Zoom Gear & Home Recording Forum

I got my new H2n this past week, and the first recording I made was in MS+XY. When I got the H2n home and looked at the SDRAM card, I had several folders, but only found one file in the first stereo folder. As I am typing this, I my problem may have just come to me. Was I supposed to set the recording to RAw in order to get separate files for each channel?
In any case, I was going to ask for help with editing the file in WaveLab LE. I could only see one stereo track, and I found no way to edit the mix.
The recording itself, had low audio, normal instrument levels, and some ambient sound that I would have liked to reduce. I also wanted to boost the levels, and make the singers voice sound more full. I'm not exactly sure which filter to use to make his voice sound like there was someone harmonizing with him.

Any tips on what I am doing would be greatly appreciated.

joe

I love a good gadget.

More likely, you were set in 2CH surround (mix front and back together) when you may have wanted 4CH (produce separate front and rear files)

MS-RAW means the M/S microphones record /un-encoded/ (left channel is the M, and right channel is the S); you have to use a M/S => stereo encoder after recording. However, I suspect using any of the surround modes will turn off RAW -- though maybe not, since you do get to adjust the M/S stereo width, and RAW is the "ultimate" setting for that.



Remember that the H2n is a field recorder, and not a multi-tracking recorder. In 4 channel mode you'd be able to adjust the levels of the front and rear separately, and left-right balance separately. However, you state "normal instrument levels" -- how were these recorded? Or more precisely, where were the subjects (instruments/amp-speakers, whatever/vocalists) in relation to the H2n?

Reducing ambient and boosting levels are contradictory... Especially if ambient is anywhere near the level of the signal you want. If the ambient is low, and only noticeable during silent periods, you might run a noise-gate set to remove anything below some threshold level.

And even in 4-channel mode you are unlikely to be able to just filter a vocal -- since the Side elements are, well, side aiming, they'll pick up part of the signal that is on the X/Y side of the unit...

The type of post-processing you mention seems more appropriate to a multi-track recorder where a close-miked vocalist is on one mono track, and an instrument is on another track [especially if the instrument is electric and doesn't have enough audible output to really be picked up by a microphone adjusted for a vocalist].

I must have misunderstood what was supposed to happen in MS-XY. In any case, am I corect in that I should have set the recorder, not only to MS & XY, but also to RAW for the best post recording editing? Would the file take in a new name when it records this way?



The recorder was 7 or 8 feet, directly center of the band. The band is two with guitars, and a zoom drum machine. They sing into microphones, so the sound all eminates from the speakers that are directly behind them.



I guess I am going to have to experiemnt with the surround setting, and an external microphone in place of the XY. If I do this, and place them correctly, I should be able to get more from the artist, and less from the crowd. It's good that I dod this with theri cooperation, I would hate to be trying to do this without being noticed.

In 4-channel surround, you will have one stereo file from the X/Y microphones (focused on which ever side they are at). You will have a second "stereo" file from the M/S microphones -- nominally a real stereo file using whatever stereo separation setting you have selected.

If you set the M/S to "MS-RAW" you still get a stereo file -- but the contents aren't stereo! One side will be the "mid" element (the one pointing straight out the H2n, on the side opposite the X/Y elements) and the other "side" is the figure-8 pattern that sticks out both sides of the H2n, perpendicular to the M. MS-RAW can not be used without some sort of encoding applied to map it back to real stereo (if you split it into mono left and right, and delete the right, what is left is a mono cardioid).

In 2-channel surround, the M/S can NOT be set to MS-RAW because it is mixed with the X/Y stereo to create a single stereo file.



The entire band was on one side of the H2n? That means the audience was on the other side of the H2n... In 4-channel surround, you'd end up with one file mainly of the band, and the other file is basically just the audience noise.

All of the band instruments, and the vocals, are being mixed and fed to speakers? Nothing you do with the H2n will let you pick out the vocalist for separate effects -- you are recording exactly what someone sitting at the recorder position would hear.

To be able work on each source separately, you'd need a multi-track with enough parallel inputs (I emphasis "parallel" as, for example, the BOSS BR-800 has four microphone/line inputs, plus one instrument input, but there is only one mode that uses all four inputs at once -- most use input-4 [phantom power for condenser microphone], with or without the instrument input. Stereo input uses input 1&2 [no phantom power] ONLY. Input 3 just hangs around until you use a 4-input mode... The Zoom R16/R24 can use up to 8 inputs at once, each creating a mono track that can later be panned to adjust position in a stereo field, and adjusted in level after the fact).

The multi-track would have to be able to pick off the individual inputs to the mixing board (which means a mixing board with individual outputs /before/ the mixing controls.



As long as your primary sound source is the mix from the speaker stack, you will be limited...

In 4-channel surround (IF IT ALLOWS AN EXTERNAL MIC) you could maybe fit a microphone next to a solo vocalist microphone, and use the M/S to pick up the speaker mix -- but that still means you'll have the speaker mix to live with, but would have a fairly clean solo vocal for later processing. [I suppose really good gear could use the soloist track to remove him/her from the speaker mix, but it would require exact phasing (180 degree out of phase) and level matching so the solo track subtracts from the mix.

The normal usage of a "surround" mode is just that -- to record sounds (and placement) from all sides of the recorder position.

Thanks for this education. I can easily see what you explained, and now I know I am barking up the wrong tree for this bone. I would have to get the multitrack recorder/ mixer, and input each instrument, and each vocalist on a seperate track to allow the type of editing I would want to do.

I like a lot of what I got, and if it were not for poor palcement of the H2n, I would have gotten great vocals as well. The music was very good. I know now that I had the gain way down, and the microphone misplaced. I will give it another try next Saturday night. Thanks for all that explanation, It helped a lot.

Joe

The abnormal use is to connect the mixer to the line input of the recorder (this will recorded as XY -- note: an attenuator may be needed) and record the sound from the speakers, including audience, as MS RAW. This will give many possibilities to mix onto a good recording. But it will be always a live stereo recording, nothing more.