Let's talk about the Zoom F3

[TBman]

Does anyone have one? What is your review of it?

I like the idea of better preamps than my Zoom H5 and 32 bit recording. I don't like the record button being on the opposite side of the stop button, but I see that they offer a bluetube optional item that allows controlling the unit with a phone app. The price of the F3 is decent too. I'm on the fence about it. My Zoom H5 is serving me well though for what I do.

[Daniel Grenier]

I can't help you with this, Barry, as I was not even aware of this F3 until your post. Reading up on it, though, kind of got me convinced to get one to replace my nifty (but limited) Zoom H2Next. Looks too good to pass up with its (almost?) impossible to mess up a recording technology. Very cool!

[pieterh]

Can’t objectively review the F3 but for the last couple of years we’ve been using the F8 as a field recorder. It can also be used as a regular high-end (ish) sound card.

We’ve had great results and the tracks are recorded in high sampling rate wave-files. Because it is aimed at the film recording segment the sample rate can be matched to video and film frame rates.

I generally record to two SD-cards with a limiter on the one and a lower recording level but no compression on the second. In practice the limiter rarely if ever kicks in so the main card has the tracks I’ll use.

If I have a beef with the unit, it is that it seems to have a relatively high noise floor but I suspect that is more likely to be the microphones I’m using (dpa lavalier with a wind shield plus a Scheops rifle mic on a boom with a zeppelin-shield) as well as the ambient noise of location recordings. It’s nothing I can’t handle in post though…

It would be interesting to compare location with studio takes but for studio recordings we’ve been using a Yamaha CL3 into a Mac using Reaper via Dante.

[TBman]

Originally Posted by Daniel Grenier

I can't help you with this, Barry, as I was not even aware of this F3 until your post. Reading up on it, though, kind of got me convinced to get one to replace my nifty (but limited) Zoom H2Next. Looks too good to pass up with its (almost?) impossible to mess up a recording technology. Very cool!

I just bought one too I'll use my Zoom H5 for my practice recordings. I noticed that when I listen to my soundcloud stuff using my phone, when I turn up the volume I hear hissing. I don't hear that when I use my computer and headphones though. Not sure if its my phone, Samsung Galaxy 10, or the H5. Maybe the F3 is the cure,

[Doug Young]

Originally Posted by TBman

I just bought one too I'll use my Zoom H5 for my practice recordings. I noticed that when I listen to my soundcloud stuff using my phone, when I turn up the volume I hear hissing. I don't hear that when I use my computer and headphones though. Not sure if its my phone, Samsung Galaxy 10, or the H5. Maybe the F3 is the cure,

If you post a track with this problem and make it downloadable, I'd be happy to check your noise floor. Ideally, it should have a second or two of "silence" somewhere.

[TBman]

Originally Posted by Doug Young

If you post a track with this problem and make it downloadable, I'd be happy to check your noise floor. Ideally, it should have a second or two of "silence" somewhere.

Thanks Doug! Here is the tune:

[keith.rogers]

Originally Posted by pieterh

Can’t objectively review the F3 but for the last couple of years we’ve been using the F8 as a field recorder. It can also be used as a regular high-end (ish) sound card.
...
If I have a beef with the unit, it is that it seems to have a relatively high noise floor but I suspect that is more likely to be the microphones I’m using (dpa lavalier with a wind shield plus a Scheops rifle mic on a boom with a zeppelin-shield) as well as the ambient noise of location recordings. It’s nothing I can’t handle in post though…...

I used an F8 and still use my F8n at home. (Both were used in "live" settings.) I don't think there's an audible noise floor in those preamps, honestly. Of course, my hearing is not what I'd like it to be, and I am not trying to record very quiet sources, so I can always be wrong!

Their use as an interface is limited from my experience. I always described them as being functional for that purpose "in a pinch," but not something I'd want to use all the time. There's some limit on sample rate, IIRC, though that wasn't as much of a problem as the lack of routing capabilities you get with most interfaces and their supplied apps.

p.s. If you want to check the preamp noise, you need to test properly. Here's one (kind of standard) way:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DXEBahqBz4

p.p.s. The guy in the video has a fairly recent video where he basically says your preamp noise is irrelevant if you are using condenser mics, since their self noise is higher than any of the common interface preamps he has tested.

https://youtu.be/frah8eBvUbU

[Doug Young]

Originally Posted by TBman

Thanks Doug! Here is the tune:

Sorry to be slow to get back to you. I was off much of the day shooting new lessons for Peghead Nation, then had to watch the Warrior's game!

That's a lot of noise. I don't think it's preamp or mic noise, at least not entirely. There's a low rumbling sound, almost sounds like a washing machine or dryer going? It seems to be there thru-out. You only have about a half second of "silence" to go from, but i'm measuring a noise floor of about -30db. Killing the low rumble with a high pass filter produces around -35db. Still quite noisy, even for a home recording environment. There is a lot of broadband noise that could be from the Zoom, but I don't think I ever saw anything like this from my H6-recorded tracks.

[TBman]

Originally Posted by Doug Young

Sorry to be slow to get back to you. I was off much of the day shooting new lessons for Peghead Nation, then had to watch the Warrior's game!

