Zoom F8 MultiTrack Field Recorder

Buying my first 8 track recorder and mixer in 1977 was a big step forward for me. Each piece of equipment weighed 50 pounds, the mixer weighed 40 pounds, they were connected by 16 cables, and the whole rig covered a table six feet by four feet in size. The device passed for portable when it first appeared. Let's go back in time to present day. With Zoom's F8, I can fit an 8 track recorder and mixer in a box small and light enough to hold in my hand. It is a technological marvel that offers very good performance for an unprecedented price. quite a few YouTube videos that cover many of the pros and very few of the cons, so I won't go into detail. The F8 recorder has been compared with one of the Sound Devices recorders in at least one YouTube video. Although Sound Devices sets the standard, I agree with the conclusion that the F8 is an excellent recording unit that comes close to the performance of the SD unit at less than half the price. I suggest buying the FRC remote, too, in addition to the F8. In their pursuit of miniaturization, Zoom may have gone far too far. You may be unable to handle the gain knob and menu knob without bumping into the adjacent controls if you have large hands. As far as I know, the F8 and FRC both The cost of this package comes to less than $2000 total. Could you please let me know how it sounds? My last recording project involved recording Verdi's Requiem, which features an 80-piece orchestra and an ensemble of 100 voices. The Millennia Media HV-100 is usually the one I use A 32P mic preamp is required for the main stereo microphone, but Murphy's Law dictates that the HV-32P should be the only option As a result, 32P developed problems as a result of that routing. In addition to the orchestra, chorus, and four solo vocalists, the mic preamps in the F8 were used for this recording. I have no idea what the difference is between the Zoom mic preamps and the Preamps from Zoom. Unless you all tell me, my client won't notice the difference. The bottom line is that this novel is.

Augustine Eaton

| Oct 11, 2020

I think it is worth the trip. I found this to be really To check the F8, I had my incredible sound guy (who worked on major TV and film projects) look at it. The quality of the output is stunning. I honestly cannot even give it less stars since it is so oddly stupid when it comes to the limiter application, but since the channel headroom is so great, it is rarely used or It is no problem to use dual records for this purpose. Whatever the case, it's awesome and very reasonably priced.

Gabrielle Vincent

| Feb 18, 2021

Audio recording is a must have for every feature film. I use it on several. This was great, especially when we had a lot of lavs that needed to be recorded at one time. It was easy to use and there were a lot of options for each channel, and it was great being able to use phantom power for certain mics. When you use Phantom, on the other hand, the battery consumes all the power During our time on location, we bought a large number of batteries because we used the condenser shotgun mics a lot and many of the lavilier mics were using phantom power. Initially, I purchased extra backup battery packs for quick swap out, but after a full recording day, we ran out of the bulk of battery packs we bought from Costco. As a result, I was able to film all day using my camera's 158wh v mount battery. This device is excellent for reading in daylight because of the tough design, the lights, and the display. A highly highly recommended book.

Kennedi McKinney

| Nov 11, 2020

That sounds interesting. It would be interesting to hear what a novice or hobbyist might have to say about the Zoom F8.

