Zoom F3 - 5 things You NEED to know about 32-bit float as a Solo Content Creator

so it's not very often uh that i buy myself a piece of gear and it totally changes the way that i work and understand sound and if you are a solo content creator who has ever experienced something like clipping your audio or setting the wrong levels then this video is for you no surprise we are talking today about the zoom f3 recorder and in fact all of the audio that you hear in this video will be recorded on the zoom f3 with my deity s mic 2s totally unprocessed and it will look something like this so this video is not a detailed tutorial on what 32-bit float is but rather it is a look at the zoom f3 and what 32-bit float recording can do for you as a solo content creator and specifically the five things you have to know about the zoom f3 and 32-bit float recording before you make an investment into this kind of equipment so the first thing you need to know about the zoom f3 is that it is the easiest way to start recording 32-bit float audio i mean i'm holding it in my hand it's literally plugging a mic into the recorder and hitting record okay uh it's a little more complicated than that you actually have to turn on the recorder plug in a microphone turn on the channel enable phantom power if you need it and then hit record but other than that there that's all there is to it there is no manually setting the gain for your audio record level and that's because with 32-bit float without going into all of the details about how it works and what it actually is and side note bit depth actually pertains to the amount of information used to capture the amplitude or loudness of an audio signal when converting it into a digital file format essentially 32-bit float allows you the content creator to adjust the gain level after the fact but this device is literally the easiest way for you as someone who might not have a background in audio to immediately start utilizing the benefits of 32-bit float whether that is plugging in a condenser microphone like i have here or even your plug and power microphones via something like the rode vxlr plus so yes you do not need to set any gain levels when you start recording with your zoom f3 recorder there is a magnifying glass option to display the waveform on the display screen and while that does affect what your waveform will look like when you look at your file after in post-production it doesn't have any bearing on the audio quality recorded internally in the recorder so that brings us to the second thing you need to know about the zoom f3 recorder and 32-bit float recording and that is you will need to do some post-processing on your audio but don't worry if you don't know anything about post-processing it's not that complicated you don't have to do anything like compression or limiting or adding eq or anything like that the bare minimum that you will probably need to do is to adjust your levels in your editing software so whether that be in something like a daw a daw digital audio workstation where you have your audio waveform and you can increase or decrease it by some amount of db or if it is in your video editing software like in davinci resolve which i use 32-bit float recordings can also be manipulated in programs like that to adjust their volume now speaking of working with your audio files in an editing program you can see here that i have my video file with a baked in audio and then a separate audio file from the zoom f3 and the video file's audio was sent via the zoom f3's output so the third thing you need to know is that while you don't have to set any levels for internal recording if you intend on outputting the signal from the zoom f3 into another device like a camera you will need to set that output level now fortunately this is a super simple process if you have ever set any kind of audio levels in the past you will probably be able to manage this and in fact it's actually probably easier with the zoom f3 so once you connect your output via a 3.5 millimeter trs cable into your device in my case my camera i would suggest setting your camera level all the way down to one or two because the zoom f3 will have plenty of output to give you a clean signal going into your camera so you don't need to rely on your camera's built-in preamp to add any additional noise to that signal once you've done that all you have to do is hit the menu button on the zoom f3 scroll down to output level and then you can increase or decrease the decibel output and one of the most convenient features of the zoom f3 is that by pressing the play button it will actually send a steady tone out the output to your device so using this you can easily adjust your levels up or down to hit within that minus 12-6 peaking point on your camera's input put a point of caution while you are recording in 32-bit float internally on the recorder at this point when you output that signal you're recording at whatever setting your device is set to so in a lot of camera cases that might be 24 bit so if you incorrectly set the output level on the zoom f3 you won't be able to adjust that audio in your camera the same way you would with the 32-bit float recording and that leads us to number four what are the actual benefits of 32-bit float recording now if you have looked at any of the marketing hype surrounding 32-bit floating point recording anywhere on the internet it's often touted as being a magical file format where you can recover audio whether it's clipping or whether you record it too low and that you never have to worry about the quality of your audio ever again and that's not exactly true 32-bit float records a much larger dynamic range with regards to how it interprets the amplitude of an analog signal but the bottleneck comes with the microphone that you attach to it in my opinion 32-bit float is really good for recovering what is perceived as clipped audio where something is recorded way too loud and you're able to bring those levels down and recover those clipped parts it's not so great at significantly boosting the volume of a recording that was recorded too low and that's because you're constrained by your microphone and the environment that you record in let's break this down when it comes to the audio that is clipped that's easy to understand right we all of a sudden have audio that is significantly louder than what we have been recording but because 32-bit float records well above zero we can bring any of those signals down in post to recover them but remember a 32-bit float is recording everything meaning that that's not only the sound that