Zoom M3 MicTrak: Awesome but… there are some ZONKS!

but if I told you that the audio you're about to hear that earlier today started like this and it started like that because I was standing 100 feet away from the recording microphone in the end sounds like this almost anything can be justified as a style of filmmaking if it works would you just call me a liar stop watching this video and move on well I certainly hope you don't do that because even though this defies all logic and it defies everything we know about audio recording it is 100 real and I'm gonna show you exactly how it was done foreign what's going on everybody this is David M the Polish potato I am surrounded by microphones today and it is for a good reason some time ago Zoom the company that I really like as far as audio recording goes and sound recorders go released a microphone with a recorder attached to it and they named it Zoom M3 it's this one the main selling point for this microphone is that it allows you to record raw audio and that means you do not have to adjust gain while recording you can do that afterwards which is really crazy for someone like me because if you are an audio recordist when you're on the job you're always trying so hard to nail that game setting so that you have perfect levels this microphone expands the possibilities because of this raw audio feature um all you do is you press this record button here and basically forget about it so if you are in a situation where you can't have your subject right next to the microphone and they are further away or the microphone is not pointed exactly at them and they are further away you can now go back to this audio in post-production and bring up the levels without bringing up the levels of noise which is at least what Zoom people claim today we are going to of course test and see if it is really so and we are going to push this microphone slash recorder to its limits and see what it's really capable of as always in my videos the most important feature of things like microphones and earbuds and headphones and anything related to audio recording is the sound quality because why else would we buy any of this stuff if not for great sound quality so let's start with the comparison I'm going to lower this one a little bit more which is the rode ntg4 plus and then I'm going to pick a good quote about filmmaking and I'm going to play it back to you four times so you can clearly hear the difference in quality between this Zoom M3 and all the other ones alright I believe I'm all set now here we go the public has an appetite for anything about imagination anything that is as far away from reality as is creatively possible the public has an appetite for anything about imagination anything that is as far away from reality as is creatively possible the public has an appetite for anything about imagination anything that is as far away from reality as is creatively possible the public has an appetite for anything about imagination anything that is as far away from reality as is creatively possible foreign to the other three you can tell me in the comments what your opinion is about this microphone and how do you think it performs and how you like the quality from it you've been listening to it since the beginning of this video I'm gonna switch to my standard Studio Yeti blue in a moment but um I'm gonna give you my opinion first because that's why I'm here and I think the mere fact that you can compare it to the likes of rode ntg4 plus which is a fantastic microphone is the best Testament testimonial is the best evidence of how good it is which is really no surprise with zoom because they've been doing this for years there was in my opinion very little difference between these four microphones going head to head with Yeti blue and rode ntg4 plus is not an easy match so that gives us an idea of how good the microphone on this device really is and now let's take this guy off and let's bring back the yeti blue all right we're all set I'm going to turn this off and I'm going to talk for a moment about what this really is so I made a joke earlier that this was a microphone with a sound recorder attached to it and I think think that's exactly what this is we have just established that it is a high-end microphone it works really well it has a beautiful sound quality and zoom simply added this uh part here which is the sound recorder so what this does now it becomes a one button backup device for your audio recordings and it performs that basic function very well because again this records raw audio which means there you don't have to worry about the gain you don't have to worry about how well it's picking up somebody's voice when you're creating the recording and if you find yourself in Fairly favorable sound recording environment which means there isn't huge noise pollution there isn't a lot of things interfering with your audio maybe someone's just standing too far away from the microphone or um you know they're not speaking very loud this allows you to adjust the levels in post-production without pushing up the levels of noise and it really does work like that in my software experience creativity is seeing what others see and thinking what no one else ever thought creativity is seeing what others see and thinking what no one else ever thought so let's now talk about what the buttons really do this isn't very complicated there's a button here that you press to turn this on it's a half long press I think it's like one second to turn this on and if you don't want to do anything else you can just press the record button this light goes red if there is a card inserted here because this does work with a Micro SD card then it will just start recording and