I record product featurettes for work (very short videos) and training classes for clients (very long, two hours or more). The work we do is really what matters. There are some fits and starts when it comes to podcasting. Those were the days when the iPhone sucked because video quality, at the time, was kinda meh (the iPhone 4), the video was too dark or too bright, and the audio noise floor and background noise were so loud that it was hard to hear the conversation. Also, the quality of the voices was pretty poor, and there wasn't much you could do. I switched to a DSLR camera, and the video quality improved so much I haven't messed with it since, but the sound quality made only marginal improvements. It was then followed by the Rode VideoMic pro, which significantly improved sound quality once more. As an alternative, I did get a twin mic setup with separate tracks for the left and right sides of the recordings to give me a little more control. The sound quality was never the way I wanted with all this because I was so frustrated by it. I realized quickly that for training videos and product featurettes, people do not mind amateurish video quality as long as the camera is very still, but the audio is much more problematic if the audio is not good. Therefore, after much research, I bought the F8, bought two wireless lavs (a G3 and a Rode filmmaker), and picked up a few extra mics to try my hand at Unlike recorders where there is no background in audio mixing, there was little learning curve for the basics, but I was surprised at just how much quality there was just from learning the basics. The advantages are A full list of tracks is below (both with I wish to thank you for your great generosity. In the days leading up to the Forum 8 My sound system only allowed me to record into the left and right channels of the stereo mix with one or two mics at a time. When you're in a large room, or you have several speakers talking and the mic (or both mics) is not uniformly far from each speaker, this can be a real problem. It is more frustrating, if one speaker is particularly loud, or particularly close to microphone, or if another speaker is particularly quiet or far away, that I cannot isolate those voices and adjust volume to make them equal with the others in the group. It's not a big deal, is it? Seeing as I am not a professional, I don't really have a lot of knowledge. Extreme hearing loss is a real concern, since there are times when it's impossible to hear at all. Please note that in my version of the sentence I wrote Here is what you need to know after In addition to my ability to attach up to 8 mics to an individual, I can also use wireless lavs near key individuals (like the training class instructor) who moves around the room, allowing me to realize two significant The first option is to save the material as a polywav file. This is a single file that contains all 8 tracks plus 2 additional tracks for Left-Right I can record every track as an individual track, ooh, ooh. If I need to, I can make minor volume adjustments in post to ensure everyone's voice has the same volume. Better still, since I record to TWO SD cards, I can do more advanced stuff on one SD card, and just have an MP3 mix down on the other card. This is much smaller file, so I can send that file immediately before making any adjustments with Alternatively, I can record the same thing on both SD cards so I have a backup in case the first card is A USB connector to an USB-type A) I can mount the SD cards on my Mac or Windows machine as if they were external disks. Thus, I don't have to take the SD cards out of the F8 at all. * BRANCH AND FACING ADJUDICATION (also called FRC I wish to thank you for your great generosity. In terms of individual tracks, one of the great aspects of having all these inputs and independent controls is that I can quickly set up each mic and adjust the incoming level (called gain or trim) and the output level (called the fader). You may adjust gain settings and then don't mess with them for a while, but rather adjust faders once they are set. It's possible to do that with the F8 as is, but you need to switch between the gain (trim) and the fader (fader) knobs in the display, and then turn each knob slowly until you see the status on the display, before you can adjust As it turns out, it's easier to show in a video than explain in words, but all in all, this is a little bit of extra work As most of my stuff is recorded, I set faders at 0 (sometimes known as unity), and just play around with gain (trim) to get the preferred volume range. I do most of my volume adjustments in post-production. If I do a live panel discussion, I start sending out audio live to the speakers (as left and right tracks) while I also record, so I picked up the FRC-W55E for this purpose. A truly useful mixer board is the F8, which is a dedicated board designed to be able to work with faders much more easily (also for the F4). To be specific, I would recommend getting the FRC-98 if you plan to do any live "to speaker" stuff The reason is because you set the gain (trim) for what you're recording, and once you set that, you don't want to mess with it however, since you're ALSO sending the audio to speakers, you can use the fader to adjust speaker volume You can also drop the faders when the pitch escalation of looping audio is loud, that way if you don't know what you're doing you can go back to the original pitch. Furthermore, it is better to keep most talkers set a little bit lower in volume, and to bring up each person as they speak. If I were able to choose a system, I would choose an auto There is a mixer built into the F8, but the fader board is still valuable. I wish to thank you for your great generosity. This is such an awesome way to route. There are a number of ways to decide what inputs to use. For the Main Outs you can do routing (which is great for going to speakers, to the camera, or to a video recorder (I use a Ninja Video If you want to do routing for a subordinate You can do routing for the headphones from the ins and outs. Is routing something you need to know? If you click the link for every track, you'll be able to choose whether to send that audio as pre-recorded Post fader sound is a sound that is made by manipulating a fader. It is also possible to route a mix - The stereo track is the downbeat. I don't think I want a stereo mix, but you can have a fader- It may be necessary to have a down post fader for the speakers, as well as a subwoofer An Atomos Ninja video recorder has two outs (for recording video). The PFL/SOLO's are I wish to thank you for your great generosity. The only time I use this button is when setting up the system. The input tracks are comprised of two buttons and a potentiometer for each. It's easy to operate, though there are a few key controls. The numbered button turns tracks on and off (it's also used for shortcuts), the PFL/SOLO button isolates tracks, and there's It is used to listen to that track only when using the PFL/SOLO button. If you wear headphones, they are usually routed either pre- or post- The left and right tracks can be mixed down using a post-fader mixdown (left and right stereo tracks). If you wanted to hear just one mic, you would have to go back to the routing menu, fiddle with it, and then return. Listening to a fader), or SOLO (which is the same as post-fader listening). In a rush, I just turn on all wireless lavs and hand them out, set up the omni mic and maybe a couple of stand mics, and then simply turn everything on, and then I adjust trim using the PFL button (while the people are talking Typically, I don't use the SOLO mode because I would rather focus on the gain settings first and foremost. I wish to thank you for your great generosity. Generally speaking, this is a feature found on mixer recorders, but not on all of Essentially, it means that each input can accept either an XLR plug or a quarter inch TRS In the past, my audio interfaces (stereo only) only had XLR connections, so some of my mics could not be used. It isn't a big deal, but it is It's worth noting that some professional grade field mixers and recorders have only XLR inputs. So I wouldn't consider having XLR inputs as problematic, just that hybrids are a bit I CANNOT GET ANY TONE/MIC (Slate)
There is some value in this. To put it simply, the F8 sends out an audible tone that helps calibrate the sound at As soon as I set that, I don't change For a moment, the mic side of the switch turns on the internal bad mic on the F8. As I record, I'll occasionally want to add a voice memo in the middle of the recording, so I use this feature. Although I don't really do this as often as I would like since I prefer to cut takes as much as possible, it's useful for long training videos because the audio is easy to find while scrolling in FCPX, kind of like a bookmark. *cough* *cough* PHANTOM I wish to thank you for your great generosity. It is also possible to send plug-ins Microphones that require more power should be powered by I'll just list up the EX port menu, as that is all plugin power is for.