you're trying to record say my voice but also things like the inherent noise of the microphone whatever noise or sound might be in your room the sound of air going across the diaphragm of the mic so unless you are in something like an anechoic chamber there is some kind of background noise that we as humans can't hear but your 32-bit float recorder through your microphone will this will be referred to sometimes as the noise floor the inherent noise that's just always there regardless of your environment or the equipment that you're using and so when we record something at a healthy level like our voice our output is significantly higher than that noise floor so if in 32-bit float recordings we're clipping we're not just bringing down the volume of our signal we're also bringing down that minimal noise floor to be even lower but if i begin to start whispering at a lower level and we want to try to match that recording add a lot of volume in post we're not just bringing up the sound of my voice but we're also raising that noise floor and you can hear it right now right you can hear that white noise that background noise as i bring up this audio alright so now you're probably thinking to yourself well i've seen plenty of videos online where people have increased a low signal and not introduced noise and in those situations i think this is what's happening people are recording their audio at a significantly lower magnification level say like one or two on the display that will look super low and when you bring that audio file into your digital audio workstation it will look super low but remember the magnification level doesn't impact the actual recording so it seems like quiet audio is actually just the same as if we were talking normally so what does this actually mean in a practical sense well it brings us to the fifth thing that you need to know about the zoom f3 and recording in 32-bit float while you might not necessarily have to worry about the initial gain setting you do have to worry about mic technique that is you still need to practice good mic selection and mic placement so there's this analogy out there um comparing 32-bit float recording to something like shooting photos in raw instead of jpeg where you hit record and then you can bring out things or fix it all in post kind of like taking a photo in raw and then being able to manipulate some of the color correction and contrast and things like that but a different analogy that you might be able to better understand is 32-bit float recording is like shooting a 360 degree video in so much that you can literally just hit record and not worry about things like setting your level or pointing your camera in a certain direction because in post adjusting your audio level is a lot like adjusting the shot on a 360 degree video file but the thing about it is that you still need to practice good placement in the case of audio that is good mic placement and in the case of a 360 degree video that is placing the camera in the most appropriate place to get the shot you want just like placing your microphone in the most appropriate place to get the audio you want okay so how does this practically look in real life well right now i am still talking into the zoom f3 with my deity s mic 2s and i've just been holding it right here by my side this entire video my camera is about an arm's length away from where i'm sitting so what happens if i put this mic on top of my camera okay so now the microphone is on top of my camera about a meter or three feet away now if i want to match the level of what i just recorded that means in post i'm going to have to raise this up a little bit and like we just talked about that ultimately increases the noise floor as well as the signal that we were trying to record which is my voice so if you are intending on using 32-bit float recording for something like an interview at a trade show where the camera and microphone will be six feet away from the two people on screen it will not magically give you a super clean audio signal you would be much better served having some kind of handheld microphone that runs into the zoom recorder because that same basic rule applies you will get better audio the closer your subject is to the microphone and in the case of 32-bit recording you don't necessarily need to worry about clipping issues lastly that being said um when it comes to the zoom f3 and 32-bit floating point recording while you will not clip your audio at the actual recorder that doesn't mean you can't still distort the signal at the microphone microphones these days have a high spl which means that they can they can handle pretty loud sounds but they can't handle plosives those peas and bees and other puffs of air wind noise maybe things that hit the diaphragm of your microphone and then distorted beyond any recovery so yes be mindful that plosives peas bees wind will still distort your audio and are not recoverable with 32-bit float recordings so is the zoom f3 and 32-bit float recording right for you and your solo content creation needs i would argue yes let's be honest as solo content creators people that are doing all of it by themselves we don't have enough brain capacity to keep everything in mind when we're trying to shoot our content whether that be lighting your camera angle your camera settings your wardrobe your audio settings your microphone placement the environment that you're shooting in the actual content that you're trying to create so in my opinion anything that simplifies and takes away some of the margin of error in my production process for me it's a no-brainer in fact i have incorporated the zoom f3 in my actual voiceover business because it's just easier to record in 32-bit float and then for me to edit those audio files in post and yes while something like the zoom f3 is a significant investment in your equipment in my opinion the benefits far outweigh the cost especially because it's a piece of equipment that won't be obsolete in five years that you can continuously upgrade with the purchase of different microphones so yes the zoom f3 has totally changed my workflow and the way i perceive recordings if you have any questions as always leave them down in the comments below and we'll talk again real soon

Channel: Wayne RECs

Views: 20,138

Keywords: Vlog, Content Creation, Connection, Sony ZVE-10, Better Audio, Good Audio, Best Microphone, Audio Tips For YouTube, Zoom F3, Zoom F3 Field Recorder, F3 Recorder, 32-bit Float, 32-bit Float Recording, 32-bit Floating Point

Id: 06vqvlssN68

Length: 14min 19sec (859 seconds)

Published: Fri May 13 2022