Topic: Zoom F3 Part 2

[audBall]

^ Appreciate all the diligence and details shared by everyone above. Very good information to know going forward.

Here's a photo of my F3 Decepticon. The metal cage removed weighs approximately 150 grams. The 'slimmer' F3 with 2x AA batteries installed weighs approximately the same, ~150 grams. 

There are also some links to additional photos below showing the inner workings of the device. While this post is not a recommendation per se, if you want to go this route, focus on the two images with the red arrows highlighting the inner bolt/screw. You will need to source a tiny bolt/nut (I chose 1.4mm bolt and nut) in order to secure the inner PCB, which houses the 4 buttons. This secures the ability to press the 4 buttons without the PCB board bending slightly, thereby limiting the left-most buttons to be depressed.

The mics in the photos are MG M20 > PFA and AKG C577/CK77.

Additional photos below. Note these aren't instructional as that has already been covered in previous posts. They're just meant to show what's possible. The device is fairly easy to take apart with patience and decent lighting.

https://imgur.com/a/3fcO6gB
https://imgur.com/a/vRWoeMF

[voltronic]

This morning I performed a test with my F3. Started with X64 magnification on a steady state sound through a stereo microphone. This gave a nice strong waveform on the display, and clear monitoring. I then started recording, and after a few moments raised the magnification on each channel to X512 magnification. This, of course, filled the the waveform display pretty solidly, and required that I reduce the monitoring level. A clear and easily heard level change. I then stopped the recording and played it back on the spot. The playback magnification/level *never* changed during the course of the recording and stayed at the original X64 setting. This tells me two things. One is the block diagram is oversimplified/inaccurate, and two, that single sentence #3: - Changing the magnification rate, even in the middle of recording, will not affect the recording level is very poorly worded. It should read: - Changing the magnification rate, once recording has started, will not affect the recording level. I totally understand the logic behind this. As SMsound wrote, it would be very difficult to track digital level changes in post with any precision, and the issue of only being able to change magnification on one channel at a time makes it impractical anyway. Best to do any level manipulation in post, exactly what 32-bit float is all about.

Thank you for doing this test. I edited my overly long post above with this info.

[voltronic]

I totally understand the logic behind this. As SMsound wrote, it would be very difficult to track digital level changes in post with any precision, and the issue of only being able to change magnification on one channel at a time makes it impractical anyway. Best to do any level manipulation in post, exactly what 32-bit float is all about.

Good test and totally agreed on all main conclusions.  Except one small nit- It would actually be quite easy for Zoom to implement tracking of digital level changes with precision if doing so were helpful.  They could simply insert a marker whenever record level is changed.  Unlike an analog gain change, afterward the marked digital level change would be relatively simple to correct because it's immediate and of a discrete value.

But that's all academic.  Its not how magnification level is implemented and would not be a good idea to do it that way anyway for the reasons noted.

/nit.  Thanks for the test!

Interesting idea, but I wonder what software would read those flags in post. Or are you suggesting it's a process that could just be performed on the F3 itself?

What I would prefer instead is the option to specify which buttons are locked by the hold function: transport only, or transport plus level controls. I'm pretty sure both the F6 and F8 have this setting.

Of course, Zoom would first have to acknowledge that the F3 has buttons that adjust the record level and/or analog output levels, depending on the transport status.

[Chanher]

Here's a test I ran with my F3 recording my (loud)  living room speakers at each magnification level. I copied all the files to my DAW and examined them, including the blatantly clipping files. When I brought the levels back down, the "clipping" disappeared and the files sounded completely normal. They also "looked" normal, and were not squashed down, the peaks etc were similar to the files recorded at the "appropriate" magnification levels.  *shrugs

https://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=198715.msg2400122#msg2400122

My conclusions based on those results could be wrong, feel free to correct anything. But I encourage anyone who owns an F3 to take a half hour to do this exact test in your own living room. When you actually see (and hear) for yourself that a horribly clipping audio file is somehow actually normal, I dunno, it changed how I view the magnification setting.

Ultimately I think Voltronic is right, this is Zoom's fault lol with their weird wording and manual.