you really don't have to worry about anything else there really isn't much other adjustments that you can do other than the button that lets you select between mono 90 degrees stereo and I don't have my glasses 120 degrees stereo so you can uh cycle through these modes if you want to record a little more spatial sounding audio then you switch to 90 degrees or 120 degrees and you have a low cut filter here that helps uh with wind noise or any other low uh and frequency uh distortions and noises that you don't really want to record in your audio so you can turn this on if you're hearing um that kind of problems and then when you stop the audio you have a headphones Port here that you can use for monitoring the recording and you can also use for playback so you can connect your headphones here standard 3.5 millimeter TRS Jack and when you press this button here it will play the last file recorded you know what let's give it a shot why not this connects to my audio system in the house and we're gonna turn it on that's right and select the right input Channel here we go and now I'm going to press play and let's see what happens I have speakers here that you can see but they are on both sides press the record button this side goes red if there is a card inserted here because it does work with a micro SD card I was making too many noises uh touching all over the place here but it works you can play back the file that you just recorded there are also I can disconnect this now right plus and minus buttons here that allow you to adjust the volume of the playback so if you don't hear correctly in your headphones but you're playing back you can uh go plus plus plus plus and then you're going to be hearing it better uh the other side has um out to the camera or to your other recording device so while this is recording internally you can also connect this straight to your camera or to another sound recorder so this is basically your line out and you can record that audio for additional backup or if you want it straight in your video file if you don't want to mess with uh syncing your audio afterwards then this is what it's for and it also has a USBC connection here that you can use for powering this device while recording unfortunately this does not have rechargeable batteries which is my Zonk number one we are in 2023 every single thing you buy now is pretty much rechargeable even a blender we recently got an offer for a blender you know that is rechargeable through a USBC Port wireless microphones earbuds headphones you name it everything is rechargeable so I'm not sure why Zoom couldn't make this rechargeable it would be so awesome and it would also be better for the environment I'm not even kidding imagine you're going through a number of longer recording sessions and you know you've been using the batteries for a while and then it's hard to judge how much power you have left on them so you just keep switching them to new ones for every session if you're outdoors and you don't have easy access to you know power that that would let you keep disconnected for the recording then you have to keep switching those batteries it would be just so much better to be able to recharge this overnight and and be ready for the next recording that you have coming up so that's a major Zonk I just don't understand why there couldn't be a rechargeable battery it looks like there's enough space in this device here that could easily hold a rechargeable battery another Zone since I'm talking about zonks I'm gonna add Zonk number two two there is no LCD this is I know this is a microphone with a sound recorder attached and it's supposed to be one button easy operation sound recorder but still it would be so cool to have even a small LCD that would just show us the battery level and the amount of space left on the card that's all I need because um I find myself having to keep guessing these uh both values and it is just frustrating so a small LCD would be awesome these lights on top here do indicate when your battery is running low one of them is supposed to start blinking orange when your battery is running lower power and then when it blinks orange really fast that means you have to change your battery because you have almost no power left but why are you putting those uh you know notification lights on top of the device no one likes that very often we find ourselves uh filming something from the eye level you know the camera is at the eye level and this is on top of the camera how am I supposed to see that no one no one is comfortable with that it would be so much easier to put those lights on the back or the small LCD instead of those markings here that show you what you're supposed to do if you want to format the card that would be cool so those are two zones right there and I actually have one more that I will talk about later but now I want to Circle back to that recording you heard in the very beginning of this video because now that I told you exactly how this operates and how it works I think it's a good time to explain how that recording was made and how it was processed so that we ended up with uh something that sounded really good in the end as I already mentioned my goal was to push this device to its limits and find out what it's really capable of and how useful it is in those extreme situations because I know it has a great microphone I know I know it's easy to record audio with it in good conditions but uh what happens when uh we're in trouble is it really gonna help us and change our eyes enough to justify the expense good audio is easy to record when you're standing fairly close to the microphone and it is relatively quiet around you but to see how far we can push the technology