My trouble is that what sounds like the sweet spot in headphones doesn’t sound right after mixing and on normal speakers. It’s also consistently too quiet even though I normalize the recording when mixing. Recording is hard!

Well.......you can never “make up ground” by normalizing. That’s a recipe for disaster especially when recording an acoustic instrument. Getting the right input sensitivity is fundamentally a different thing than volume. Get the input (on the Zoom) it’s called “recording level” properly set. It needs to be sufficiently high, without distortion, or everything down stream from that moment is compromised. Recording input level is vital and shouldn’t be confused with volume in your headphones. Set input without your headphones on using the led tree. Then adjust your “volume” in your headphones using the volume control.

Yeah, I’ve tried two techniques per recommendations on this forum. One to try to get the level just right with it just under clipping with the loudest note. This became hard for me to control, and I found I would usually end up clipping in some part of the recording. Others recommended recording at a lower level, to not worry about the signal-to-noise ratio and then normalize afterward. I think if you play one loud note using that method, the track gets normalized to the one outlier - which I guess means you need to play at a relatively consistent volume?

I have also never had much luck using headphones for placement. They just sound too different. Instead, I just record, listen, adjust, record, listen, on and on. After doing a lot if that, i dont really need to any more, i pretty much know what will work for me. In addition to the standard location joseph is using, my goto location for xy and solo fingerstyle is centered over the soundhole, about even with the waist. Start maybe 8-10 inches out. If its too boomy, move the mics further back or up. Too thin, move them closer or down. Set the levels by playing as loud as you will possibly play, and make sure the level meters dont peak. No need to normalize, usually not helpful.

Justin, you’re in my neck of the woods, i think. If you want to get together to mess around with recording some of your nice guitars, just give me a shout. Glad to show you what i do if youd find it helpful.

The Zoom 4s and 6s are superb for what they are. As ever mic placing is important though.

Doug, I’ll shoot you an email. Thanks for the kind offer. Joseph, sorry to derail your thread!