As long as it's this far, I might as well begin listing up more of the options. A selection of OTHER input menus is available. I wish to thank you for your great generosity. The HPF is For each input, you can add an HPF. Noise cancelations like this will help you get rid of low noise like the rumble from your air conditioner or computer fan. It practically cuts out low frequency noise, though I should mention that adjusting HPF raises the timbre of voices. HPF really needs to be turned off if you want more depth for voices. . . Rumbling is not a problem with HPF, but you need it for noise. Of course, it is a give and take in any case, but it just means that you want to minimize HPF as much as possible while reducing low rumble to get the best sound. If you are in a quiet room, just turn off the machine to get the best sound. Please note that in my version of the sentence I wrote There is an input limiter That's hilarious. Hahahahahahahahahaha. When you watch the videos of Curtis Judd, it will become Likewise, I have completed a bunch of tests, and bleh, does not prevent distortion when loud sounds are played. Limiters in digital audio aren't very effective since they apply after the audio is converted to digital, and by then a lot of damage has already been done, so they cannot be repaired. It would make a great deal of sense to have digital limiters if the F8 had a dynamic range of 140 db instead of 120 db. There is a prehistoric world in my imaginary fantasy With an amp having a dynamic range of 166db (the loudest sound possible) and with digital limiters compressing sound the sound would be easier to manage, with a nice soft curve to make it easier to hear There's no electricity. That's one of the things I love about the F8. decide to use the digital limiter, you can set it up either with a hard cutoff (which allows for a very sharp breakoff but can also sound a little weird), or with a When using two microphones on separate tracks but pulling in much the same sound because they are close together, this reversal procedure is used to reverse the phase of the audio. Extra silence can sometimes occur in strange ways as a result of this. A phase invert (I have no idea what it does) basically changes how the recordings of one of the tracks are made a bit, so the two mics do not cancel out each other in strange Please note that in my version of the sentence I wrote Assuming a delay of 5 seconds Due to the fact that I don't do any music, I have little need for this. Although wireless microphones can record just a little bit slower than wired microphones, input delay can be used to improve the sound of wired microphones by delaying them to match any wireless microphone. It doesn't really matter since we're talking MS's here, so for conversational stuff, this isn't important. Please note that in my version of the sentence I wrote It allows you to connect two mic tracks together using the Stereo Link mode and Trim Link mode. when working in stereo link mode, people are typically using the previous phase invert. Trim Link mode is nice because it ties all the gain settings of multiple mics to a single That's pretty neat, isn't it? When you turn a potentiometer, the gain of several mics will be altered. As a user, I find it easier to set each one separately, so it isn't a big benefit to AMERICA OUT MENUS To turn the output on or off A bunch of options are here, allowing you to connect Main and Sub outputs to your computer. In either case, you can turn off the outs if you're just recording. This is my most honest opinion in my life. . . A level of output was achieved If you are routing from the outs to another XLR input or TRS input, you will typically have an automatic volume drop as the noise level drops to match the input of the destination device. A score of 10 for TRS and a score of For mics, it will cost $40. I wish to thank you for your great generosity. Delay between the input and the output I've never found this to be necessary with the input delay, although it's the same concept. It is probably required for professional photographers to accurately match some frame issues to destinations. It doesn't make a huge difference for me, since I always out to the Atomos Ninja 2, and I've never seen any recording out of sync. I wish to thank you for your great generosity. The output limit is set as follows Thank you. That's a lot of information. By using the output limiter, you can compress the audio range and make sure you don't get distortion at the other end. This is useful for reducing the dynamic range to speakers or audio destinations, as well as to ensure you don't I wish to thank you for your great generosity. Routing can be divided into two parts, main and sub. It's a good one, but I've already mentioned it. A RECORDING, namely I wish to thank you for your great generosity. Both SD card 1 and 2 are presented in the first two menus. The isolated tracks plus the mix down to SD1 and a MP3 mixdown to SD2 are generally in my queue. In fact, the same settings can be configured for two cards at the same time, which provides a backup in case one card is damaged. I wish to thank you for your great generosity. Quite a few of the other options are related to recording settings. This is my most honest opinion in my life. . . A dual channel recording is made Using this as an alternative to a limiter on the input is useful since there is no analog limiter. There is a pre-existing relationship between them There are two. For example, you can activate dual channel recording for 1 and 5 together, 2 and 6 together, etc. You can even activate it for any combination of pairs at the same time. So if you have one microphone connected to track 1, track 5 will automatically record at a lower gain setting if one mic is connected to track 1. There is no default value for it A 12db volume. For instance, if an unexpected loud noise occurs, you can use it as a backup in case the gain trim is set too high on one of the tracks. The second track acts as a backup. I used this for a while, and then I got the