instance, USB cable no data support. No data support. Okay, let's plug it in here. The power one is the top one. So, the only time it tells you is if you use the data port and it will say data okay if you're plugged into a computer. This cord is plugged into the wall, so I was using power with it. Now,

28:45 if I unplug it, I'm back on my battery and it doesn't tell you that that's the case. However, you'll know it if you don't have batteries in. Typically, I mainly use the data port and power it with my computer or like right now, I'm just using batteries. So, the last thing I want to do, what we'll show you now, is importing a wave file to the sound port. I'm going to take the card out of my recorder and I'm going to put it into a card reader and put it into my computer. Okay, so now I have my card plugged into my computer

29:30 and it is using a card reader so that I can actually get at the information. You can do this on your Braille Sense, on a Mac, on Windows computer. You can even do it on your phone if you have a USB-C port. Um, so pretty cool. So, I'm going to go to this PC, desktop, folder, twist of cake, this PC, one of this PC, items view, devices and drives expanded, and there's my devices and drives, Zoom H6ED, and there's my Zoom card. Now, I use the same card for my H6 and my P4, so it's kind of fascinating. So, I'm going to open that. Zoom H6ED, items view, P4 next settings, 60 P4 next sound pad, 17 of 35. So,

30:18 that's what I'm looking for. I'm looking for the P4 next sound pad. So, I'm going to press enter here. P4 next sound pad, this folder is empty. So, now the folder is empty, and the sounds that I have on there are default. So, here is where if I have a wave file, I can drop it into this folder. So, I'm going to find one. Hold on 1 second. Desktop, Dropbox, fold Dropbox, podcast stuff podcast stuff, items view, Learning Blind Tech H6 essential new features .wav, 12 of 14. Okay, so this is the last Learning Blind Tech that I did. It's a wave file, so I'm going to copy it. It's kind of big file.

31:03 Okay, now it's going to copy. P4 next sound pad file explorer, now I'm going to put it in the sound pad folder here. One interrupted action, copying one item from podcast stuff to P4 next sound pad interrupted 49% complete. Yes, to activate press space bar, alt plus Y, yes, to act copying one item from podcast stuff to P4 next sound pad 50% complete. Pause the operation not checked, to check press space bar. Now, because it's a pretty big file, it's going to take a bit. Now, if you have little sound effect files, that won't take this long, and you can put a whole bunch of them in here and play around with that. It's climbing. >> [gasps] >> By the way, all of these fancy noises on

31:50 my computer are P4 next sound pad file explorer, P4 next Okay, so there's my wave file. Date modified, Learning Blind Tech H Now, let's just make sure it plays from this card. Media player 0.00 00 P4 next So, that's playing. Now, it's on my SD card. Now, I'm going to close this out. Podcast stuff, items view desktop, and I'm going to go away from the computer and back to the recorder and put my card back in and see if I can set that file as my sound pad file. So, now I've got the card back in. I'm going to press the power button on the P4 next.

32:36 Rec standby, remaining time 0 hour 51 minute, battery level high. Wow, that wave file took up a lot of space on my card. So, now I'm going to go to my menu. Menu, file list and I'm going to go to sound pad. Sound pad And I'm going >> Sound pad level Sound pad A, sound pad B >> Okay, let's do B. Sound assign Okay, let's play. Let's see what we get here. Nope. There it is. Okay, so I'm going to assign that. And then I'm going to press menu.

33:22 Sound assign, sound pad B, sound pad, rec standby Now, I'm going to press the sound pad B button. So, this has a fade out setting on sound pad two. If I want to change that, I go back here. >> Menu mic settings, SD card, sound pad, sound pad, sound pad C, sound Let's go back to B. B, sound assign, play mode Play mode Fade out, long I can fade out long. One shot One shot Pause Pause, that's what I want. Pause, set, play mode, sound pad, sound pad

34:09 Rec standby Whenever it says rec standby, you're back in the main menu. So, now I'm going to hit the sound pad B button again. And pause. So, now the button functions as a pause button. And for longer files like this, I would prefer that. So, there's different play modes you can set for these sound pads for the buttons. So Jokes on us. No. >> [laughter] >> That is a few basics on how to use the PodTrak P4 next recorder. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and talking about the PodTrak P4 next. I

34:56 will see you next time. Have an awesome day. >> [music] [music]