we're testing today I need some bad audio or actually not so perfect audio and the easiest way to do that is to step away from the microphone I made recordings at 25 feet away from the microphone 50 feet 75 feet and 100 feet and of course the 100 feet was the most challenging one so again this is what it sounded without any adjustments the way it came out of the zoom M3 this is the wave basic wave file uh not the raw audio although they do sound the same when you first start looking at them and listening to them after downloading them from the card but this is what it started with using the app that Zoom M3 comes with and bumping it by plus 24 almost not exactly 24. I was able to get this almost anything can be justified as a style of filmmaking if it works and then I took it to Adobe Audition and I applied additional equalizer settings to it bumping it even farther at the same time I reduced lower frequencies because that's where all this background noise can be heard mostly and that actually made a lot of a difference almost anything can be justified as a style of filmmaking if it works in the very end and this has the least to do with the actual Zoom M3 and how it works I did process this file with the three Adobe speech enhancer and that's what brought me to the final result that you heard in the beginning of this video almost anything can be justified as a style of filmmaking if it works this completes the story of the crazy audio file that you heard in the beginning of this video if you have any additional questions about it please go ahead and ask in the comments I'm happy to chat about all aspects and all details of processing this file and what else M3 can be good for in extreme situations before I finish this video I have two more things to mention one is really good and one is another zong unfortunately I'm sorry there is another Zonk but I wouldn't be a great reviewer if I wasn't honest and this is my honest opinion about working with the zoom M3 so let's start with the Highlight with the good thing and that is this unit is completely portable and it is Standalone solution for your audio recordings because it doesn't require any cables if you put fresh batteries in it and a fresh card it literally is one button operation and it will let you create very nice very high quality audio wherever you are without having to connect it to anything and without worrying about you know am I is my audio clipped is my audio uh not loud enough you don't have to worry about anything so that is really cool that it is a great microphone but also a standalone sound recorder with one button operation the third Zonk in this interview is the app that it comes with because what is it why is it so rudimentary this is my problem it uh has an okay interface I know you can change the levels I know you can adjust the how spatial and three-dimensional your audio is going to sound by changing the amount of stereo applied in post-production so you don't have to record it in Stereo and you can just add that in post that is great but where is the waveform editor where is the ability to process just a small portion of the recorded audio if I have a two hour long audio file and I know my problematic section is only 12 seconds long I don't want to process the entire file every single time and then look for the 12 seconds I want to see it in the waveform editor and cut out the portion I need and just process that with the boosted settings instead of having to wait because you actually have to wait and that's another you know uh part of this third Zonk there is no progress bar there is no indication whether this file is actually processing or the app is Frozen uh this is this isn't mind-blowing to me because we are in 2023 and I just can't understand why this app is so rudimentary and so basic Zoom people come on seriously if you can't employ better coders then just go to chat GPT and ask GPT to recode this for you and it will probably be doing a very good job adding that waveform editor if nothing else okay it's time for my final conclusion I'm sure those of you who are still watching are happy we got to this point I uh would rate this microphone with an attached sound recorder very high I think Zoom M3 is an excellent tool it really does make a difference it helps making your recordings better and what's most important it helps making them better with a very easy one-touch operation okay two touches because you have to power it on and then you have to press the record button but it's as simple as it gets so overall Zoom wonderful job kudos for including a high quality microphone that's pretty much on par with the mighty rode ntg4 Plus kudas for making a hybrid device that has a high quality microphone and a good audio recorder uh sound recorder in one and could us for the effort of adding the raw audio but please make the app better I know you can do this I know we're just at the beginning of this journey and the next iteration of the app will open up all the possibilities that we're waiting for and increase the functionality even more I would love to hear your comments I would love to hear your use for this device and I would love to hear about your experiences if you decide to get it thank you so much for watching I hope you enjoyed my review and I hope it gave you enough information to make an educated decision if you are considering purchasing a zoom M3 for yourself I wish you happy and successful audio recordings foreign

Channel: The Polish Potato

Views: 8,690

Keywords: Zoom M3 MicTrak, record better audio, stand-alone audio recorder, the best microphone, best audio recorder

Id: _ZChtqgCit8

Length: 20min 15sec (1215 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 09 2023