Topic: Zoom F8

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All set to run this eve with the F8!  Will be a Wind instrument evening with West Philly Orch. opening for Rebirth Brass Band.

I am going to run all mic's direct this eve. and bypass any pre's, using a Shure VP88 in MS mode, a pair of Telefunken M60's with TK62 HC caps and a pair of Neumann KM100's with AK43's Wide Cards. 

6 channels should be a good test run this eve.  West Philly Orch has a tendency to parade around the room off the stage while playing, as to why I will run the wide cards with the VP88.

Running power from the battery cup Ni 12V using a Hirose connection.  Have the Tekkeon as a backup too.

Did all go well?  Overall first impressions?  Quite curious

--Ian

I had run the F8 with direct inputs (no pre/mix) as a 1st run test as I had noted before.  WOW!!!!  I am loving this recorder and will be putting my Zoom H6 up for sale.  No need for both in my situation. 

The F8 menu is a natural progression from the H6 and toggles thru much easier. Loved the color screens as well as you can roll from one screen to the other on the fly which was real nice for checking the mid and side levels in MS mode from one screen to all channels in the next.  Very easy to use from the start and did not have 1 problem or issue on the maiden recording run.

May be repeating myself, but I ran 2 ch. in MS mode using a Shure VP88 Mic and a pair of Neumann KM100 w/AK43 caps and a pair of Telefunken M60's, taking up 6 channels.  Went smooth and was easy to adjust volume levels quickly (1st time using the F8 excuse).  Now I have an idea on starting levels on the  volume control for the next run.  Battery power was from an external 12v. Ni Hirose attached battery...didn't even skim the surface of power after 3+ hrs.  and it will roll over seamless, if necessary,  to the AA batteries internal if the Ni was used up....big plus! and liking that feature.

Still need to tweak my settings a bit on the SD 2 card, in recording a stereo mix separate from the tracked mix. That mix was not useable IMHO, but I did nothing as a prep in adjusting the setting for this SD card and let it record to see what the raw results would be.

I used the F8 to record, as I had noted, the Rebirth Brass Band and it came out real nice other than they showed up late w/no sound check and kept using the instr. mic rather than the vocal mics to talk to the crowd....and then would switch back as each member had a separate vocal and instrument mic. By the middle of the show, vocally they sounded good. 

Very disheveled band, fun...but what a mess it was.  Opening band (West Philly Orch) sounded amazing.  Recordings came out perfect!  Couldn't have asked for a better result as a direct input mic'd test show.  One thing that I would change is that I will be adding back my SD MixPre-D before the F8, as I prefer the control of the MS signal prior to the recorder for better adjustment, that's my only bitch so far and that has to do with the mic in MS mode as well...not a true 2 mic MS setup when using the VP88.  Not sure if the 552 will be added back, as I honestly am very happy with the pre's in the F8, so the SD552 may also be up on the sale block soon.
   
One other item of mention is in regards to the SD cards.  Make sure you have a nice size card, as you do not want to swap them out during a show.  They are not the easiest to gain access to when rigged up in a bag. I was running a pair of PNY SDHC CL10 32's.

Have a few shows coming up later this week that I am looking forward to.  Will tweak the settings for the SD 2 slot and the stereo mix it creates. 

I will post the FLAC files from Rebirth Brass Band this eve. after work.  Not sure if there is any interest in West Philly Orchestra?

[goodcooker]

That's very encouraging. I'm interested for sure!

Rebirth Brass Band is hilarious...and notorious for showing up late. They have a real easy going way of doing things in New Orleans. My friend hired them to play at his wedding party. They were going on an hour late and he was terrified they wouldn't show at all knowing them and their reputation for flakiness. Then they heard brass music from a block away and knew that they had finally made it. The band second lined down the street, up the walk, through the house and settled in back in the courtyard where the tent was set up. They also expect to be payed in full, in cash before they play a note.

Anyways I'm interested to hear some samples. I might have to order one of these decks. I like the form factor and features.

