When it comes to recording, being ready to roll at a moment's notice is paramount to capturing those fleeting magic moments. Whether you're grabbing sound effects in the field, recording shows or practices with your band, or need audio capture for your short film, high-resolution recording on the move is easier than pie with the Zoom H6 Handy Recorder and Zoom F8. And while plenty of other mobile recorders have great sound quality, few, if any have the same sort of versatility and feature set.
Right out of the box, all you need to do is pop one of the included X/Y or M/S stereo microphone modules onto the top of the H6, arm your tracks, and hit record — and it'll keep on rolling for up to 20 hours on just four AA batteries with maximum storage capacity of 128GB by way of SD/SDHC/SDXC cards. Need more channels for multitrack or 5.1 recording? An additional four inputs by way of XLR/TRS combo jacks with discrete gain controls let you plug in your other microphones and instruments in for six total channels of audio on the way in.
While simple editing, looping, and varispeed features are within a few button clicks, you can also plug the H6 Handy Recorder into your Mac, PC or iPad with the built-in USB audio interface to leverage the advanced capabilities of your favorite DAW. Add to that a number of available accessories to make the H6 as flexible as anything else on the market, at any price point.
For filmmakers and sound designers, the Zoom F8 Field Recorder includes essential features, such as time code, 8-input/10-track recording, super low-noise preamps and support for 24-bit/192 kHz audio. Its mic pres have an extremely low noise floor (−127 dBu EIN) and high gain (up to 75 dB), with selectable +4 dB line inputs.
The F8 provides the options necessary to create professional field recordings, including phantom power (+24V/+48V) for each individual preamp; compatibility with any Zoom modular mic capsule; an onboard mixer with routing of all inputs and outputs (pre- and post-fader), plus each channel has controls for pan, input/output delay, filtering and limiting.
The F8’s internal clock uses a Temperature Compensated Crystal Oscillator (TCXO) that generates time code at 0.2 ppm accuracy, enabling solid syncing of audio and video. It supports all standard drop-frame and non-drop formats, and can jam sync to time codes provided by external devices. Input and output integration with other rigs is available via standard BNC connectors.
The F8 weighs at at just 2.1 pounds without batteries, and its tough aluminum chassis is designed for field use.
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