Topic: Zoom F8

[carlbeck]

I might have missed it in this thread but here are size comparison pics vs the DR-680.

[caymanreview]

you just cant get an idea how small it is til you see that. wow! thanks for sharing

[stevetoney]

Heads up for anyone looking for a large card or two for their F8.

Even though I'm not a Black Friday shopper, I went out to the grocery store this morning and since Best Buy is on the way, I decided to be brave and step inside to see if they had a decent sale on SD card media.  Sure enough they had some  Sandisk 128gb cards on sale, which is what I was looking for. 

I picked up a Sandisk Ultra Plus micro SDXC UHS-1 card with adapter, 128gb with speed up to 80MB/s 533x for $39.99.

Just formatted it and ran it through the F8 performance test and it checked out OK.  Yay!

[acidjack]

^ nice. Just plugged in a 128GB SanDisk myself.

[caymanreview]

ive been messing with a bag over full of gear in attempt to do 4ch occasionally. i think ive had enough.

i rarely do more than 2ch, but i see some interesting chances to do 4+ch in the near future.

i think its time for me to take the plunge and order an f8!

[carlbeck]

I ran the Zoom Saturday night for JRAD. I decided to not use my external preamp so I could get an idea of how it sounds & I must say that I'm impressed. The internal preamp's are very clean, great detail, not overly bright or sterile. I could see running without an external preamp when I'm looking to save some weight.

For those who want to hear it here's a link for MP3's. I did a little eq clean up, rolled the bass a touch, bumped up the mids a touch but overall it's still a great representation of the internal preamps.

https://drive.google.com/folder/d/0B_AEIvcg2ktXNWZEclBGLTVISHM/edit

[acidjack]

Here's my first recording with the F8. "Onstage" AT 4051s plus a board feed. Don't hold some of the vocal distortion against the deck -- the engineer had them overloading at a few points. I thought the sound of the pres was nice and clean and quiet. This is a pretty low-key setting -- band center floor inside a restaurant with their amps and gear providing pretty much all sound except for the vocals and some electronics through the PA.

http://www.nyctaper.com/2015/12/invisible-familiars-november-23-2015-manhattan-inn/

[ArchivalAudio]

Here's my first recording with the F8. "Onstage" AT 4051s plus a board feed. Don't hold some of the vocal distortion against the deck -- the engineer had them overloading at a few points. I thought the sound of the pres was nice and clean and quiet. This is a pretty low-key setting -- band center floor inside a restaurant with their amps and gear providing pretty much all sound except for the vocals and some electronics through the PA.

http://www.nyctaper.com/2015/12/invisible-familiars-november-23-2015-manhattan-inn/

two thumbs up!

[jbell]

Are these in stock any where??  Looks like it is preorder at B&H.

[ArchivalAudio]

Are these in stock any where??  Looks like it is preorder at B&H.

A few days ago they were in stock at Amazon, but they have been sold. Also I think Markertek had some in stock but also my be back to preorder.
I think I am waiting until after the new years for some extra ca$h and they I'll jump on it, and may sell my USB-Pre2...

[pohaku]

From comments here and in the Yard Sale, it looks like a number of us plan/want to pick up an F8 and will be unloading current gear to do so.  I foresee a load of 680s and DR70s hitting the market in the near future.  I think the trajectory is being managed by the low availability of F8s, otherwise the rush would really be on.

[acidjack]

More thoughts from tonight. Ran onstage for Superchunk, a somewhat loud but not extremely loud band, AT 4051 directly into the F8. Bluetooth used the entire time for levels, etc.

First of all, if you're recording anything really loud, TRS interconnects are a must. Why Zoom thought XLR should be at "Mic" level automatically is a total mystery to me, but it is way too hot. I had the knobs all the way down and still the limiter (very good, customizable) was kicking in. The good news is that limiter actually works, and my recording is still dynamic and good.

Second, weirdly this time the Bluetooth just stopped working after 1:20. Yesterday I used it all night with no issue, but this time I got the error that says the deck is not found. No amount of switching to/from the app could make it come back. As tonedeaf has said, if you CLOSE the app (versus just switch to something else) then it won't work anymore, but I hadn't done that.

Another "Mr Obvious" discovery I made -- I plugged in with my Tekkeon, but the deck kept saying it was just on AAs. I realized it was one of the Tekkeon models where you have to manually set the voltage. I had it set at 9V, whereas the deck was set to 12V. Once I set the battery to 12V, everything worked fine.

The bluetooth app is really quite good. I recommend setting levels, if you can (it's harder if you need to do it fast) by going to the "PFL" menu and setting the exact number of dB you want for each channel. Much more precise and less error-prone than trying to move the virtual "knobs" on the screen. Another thing I haven't yet quite checked, it seems that the virtual "knobs" on the iPhone screen are not corresponded to physical movement of the knobs on the deck. So, as long as you're on BT, you're changing the "virtual knobs" but not the physical ones. I don't know what happens if you change the physical ones while still in BT mode, but I would guess they would just start from whatever's on the iPhone as a baseline and then reduce/increase from there. Any insight into that?

Overall I continue to be very pleased with this deck. And loving the 128GB card I bought, too.

[mepaca]

The physical gain knobs will override the virtual ones.

[voltronic]

From comments here and in the Yard Sale, it looks like a number of us plan/want to pick up an F8 and will be unloading current gear to do so.  I foresee a load of 680s and DR70s hitting the market in the near future.  I think the trajectory is being managed by the low availability of F8s, otherwise the rush would really be on.

Sounds about right - I think I'd like to have one of these.  But I'll wait until they have an Android version of the control app and Zoom goes through their first firmware update or two.

[pohaku]

From comments here and in the Yard Sale, it looks like a number of us plan/want to pick up an F8 and will be unloading current gear to do so.  I foresee a load of 680s and DR70s hitting the market in the near future.  I think the trajectory is being managed by the low availability of F8s, otherwise the rush would really be on.

Sounds about right - I think I'd like to have one of these.  But I'll wait until they have an Android version of the control app and Zoom goes through their first firmware update or two.

Yeah, I am not an early adopter either.  While the initial reviews here and elsewhere have been really encouraging, they were for the DR70 as well.  Not that I am paranoid or anything.  I do at least have an iPhone and iPad mini to work with.