[voltronic]

All set to run this eve with the F8!  Will be a Wind instrument evening with West Philly Orch. opening for Rebirth Brass Band.

I am going to run all mic's direct this eve. and bypass any pre's, using a Shure VP88 in MS mode, a pair of Telefunken M60's with TK62 HC caps and a pair of Neumann KM100's with AK43's Wide Cards. 

6 channels should be a good test run this eve.  West Philly Orch has a tendency to parade around the room off the stage while playing, as to why I will run the wide cards with the VP88.

Running power from the battery cup Ni 12V using a Hirose connection.  Have the Tekkeon as a backup too.

Did all go well?  Overall first impressions?  Quite curious

--Ian

I had run the F8 with direct inputs (no pre/mix) as a 1st run test as I had noted before.  WOW!!!!  I am loving this recorder and will be putting my Zoom H6 up for sale.  No need for both in my situation. 

The F8 menu is a natural progression from the H6 and toggles thru much easier. Loved the color screens as well as you can roll from one screen to the other on the fly which was real nice for checking the mid and side levels in MS mode from one screen to all channels in the next.  Very easy to use from the start and did not have 1 problem or issue on the maiden recording run.

May be repeating myself, but I ran 2 ch. in MS mode using a Shure VP88 Mic and a pair of Neumann KM100 w/AK43 caps and a pair of Telefunken M60's, taking up 6 channels.  Went smooth and was easy to adjust volume levels quickly (1st time using the F8 excuse).  Now I have an idea on starting levels on the  volume control for the next run.  Battery power was from an external 12v. Ni Hirose attached battery...didn't even skim the surface of power after 3+ hrs.  and it will roll over seamless, if necessary,  to the AA batteries internal if the Ni was used up....big plus! and liking that feature.

Still need to tweak my settings a bit on the SD 2 card, in recording a stereo mix separate from the tracked mix. That mix was not useable IMHO, but I did nothing as a prep in adjusting the setting for this SD card and let it record to see what the raw results would be.

I used the F8 to record, as I had noted, the Rebirth Brass Band and it came out real nice other than they showed up late w/no sound check and kept using the instr. mic rather than the vocal mics to talk to the crowd....and then would switch back as each member had a separate vocal and instrument mic. By the middle of the show, vocally they sounded good. 

Very disheveled band, fun...but what a mess it was.  Opening band (West Philly Orch) sounded amazing.  Recordings came out perfect!  Couldn't have asked for a better result as a direct input mic'd test show.  One thing that I would change is that I will be adding back my SD MixPre-D before the F8, as I prefer the control of the MS signal prior to the recorder for better adjustment, that's my only bitch so far and that has to do with the mic in MS mode as well...not a true 2 mic MS setup when using the VP88.  Not sure if the 552 will be added back, as I honestly am very happy with the pre's in the F8, so the SD552 may also be up on the sale block soon.
   
One other item of mention is in regards to the SD cards.  Make sure you have a nice size card, as you do not want to swap them out during a show.  They are not the easiest to gain access to when rigged up in a bag. I was running a pair of PNY SDHC CL10 32's.

Have a few shows coming up later this week that I am looking forward to.  Will tweak the settings for the SD 2 slot and the stereo mix it creates. 

I will post the FLAC files from Rebirth Brass Band this eve. after work.  Not sure if there is any interest in West Philly Orchestra?

I'm actually more interested in West Philly Orchestra.  Those guys rock!  Thanks for sharing this with us.

[justink]

All set to run this eve with the F8!  Will be a Wind instrument evening with West Philly Orch. opening for Rebirth Brass Band.

I am going to run all mic's direct this eve. and bypass any pre's, using a Shure VP88 in MS mode, a pair of Telefunken M60's with TK62 HC caps and a pair of Neumann KM100's with AK43's Wide Cards. 

6 channels should be a good test run this eve.  West Philly Orch has a tendency to parade around the room off the stage while playing, as to why I will run the wide cards with the VP88.