[Gutbucket]

Thanks for the F3 Decepticon insights, Horus!

Interesting idea, but I wonder what software would read those flags in post. Or are you suggesting it's a process that could just be performed on the F3 itself?

What I would prefer instead is the option to specify which buttons are locked by the hold function: transport only, or transport plus level controls. I'm pretty sure both the F6 and F8 have this setting.

Either.  Correction on the recorder itself would be best I suppose.  I've not figured out how to transfer markers set on from F8 over to the DAW.  If anyone knows how to do this for the F-series Zooms please let me know.  As long as FLAC is set to "keep foreign metadata", any markers set using my Tascam recorders are retained in the WAV files.  Was disappointed when the F8 did not appear to do the same, but never dug into it.

F8 does allow for very granular setting of what gets locked with the hold function, but I rarely use it because the recorder doesn't feature a dedicated hold switch.  It's activated by a key-press combo and I don't want to take the chance of messing up a running recording trying to activate/deactivate it.

[SMsound]

^ Appreciate all the diligence and details shared by everyone above. Very good information to know going forward.

Here's a photo of my F3 Decepticon. The metal cage removed weighs approximately 150 grams. The 'slimmer' F3 with 2x AA batteries installed weighs approximately the same, ~150 grams. 

There are also some links to additional photos below showing the inner workings of the device.

THANK YOU for posting and very cool. A 3D-printed or laser-cut top to replace the leather strips in your pic would be ideal -- someone here want to make a .dmg file?

Alternatively, I may mill the 4 'legs' off of mine and leave the metal top plate as-is in place, rather than removing the entire cage. Having disassembled one, what do you think about this plan?

[audBall]

^ FYI, the "leather" strips are just razor cut pieces of gaffer tape to match the shape of the front. It helps to cover/conceal the exposed holes for bolts that screw into the outer metal cage. The four buttons on the face sort of lie between the metal cage and the plastic case, so the tape also holds them into place. You're right, though, that a replacement piece could be 3D printed to lay over the face. Perhaps a mold and cast could be made from silicone (or something similar) from the metal cage itself. I like the gaffer tape since it can be easily cut to size and replaced in minutes.

[Klove68]

Found this video for taking the bars off...no hacksaw required.

https://youtu.be/0W2nYJD56ow?si=Q4g80U87Ini_mU9V

[HealthCov Chris]

FYI...the F3 fits perfectly in a soft beer koozie, and allows the xlr's to run out of the top.  Great if you want to protect the device and cover the lock switch while recording.

[Papaphunk]

So it doesn't matter if I set the "gain" which apparently isn't gain at all, to +2, +4, +8 or +64 before hitting record ?

[grawk]

So it doesn't matter if I set the "gain" which apparently isn't gain at all, to +2, +4, +8 or +64 before hitting record ?

It doesn't affect the final output, assuming you normalize in post.

Think of it as you set the "listening volume" in advance.

[commongrounder]

So it doesn't matter if I set the "gain" which apparently isn't gain at all, to +2, +4, +8 or +64 before hitting record ?

It doesn't affect the final output, assuming you normalize in post.

Think of it as you set the "listening volume" in advance.

This ^. I think the idea is you use the waveform display to adjust the magnification to show an active full amplitude waveform before recording. Then the headphone amplifier and its level will have the optimum dynamic range and headroom for monitoring, and the resulting file will be closer to peaking at 0dbfs. Normalizing or other dynamics processing in post will fine tune the level to conform to a fixed point bit depth file. Of course the beauty of this is you don’t need to be exact. I mean you *can* set the magnification to some extreme value and it’ll still be recoverable (assuming you don’t clip the preamp input), but why do that, especially if you wish to headphone monitor or feed audio to a camera.

[spyder9]

I bought the same hard case.  Perfect fit.

[spyder9]

As for external power, I bought one of these recently.  5,200mah  Tested it last night, running P48, w/ Line Audio CM4's.  Got to 6 hours runtime, with one light on, when I turned it off.  Great lil' battery for people that like a low profile setup. 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09NRG2YT3?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details&th=1

[Colin Liston]

What are people transferring their files into? Soundforge, audacity?