• Steinberg Nuendo 3 & 4 template
• Apple Logic Pro 8 template
• Plogue Bidule template

Zoom H2 quad surround
sample downloads

Four channel interleaved FLAC files

Walkaround with ukulele • 45 sec, by Mark Nelson
Thunderstorm • 25 sec, by Mark Nelson
Crickets • 2 min 40 sec, by Mark Nelson
Drum set playing • 2 m 04 sec, by Blue-S-Man
Tramway • 1 m 46 sec, by Alexis Laurent

There's also more surround recordings made with the Zoom H2 available at Freesound.

Mac OS X audio utility downloads

X Lossless Decoder (XLD): utility for converting files between the following formats: Wave, AIFF, raw PCM, Wave64 (.w64), MPEG-4 AAC (.m4a), Apple Lossless (.m4a), FLAC (.flac/.ogg), MP3, Ogg Vorbis, WavPack (.wv). Can also read Monkey's Audio (.ape) and True Audio (.tta). Files can be multichannel if supported by file format.

Scott Wilson's De-Interleaver: utility for interleaving and de-interleaving audio files. Can be necessary to handle the Zoom H2 double stereo files used in its four channel surround recording mode. De-Interleaver direct download.

Zoom2Five: Instructions

The Zoom2Five has six inputs, L R Ls Rs (plus two dummy inputs for compatibility purposes), and three different 5.1 output modes.

Front/LR Channel Controls
Level: to attenuate the output by up to 24 dB, the default is 0 dB or no attenuation.
Directivity: to control the directivity of the virtual microphones feeding the speakers between 1st order cardioid and 2nd order cardioid, with the default to 1st order.
Width: to vary the width of the speaker feeds from 0 to 180°, with default to 90°, referenced to Center.
Mute: to mute the output, with default to Off, meaning no mute.

Center Channel Controls
Level: to attenuate the output by up to 24 dB, the default is 0 dB or no attenuation.
Directivity: to control the directivity of the virtual microphone feeding the speaker between 1st order cardioid and 2nd order cardioid, with the default to 1st order.
Mute: to mute the output, with default to Off, meaning no mute.

Sub/Lfe Channel Controls
Level: to attenuate the output by up to 24 dB, the default is 0 dB or no attenuation.
EQ: to control the lowpass filter between 20 and 160 Hz with the default at 120 Hz.
Mute: to mute the output, with default to Off, meaning no mute.

Surround/LsRs Channel Controls
Level: to attenuate the output by up to 24 dB, the default is 0 dB or no attenuation.
Directivity: to control the directivity of the virtual microphones feeding the speakers between 1st order cardioid and 2nd order cardioid, with the default to 1st order.
Width: to vary the width of the speaker feeds from 180 to 360°, with default to 240°, referenced to Center.
Delay: to delay by up to 35 milliseconds with a default of 0 ms or no delay. Used for augmenting Front-Back separation.
Mute: to mute the output, with default to Off, meaning no mute.

Interpolation Control
Affects the sound quality of the Surround Ls/Rs delay. The Linear interpolation setting will yield better sound quality, but will use more CPU. Default to No interpolation.

Soundfield Controls
Axis Flip: to flip the soundfield on the Front/Back axis (front becomes back) and on the Left/Right axis (left becomes right), both default to Off, no flip.
Rotation: to rotate the soundfield, in degrees, from -180 to + 180. Default to 0°, no rotation.

Output Channel Order Control
Configures the output channel order. This can be useful in preparing the audio stream for applications that expect the audio channels in a specific arrangement. Apple Logic 8 users should select the third option: L R Ls Rs C Lfe.

Mute unused channels to optimize CPU performance.

Note on the Sub/Lfe: activate the Sub/Lfe when monitoring without bass management. Deactivate (Mute) it when generating the actual stream for the 5.1 media: the Zoom2Five will then output a 5.0 stream, but the media player/surround processor will likely feature bass management if the 5.0 stream is delivered on DVD-Video, DVD-Audio, DTS-CD, SACD, HD-DVD, Blu-ray disc or HDTV broadcast. More details on the use of the Lfe channel available here.