Running power from the battery cup Ni 12V using a Hirose connection.  Have the Tekkeon as a backup too.

Did all go well?  Overall first impressions?  Quite curious

--Ian

I had run the F8 with direct inputs (no pre/mix) as a 1st run test as I had noted before.  WOW!!!!  I am loving this recorder and will be putting my Zoom H6 up for sale.  No need for both in my situation. 

The F8 menu is a natural progression from the H6 and toggles thru much easier. Loved the color screens as well as you can roll from one screen to the other on the fly which was real nice for checking the mid and side levels in MS mode from one screen to all channels in the next.  Very easy to use from the start and did not have 1 problem or issue on the maiden recording run.

May be repeating myself, but I ran 2 ch. in MS mode using a Shure VP88 Mic and a pair of Neumann KM100 w/AK43 caps and a pair of Telefunken M60's, taking up 6 channels.  Went smooth and was easy to adjust volume levels quickly (1st time using the F8 excuse).  Now I have an idea on starting levels on the  volume control for the next run.  Battery power was from an external 12v. Ni Hirose attached battery...didn't even skim the surface of power after 3+ hrs.  and it will roll over seamless, if necessary,  to the AA batteries internal if the Ni was used up....big plus! and liking that feature.

Still need to tweak my settings a bit on the SD 2 card, in recording a stereo mix separate from the tracked mix. That mix was not useable IMHO, but I did nothing as a prep in adjusting the setting for this SD card and let it record to see what the raw results would be.

I used the F8 to record, as I had noted, the Rebirth Brass Band and it came out real nice other than they showed up late w/no sound check and kept using the instr. mic rather than the vocal mics to talk to the crowd....and then would switch back as each member had a separate vocal and instrument mic. By the middle of the show, vocally they sounded good. 

Very disheveled band, fun...but what a mess it was.  Opening band (West Philly Orch) sounded amazing.  Recordings came out perfect!  Couldn't have asked for a better result as a direct input mic'd test show.  One thing that I would change is that I will be adding back my SD MixPre-D before the F8, as I prefer the control of the MS signal prior to the recorder for better adjustment, that's my only bitch so far and that has to do with the mic in MS mode as well...not a true 2 mic MS setup when using the VP88.  Not sure if the 552 will be added back, as I honestly am very happy with the pre's in the F8, so the SD552 may also be up on the sale block soon.
   
One other item of mention is in regards to the SD cards.  Make sure you have a nice size card, as you do not want to swap them out during a show.  They are not the easiest to gain access to when rigged up in a bag. I was running a pair of PNY SDHC CL10 32's.

Have a few shows coming up later this week that I am looking forward to.  Will tweak the settings for the SD 2 slot and the stereo mix it creates. 

I will post the FLAC files from Rebirth Brass Band this eve. after work.  Not sure if there is any interest in West Philly Orchestra?

I'm actually more interested in West Philly Orchestra.  Those guys rock!  Thanks for sharing this with us.

post them both!

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Here's the link for the Rebirth Brass Band on the Kickdown section:  http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=174395.0

[2manyrocks]

Not really anything to do with the F8, but sometimes the original hit is hard to top:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKcGCObEb28

[stevetoney]

These samples sound really nice and provide a nice initial listen of the preamps in this unit.  First impression is positive.  It's hard to know fully what you're hearing when you weren't there and when there are six mics matrixed together, but what you're not hearing is any sort of veiled or seemingly processed sound.  It seems as if there's a very direct and transparent sound to these samples.  I'm looking forward to hearing some additional samples straight from the mics, particularly with some amplified bass music.

[404 Not Found]

I can post the mic'd tracks separate from one another, that's not a problem.  As for the sound at the Ardmore for this performance....it was okay and got better towards the end of their set as I mentioned with the vocals. 

Sound in regards to the band itself, when I was comparing to other RBB recordings on LMA, I found that the vocals seem to always be a problem unless it's a festival. Rebirth is not the best band that I could have recorded.  The West Phila. Orch. was a different story.  I will have a sample of that later as they are not on LMA.

