charlie_hurst's Electronic Studio Setup

Just a really incredibly good interface, that has remained in my studio since it came out. Preamps are clean and neutral, and the AD/DA stages still hold up nicely. TotalMix FX and the drivers are an invaluable set of professional tools that give this unit wonderful versatility. The provision of DuRec for recording your IO is also a major win, and was probably the tipping point for my initial purchase, before I realised the benefits of its other features.

The relatively recent introduction of TotalMix FX for iOS make the interface a great portable mixer and recorder in conjunction with an iPad.

A nice preamp with lots of gain on tap, with analogue and AES outputs. Works well as a valve front end to a lot of mics and can deliver a bit of that "warmth" at a low price. With the output level trim, it’s possible to drive the tube gain a bit harder while keeping the level within reasonable levels for most converters. It's also great as an instrument DI input. I use it with Bass guitars a lot and it can really add something nice to instruments with active pickups. Probably a slight roll off on some of the harsher transients in the very top end. My particular one has developed a bit of a power supply hum, but other than that it sounds great. (P.S. would love a power switch on the front panel!)

Having used the Zoom F8 as a sound recordist for video production for the last 5 years I can safely say I’ve put it through its paces, and pushed it all the way to it’s limits.

The Zoom F8 is a versatile and effective field recorder, with clean preamps and solid timecode. Paired with the FRC8 mixing surface it makes for a budget conscious cart mixer. It is capable of Bluetooth control from an iPad, and can also be used as a multitrack USB interface in a variety of modes.

The menus are super simple and the metadata options work great. The display is decent enough for bright sunlight use too.

In a blind test I think you would struggle to pick it out against another field recorder of the same generation that might cost 10x the price. Interestingly it is still one of the only recorders on the market with 8 mic preamps. Sound Devices 888 is 10x the price.

In it’s most basic form you have 8 mic/line inputs and 4x output channels, which can be routed very flexibly from the IO matrix capable of delivering useful mixes to various different people on set.

Downsides: - There are no digital inputs or outputs. - The Mix channels are only routable from the pan selection. The pan law is set to increase volume at full pan so routing in this way can clip the mix bus, which isn’t ideal. - In EXT Timecode mode the pre-roll is disabled. - The headphone amp is a bit weak and seems to emphasise noise problems more than you’d like. It’s like a weird kind of compression. - The XLR inputs are mic level only, and the line level is accessed by the jack side of the combi-jack inputs. This means it doesn’t interface well with high end location kit which is all supplied with XLR’s and switchable output levels. (This is fixed in the F8n) - The output level of the main out is consumer line level rather than pro.

In all honesty though those are some pretty minor issues, and the pro’s far outweighs the cons. What you can achieve on the F8 is mighty impressive. I’ve done jobs that honestly would have been impossible on some more expensive machines.

I’m hesitantly upgrading soon, as I find I’m hitting its limitations more and more regularly. But the amount of money you have to spend to surpass everything this machine can do is frankly astounding! Find another machine with 8 channels that has access to all of the mix functions from the front panel… your instantly looking at 10x the cost of the F8.