SD442, which gave me trails 1, 2, 5, 6 without safety tracks enabled, and then I could dual track 3, 4, from 7 to 8 without safety tracks enabled. On the other hand, I won't be doing anything like that today. Rather than setting the gain levels high, I just set the gain to low on all eight tracks. The noise floor is low enough that I can set gain low, affording me I wish to thank you for your great generosity. In the pre- Taking a video is always recorded by the F8. When you hit the record button, the F8 only dumps anything longer than X seconds. In reality, I do not use this feature, though it would be a convenient one if you wanted to start and stop recordings frequently and were dependent on other people for that. I wish to thank you for your great generosity. A file cannot be bigger than 2GB there is no option to upload bigger files. It appears to be an effort to make Windows 32 compatible 64-bit machines do not have that limitation, which is why they are faster than 32-bit machines. In terms of basic language features, PLAY, TIMECODE, and SLATE aren't as demanding. All you have to decide is whether you want to play one at a time or all of them. Setting up TC requires the creation of a Timecord. I still align audio files with the old standby of clapping, which is what the pros use. A slate needs to be set up so the internal mic and tone generator can be used. INPUT/OUTPUT SYSTEM I wish to thank you for your great generosity. This method of setting up a date time RTC is pretty standard. Perform the setup, and the time information is saved each time you send a recording. In addition, it is the source for generating the time code. I wish to thank you for your great generosity. An example of a power source might be In the F8, you can power it in several different ways. It is powered by two AA batteries and has a The battery can be alkaline or lithium, and other settings are available. I wish to thank you for your great generosity. This is auto-generated It is time to turn off the computer. This is kind of obvious - It's pretty obvious how much space is used for timecode displays. A level meter shows the following On the display, you can see how the levels look. The issue is a pretty big deal. My attention is focused on two in particular. A view of the level meter and a reference level. In the recording process, the user can scroll through six different screens. The more scrolling I do, the less I want to scroll. You can set up your level meter in the It is also referred to as the Reference Level. For this, I always chose "LowLevel" - I am trying to track the noise floor as much as possible. The brightness of an LED. - I leave it at 60 by default, and it is fine. The LCD shows In addition to brightness, here you can set contrast. Alternatively, you can turn on powersaving which decreases the display's backlight, or change to outdoor mode, which turns the display black and white. Set the key to what it does when you record or play. It is the play key that becomes a marker while recording. Please note - Turn the knob to adjust the volume. The display can be altered slightly so you can easily select gain, trim, or pan or just switch between those. Please note - There is a button for setting up short cuts to all When you don't record, you must use the "stop" key, but when you do record, you can just hit the shortcut key without holding down the "stop" A SD CARD An SD Card If you wish to format the USB, you can do so as follows You can choose between either SD Card mode, which mounts the SD Card like an external disk, or audio interface mode, which sends live audio recordings to the computer. If audio interface mode is turned on, there will not be the option to record to SD card. It's a little jealous of 3 and 6 that they can do both at the same time). In addition, this is where you set up the FRC If you want to name your tracks wirelessly, you can use your iPad. This is very helpful since editing the track name on the F8 itself uses a virtual keyboard that is a bit Nevertheless, the iPad connection also automatically connects you to a fader feature, which is the least favourite part for me. In my opinion, the FRC is the better option If you use this form you will receive the following email If you have a USB keyboard, you can also use it. I have a crappy old one for Windows from years ago, but it works well. It is so clear there is so much more to like about the F8 if you are coming from a Zoom H6 or if you are used to recording with a DSLR or smartphone. In a previous post I mentioned that a new pair of audio recorders, called the mixpre-200, was being released by sound devices You will need a mixpre6 and mixpre3. Although they do have some significant advantages, I nonetheless rate the F8 as a very good audio mixer and audio recorder. In addition to the 8 track input and 10 track recording, dual SD cards, and a host of other features, the F8 is an almost magical piece of gear for its size. It'll be well worth the money if you opt for something as fancy as the F8, since it features greatly improved pre-release features A handheld handheld like the H4N can produce less than one amp a handheld like the H6 can produce more than one amp. There are a number of tascam recorder mixers available and I would put this above them. be able to achieve a much better sound quality, even with low-quality speakers Microphones at the end of the line. It was a dramatic improvement in audio because of the increase in amps. When you're in the market, and you have some scenarios where you need between 6 and 6 I believe the F8 is the best way to go for under $1K if you're going to use 8 mics. It might be possible to get better analog limiter presets It will have eight XLR inputs but only four XLR inputs. You will probably not be able to get even that many. That leaves you with three crappy XLR inputs. An additional two tracks can be input using 5mm. Due to its great price-to-quality ratio, the F8 is a terrific value. If you're a beginner, like me, looking to upgrade, the F8 is a great place to start.