[stevetoney]

Unless others want to hear the separate tracks, please don't go to special effort based on my comment above.  I only mentioned it because I'm more familiar with the sound I'd expect to hear from your Neumanns.  I'm very excited about the results you got and I can't wait to get my hands on my own F8. 

[voltronic]

404, I'm very interested to know how easy (or not) you found it to set / balance gain levels between stereo pairs of channels.  I think it's been established that you can link channels as a stereo pair, but you cannot gang the gain controls.  Is there a per-channel numeric display of gain level and/or input signal level?  I'm still holding out hope that Tascam adds that functionality to the DR-70D with a firmware update, and such a feature would make the F8 all the more attractive.

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I had my settings per channel set prior to the show and my setting up.  I had a good idea as to what I could expect and what my mic's will do on the F8 from recording with the H6. 

The only volume adjustment that I had done was during the opening band (West Phila Orch) in the 1st song for perhaps a brief second of which you can hear the audible volume correction.

Extremely easy would be my take and what I experienced.  I did not gang any channels, although I have done that in prior recordings using the H6.  The VP88 ran in MS Mode of which gangs two channels, of which was my only gripe, as I do prefer using the Sound Device MixPre-D for MS control now that I have used the F8's setting.  Will test that out on the next outing!

The only setting I need to address on my F8 is the SD 2 card slot that records to a mixed stereo signal. 

Bottom line, the unit was extremely easy to run.  maybe it was the prior H6 usage that helped, but the menu is extremely easy to navigate on the fly as are the various screens that you can roll from one to the next in re. to the MS settings, all 8ch's vol. levels and the 8 ch's of master vol, panning and combining. This is where you will find the screen for the per-channel numeric display of gain level, pan-balance and/or input signal level that can be seen and scrolled thru very easily from one channel to the next or skipped channels to the following.

[voltronic]

^ The H6 allows linked stereo channels (which you've probably used), but not ganged channels.  Ganged would mean that you assign one gain pot to adjust 2 or more channels in unison, so your absolutely sure your channels are set exactly the same after adjusting levels.  I believe the Tascam DR-680 does this, as do several pro recorders.

Very good to hear about the different metering / display options though.  If you can show numerically that your channels are the same, then ganging becomes less important.

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Will do from home in reply to that, as I am at work doing the day job fun

[WiFiJeff]

Anyone have a source for rechargeable ~12V compact high mAh batteries with hirose connectors for the F8?

[stevetoney]

Anyone have a source for rechargeable ~12V compact high mAh batteries with hirose connectors for the F8?

There's a thread in the remote power forum entitled 'alternatives to Tekkeon 3450'.  That would be a good place to start.  Otherwise, you could go onto ebay, but I'd be a little bit careful buying cheap generic batteries on ebay...the generic ones use chinese cells and misrepresent the capacities...they'll say you're buying a 3500mah battery and it's actually 1000mah...stuff like that.  You would probably be safe using ebay to buy name brand batteries though. 

Whatever battery or batteries you choose, it's not going to come prepackaged with a cable that has a hirose connnector.  You're going to need to have a cable made that has the proper connector for your battery on one end and the hirose on the other.  Contact Ted Gakidis or Darktrain and they'll make the cable for you.

I've been dealing with remote power for a long time, so I make my own cables so they work from my collection of batteries.  So, I'm going to power my F8 from my Tekkeon 3300, which I have a bunch of (23 of them at last count) or my Tekkeon 3450's...I have a couple of those.  I'll just take one of the generic connector packs that come with the tekkeons and pull out the generic cable that has a connector on one end that goes to the Tekkeon.  I'll hack it and connect the other end to a hirose connector using the wiring diagram in the F8 manual.  I assume that the F8 comes with a cable that has a hirose connector on one end.  If so, I'll just hack that end from the cable and splice it together with the tekkeon cable.  If not, I'll buy a couple of hirose connectors from Mouser and solder those to my Tekkeon.   I need to make an order from Mouser anyway.