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Zoom F8 Field Recorder


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This is exciting news. I'm happy seeing a detail such as Time Code from a low budget equipment maker. I think this a way of spreading the technical terminologies of our job, especially to beginner film makers who haven't been around film schools or sets much. Access to units like that won't take jobs away. In fact it will push film makers to hire people who can actually use those functions professionally as I can imagine many of them will want to pay the extra money to own a more "professional" unit but will be overwhelmed by their complexity and will need us.

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I'm still surprised they are making a device so seemingly specific to location sound, though maybe they will also market this to people that want to record bands in the field or something. That might make sense. Their other recorders were marketed at many different uses, so I am guessing this was built with a good bit of market research.

Depending on prices, this might be big at schools. It's debatable if students should be mixing in the field down to 2 tracks, or just gets ISOs and mix later.

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"I'm still surprised they are making a device"

They are not making it yet. The one at NAB had no internal electronics. Essentially,  a case with connectors.

If and when it does appear, It will most likely be a POS.. in true Zoom fashion.

If you compare it to SD or zaxcom than yes. But that is not a fair comparison. If it is in the $1,000-$1,500 range it will fill a niche that think is currently empty.

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Cameras survive with consumer level devices being widely available. If a professional shoot hires somebody with one of these, it's on them.

If this lets some people dabble in production sound and make their own stuff, great. Even if this was $500, remember that filling the bag with wireless with cost a lot more. That's why I wouldn't doubt this proves useful for an entry level way to record a band playing live (with mics or a board feed of tracks), or some sort of round table discussion (maybe for a podcast).

By the way, in the video the B&H guy called them gain knobs. Is it not a mixer, and just a way to record ISO tracks?

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I interviewed several of the people responsible for the sound for All Is Lost, including Steve Boeddeker, Richard Hymns and Brandon Proctor (all of Skywalker Sound) for an article for Below the Line. Very little of the sound used in the picture was captured during production; the recordist (I think it was just one fellow, not a full team) only gathered scratch tracks. Virtually all of the sound of winches, rigging and other noises was gathered later, much of it in a sailing excursion in San Francisco Bay. I was surprised to hear that they accumulated these sounds using several Zoom recorders that they brought on board. What you hear in the movie, if not fabricated from other sources, was recorded with semi-pro gear.

 

Many of the advantages of the best gear may only be apparent when there is a need to work at the limits. Many preamps have entirely adequate performance when recording sounds that are well above noise floor and well below overload. There are good reasons to work with the best but also circumstances where less capable gear might serve the need.

 

David

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I m gonna be honest i m really blown away by this. The form factor seems perfect. 302 sized, Screen on the left, big red record button on the right. Two cards (hello zaxcom maxx!). 4 outputs ( hello sonosax r4+!) plenty of power options. In and out timecode!

I could be willing to pay more for good preamps, 2 proper returns, stable tc and more solid looking knobs but man the form is there.

For a light and versatile bag that seems to be it.

Couldn't a higher end manifacturer come up with this instead.

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When I watched "All is Lost" it was very apparent the nearly the whole movie was sound design.  I didn't think that it was a bad thing, perhaps even a creative decision to disengage visuals from the auditory experience, nearly as unconventional as having a nearly dialogue-less film.  But intention or not, for me, it was distracting to not have had either more PFx or more convincing sound design.

 

I interviewed several of the people responsible for the sound for All Is Lost, including Steve Boeddeker, Richard Hymns and Brandon Proctor (all of Skywalker Sound) for an article for Below the Line. Very little of the sound used in the picture was captured during production; the recordist (I think it was just one fellow, not a full team) only gathered scratch tracks. Virtually all of the sound of winches, rigging and other noises was gathered later, much of it in a sailing excursion in San Francisco Bay. I was surprised to hear that they accumulated these sounds using several Zoom recorders that they brought on board. What you hear in the movie, if not fabricated from other sources, was recorded with semi-pro gear.

 

Many of the advantages of the best gear may only be apparent when there is a need to work at the limits. Many preamps have entirely adequate performance when recording sounds that are well above noise floor and well below overload. There are good reasons to work with the best but also circumstances where less capable gear might serve the need.

 

David

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I interviewed several of the people responsible for the sound for All Is Lost, including Steve Boeddeker, Richard Hymns and Brandon Proctor (all of Skywalker Sound) for an article for Below the Line. Very little of the sound used in the picture was captured during production; the recordist (I think it was just one fellow, not a full team) only gathered scratch tracks. Virtually all of the sound of winches, rigging and other noises was gathered later, much of it in a sailing excursion in San Francisco Bay. I was surprised to hear that they accumulated these sounds using several Zoom recorders that they brought on board. What you hear in the movie, if not fabricated from other sources, was recorded with semi-pro gear.

Many of the advantages of the best gear may only be apparent when there is a need to work at the limits. Many preamps have entirely adequate performance when recording sounds that are well above noise floor and well below overload. There are good reasons to work with the best but also circumstances where less capable gear might serve the need.

David

This. I've done a lot of commercials (but always with a 302 before inputs) and movies (sound effects, some foley, ambiance) using Zooms. There's nothing wrong with them except apart from the higher class, tank built, awesome support and always great sounding devices we use more often, they don't excel and/or perform great in any given situation as all our other gear does.

It's a handy tool to have. There are other handy recorders that sound better, but with price in mind the difference isn't really all that big.

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You know, a lot of the time I need exactly 1 "good" preamp, for the boom.  The rest can be of an "ok, clean, but not exceptional" quality because they will usually be in line-in mode inputting wireless RX.  So…. if the Mozegear PAPI turns out well, there's a dinky good ext preamp for the boom…..   I will look at this thing if/when it appears, for sure.

 

philp

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