Zoom2Five: User interface

Zoom H2 disassembled: Microphones

The four microphones are visible once the H2 is disassembled		The four microphones are visible once the H2 is disassembled
The four microphones are visible once the H2 is disassembled		The four microphones are visible once the H2 is disassembled

Zoom H2 5.1 surround encoded into Dolby Digital and DTS

The software suggested in this section is Mac OS X 10.4.11/10.5.8/10.6.2, Scott Wilson's De-Interleaver, Apple Compressor, ffmpegX, Vortex Surround Encoder, Apple DVD Studio Pro, Burn, Roxio Toast, Apple iTunes and VLC Media Player.

Once the Zoom H2 four channel surround stream is converted to 5.0 or 5.1, a Dolby Digital encoded DVD-Video or a DTS encoded Audio-CD can be easily created.

Dolby Digital
To create a Dolby Digital encoded DVD-Video, Apple Compressor or ffmpegX is used for the encoding and Apple DVD Studio Pro or Roxio Toast for the DVD authoring.

With Compressor, the 48 kHz / 24 or 16 bit mono files (one per channel to be encoded) are fed to Compressor. Suggested settings are to adjust the dialogue normalization to -31 dB, Center and Surround channels downmix to -6 dB and to turn off the 90° phase shift in the Surround channels. The bitrate should be set to the maximum allowed on DVD-Video, 448 kbps. In the case of a 5.0 mix with source files at 24/48, the size of the resulting AC3 (Dolby Digital) file will be about twelve times smaller than the total source files.

With ffmpegX, the 48 kHz / 16 bit six channel interleaved file (L C R Ls Rs Lfe) is fed to ffmpegX. Unlike Apple Compressor, there is no settings other than to select the "Audio file to AC3" preset in the Target format drop-down menu.

This AC3 file is then imported in a DVD Studio Pro project. With a very basic menu and a still image as video track, the resulting DVD-Video can be burned directly from DVD Studio Pro or exported as a DMG file that can be distributed and later burned with software like Apple Disk Utility, Burn or Roxio Toast.

As an alternative, Roxio Toast (version 8, 9 or 10) has a DVD authoring mode called Music DVD (Audio Menu) that allows easy creation of DVD-Video for audio-only playback. To avoid the multichannel AC3 files from being downmixed and re-encoded to Toast default two channel AC3, the files have to be dragged to the Toast window while pressing the Option (Alt) key. Toast will create a menu for the DVD and a still image for each track.

It should be noted that AC3 files are directly playable with the VLC Media Player. One could then also include on a DVD-Video a non-multiplexed AC3 file, thus giving the end-user more playback options. Such a file, to be directly read by a software player, could use the maximum possible bitrate of 640 kbps allowed for a generic AC3 file and a 44.1 kHz sampling rate since it won't be tied in with a video stream.

DTS
To create a DTS encoded Audio-CD, Vortex Surround Encoder is used for the encoding and Apple iTunes, Burn or Roxio Toast for the CD burning.

The 44.1 kHz / 24 or 16 bit mono files (one per channel to be encoded) are fed to Vortex Surround Encoder. Beside selecting DTS as the output format, there are no settings to adjust. In the case of a 5.0 mix with source files at 24/44.1, the size of the resulting DTS data, in a WAV file container, will be about 3.75 times smaller than the total source files.

The DTS-WAV file is then imported in a standard Audio-CD burning application like Apple iTunes, Burn or Roxio Toast. Once the DTS-CD is ready, care should be taken not to play the CD undecoded, since it will output continuous white noise. If placed in a standard CD player, the player must output the data through a digital link to a surround decoder such as the ones found in home theater installations. If placed in a DVD-Video player, the DTS data will be either internally decoded in the player or again externally decoded with home theater components.

DTS-WAV files are also directly playable with the VLC Media Player.

© Daniel Courville, 2007-2010