That's a lot of noise. I don't think it's preamp or mic noise, at least not entirely. There's a low rumbling sound, almost sounds like a washing machine or dryer going? It seems to be there thru-out. You only have about a half second of "silence" to go from, but i'm measuring a noise floor of about -30db. Killing the low rumble with a high pass filter produces around -35db. Still quite noisy, even for a home recording environment. There is a lot of broadband noise that could be from the Zoom, but I don't think I ever saw anything like this from my H6-recorded tracks.

That's really odd. I recorded this in my basement, late at night. There wasn't any laundry being done at the time. I don't hear any of that in the recording though, so I suppose ignorance is bliss Thanks Doug!

I'm using a Hi pass filter too,

Edit - but only the Fabfilter Pro Q mud removal. I usually use the one from Rx 7 (Dehum).

[Doug Young]

Originally Posted by TBman

That's really odd. I recorded this in my basement, late at night. There wasn't any laundry being done at the time. I don't hear any of that in the recording though, so I suppose ignorance is bliss Thanks Doug!

I'm using a Hi pass filter too,

Edit - but only the Fabfilter Pro Q mud removal. I usually use the one from Rx 7 (Dehum).

In retrospect, the washing machine sound may be because there was only a 1/2 second of silence to check, so playing that in a loop created a repetitive sound. But there's definitely a lot of low end noise here. Here's your track in RX spectral view. See that heavy band of sort blue and purple all along the bottom? That's substantial sound at around 50Hz and below. The color shows that it's nearly as loud as your guitar. The bright orange that fills the whole screen is broadband noise. That may be the Zoom, or your mics, or ambient household noise. The good news on the low end noise is that you can cut it, since there's no guitar down there. Was this using Zoom's internal mics, or something else?

Barry.jpg

For comparison, here's an old track of mine using the H6, with the internal mics. The broadband noise looks pretty bad, but I don't have that band of constant low end sound. My noise floor on this is about -50db, which is not great, but since every 6db is doubling the volume, that's still much quieter than your -30 (about 1/8 the perceived noise?) A lot of of the difference is because of that low end noise on yours tho. My broadband noise above 100Hz is only 10 db less than from yours

Zoom Int.jpg

And, an example recorded with the Zoom and external mics (not sure what mics, this is an old file). Here I'm getting a bit more sub low end, possibly my foot tapping, but still nothing like that heavy low end band you have. And the red is quite a bit more subdued (more contrast between the guitar and the background), compared with both my Internal mic example and yours. I don't have enough "silence" on this track to measure it accurately, but I'd guess the noise floor is around -60db, 10db better than the internal mics.

Zoom Ext.jpg

One easy way to reduce noise is to mic closer and play louder. That will make your guitar louder relative to the noise, and possibly let you turn down the gain on the recorder, which may further reduce some of the preamp noise.

On this track, what leapt out to me was the low end noise, tho the broadband hiss is loud as well. You could make that less noticeable by cutting the low end, and trimming the beginning and end (or fading the end) so that the listener doesn't get even that half second to hear the noise alone. On noisy tracks, I sometimes use RX on the tail/fadeout to draw a free pattern that sort of tracks the decay, cutting the high end at increasingly lower frequencies, so you continue to hear the guitar fundamental as it rings, but don't hear the noise starting to pop out. Like this:

RX Fade.jpg

What I did here was really extreme, just so you can see it. I selected the region (now in black) and hit delete. Normally, I'd use the Spectral Repair to just knock it down like 10 db.

[TBman]

Thanks Doug! I'll review my high filter use.

[keith.rogers]

That's a lot of noise. And, what's that clickety-clack right at the start?

On the computer I'm on now, I just have an old version of RX6, but if you have an ambient noise, or equipment (this is not preamp noise), its Spectral *De-noise can be useful. Just grab an unprocessed part of the raw track to "Learn" from and then slap the repair on the whole thing. You can control the amount of reduction, because at some point it will be audible, or maybe introduce artifacts. I've linked an MP3 with 12dB of reduction, a pretty massive amount, i.e., not what I'd use except in a "can't possibly retrack" situation, but I wanted to just remove the noise right at the start and see what happened. And, there's a 48dB/octave HPF at 66Hz IIRC.

There was a little oddness right around 3-4s in the original that became much more noticeable with this level of "*De-noise."

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rmV...ew?usp=sharing

p.s. You aren't recording in 16-bit are you?? If it was in 24-bit originally, did you dither in the 16-bit reduction? Curious.

[Doug Young]

Originally Posted by keith.rogers

That's a lot of noise. And, what's that clickety-clack right at the start?

That's the sound I guessed might be a washing machine. It goes thru-out the recording, just sticks out at the beginning

[TBman]

Doug, can you post a screen shot of your Rx De-Hum settings for hi pass?

I used a bit of noise removal on this tune below and of course the de-hum.

[Doug Young]

Originally Posted by TBman

Doug, can you post a screen shot of your Rx De-Hum settings for hi pass?

I almost never use De-Hum. What that is is a sharp notch filter at 60Hz and harmonics. Good for electrical hum, like from an electric guitar amp. That's not what you have here. I'd just use either a high pass filter (FabFilter) or select the low noise in RX and hit delete, to handle the low end noise. The broadband noise is a bit trickier, but I'd use Spectral De-Noise mostly. If I get caught up on things today, I'll see if I can make a quick demo.