A few minor cons, though I wish to thank you for your great generosity. Because it is a digital limiter and not an analog limiter, the F8 is fast. As long as the dynamic range of the image is good, I don't need analog limiters. I wish to thank you for your great generosity. As well as being an audio interface, the Zoom F8 can also be used to connect with a computer. This would be useful if it could simultaneously record to the internal SD cards and be a recording interface at the same time. My experience with Dugan has taught me how to A mixing project worth $3K-$4K is underway There are six thousand dollars worth of SD cards. It sure would be great if the F8 offered that capability. This is my most honest opinion in my life. . . If you put a lot of effort into it, you can get rose powered for a very low price. I would prefer to power it from USB rather than from the wall. Fortunately, SD's new devices have a built-in USB port to address this issue On one end, there is a USB connector and two USB-type A ports Other end of the cable has a plug). It is possible to use the C port both for audio interface and for powering the device at the same time. There are some improvements that could be made to the iOS app. As part of the firmware, the F8 should also come with the BT driver installed by default. I wish to thank you for your great generosity. There is a lot of tinniness coming from the sound amplifier. This is not an accurate representation of what is actually heard. This method is good for finding distortion, but you can miss audio artifacts and err in judging the wood of sounds while using it. I wish to thank you for your great generosity. Wish there were both a USB port and a micro USB port 1) To connect a keyboard or mixer board. The first thing you need is the FRC-L connector to connect a keyboard. A keyboard is connected to a mixer with a F8 board. The mixer is in the F8 and then the keyboard is in Second, there is a problem where the FRC can't communicate with You cannot have an audio interface in Windows 8. It is not possible to attach the FRC-007 to the audio interface if you are using it An A) may be used to connect the FRC to You can use a keyboard or a Windows 8.

Jay Cochran

| Jan 30, 2021