As expected, Zoom has made a new firmware update for the Zoom F8 Audio Recorder with several nice additional features, filling some of the gaps we saw in the initial release! Let's have a quick look.
First, and perhaps most importantly, you can now set the potentiometer knobs for each channel to act as faders! This was one of the big missing features. And while the knobs are pretty small, its definitely nice to have the option to use them as faders without the fiddly process of switching each one (and I mean one at a time) over to change the fader level. Nice improvement.
False take: You can now mark a clip as a false take which will move it to a separate folder and reset the counter on the next recorded clip to the previous number. Another good little addition that will greatly simplify matters on production day.
Scene number advancement: You now get more options on how scene number file names advance. So you could select numeric or character options. Character option: Scene1 -> Scene1A ... Scene1Z -> Scene1AA -> Scene1AB, etc. Or a simple numeric option: Scene1 -> Scene2 ... Scene9999.
Trim ganging: You can now gang multiple tracks together and control their gain with a single potentiometer. Handy when you need to quickly adjust the gain on multiple channels at the same time while setting up.
And a few others:
- Change next track name
- Change previously recorded track names
- Show track names on level meter screen
- Take name format options
- Adjust the L/R track volume
- PFL solos tracks during playback
- Create sound reports
- Control shortcuts (e.g., show name of next track that will be recorded)
Nice work, Zoom! I was definitely disappointed when I found that the original firmware didn't let you use the pots as faders but you came through with much more than that!