Adjusting stereo with when recorded with Zoom H6

[ZoneIII]

I recently bought a Zoom H6 mainly to record my acoustic guitar. It came with Cubase Le and Wavelab LE but I haven’t figured those programs out yet, especially Cubase which I find very confusing so, for now, I’m using Audacity which I have used for simple projects for years. I’ve always liked its user-friendliness. I have a couple questions but please keep in mind that I’m not an audio expert by any stretch of the imagination so please keep any answers simple.

The Zoom H6 comes with an XY mic and an MS mic. If I record with the MS mic in MS RAW mode, I can then adjust the stereo width after I make the recording in, presumably, most DAW programs, but I’m not sure if I can do it in Audacity. I did copy the MS Decoder driver into the Audacity plug-ins. To use the feature mentioned above, that driver is copied to the plug-ins in Cuebase or Wavelab so I figured I would copy it into the Audacity plug-ins too to see if it works with Audacity. But I don’t know how I would use that feature or even if it will work with Audacity. Does anyone know if it will work with Audacity and, if so, how I would do it?

While I’m posting I have another question. I copied two more Zoom H6 drivers into Audacity plug-ins as instructed to do for Cuebase and Wavelab. They are the H6 Mulitrack Asio Driver and the H6 Stereo Asio Driver. As I said, I’m new to all of this so I’m not really clear on what ASIO is but my understanding is that it allows users to bypass their soundcard while recording to avoid latency problems. Do these drivers give me that feature with Audacity and, again, how would I use them if they do?

Sorry if I didn’t explain this all well. I’m new to all of this.

[steve]

Audacity does not ship with ASIO support (due to licensing restrictions). If the Zoom H6 drivers include WDM drivers, then the WDM drivers should work with Audacity, though you will not have any advanced features that may be provided by the ASIO drivers. If you have programming experience it is possible to build Audacity from the source code with ASIO enabled (for personal use only - the license terms prohibit distribution of ASIO builds). If you don't have previous programming experience, then building from the source code on Windows could be rather complicated and involves installing some very large and complex software from Microsoft.

I did copy the MS Decoder driver into the Audacity plug-ins. To use the feature mentioned above, that driver is copied to the plug-ins for Cuebase or Wavelab so I figured I would copy it into the Audacity plug-ins too to see if it works. But I don’t know how I would use that feature or even if it will work with Audacity. Does anyone know if it will work with Audacity and, if so, how I would do it?

Sorry, I've no idea if that will work with Audacity. It's not our product so we have no information about it.

If I record with the MS mic in MS RAW mode, I can then adjust the stereo width after I make the recording in, presumably, most DAW programs but I’m not sure if I can do it in Audacity or, if Audacity does have that capability, how I would do it.

In theory it is possible, and relatively easy to decode it manually.

I don't have any MS stereo recordings to test, but the theory is quite straightforward.
The MS stereo track will appear in Audacity as a 2 channel (stereo) track.

• First you need to split the track into two mono tracks (see: http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/sp ... racks.html)
• Then you need to identify which is the "mid" channel and which is the "side" channel - my guess is that the upper channel will be the "mid" channel.
• Duplicate the "side" channel - Select the track then "Edit > Duplicate (Ctrl+D)"
• "Invert" the duplicate "side" channel (Effect > Invert)
• Join the two "side" tracks to create a stereo track http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/sp ... racks.html
• Use the track Gain sliders to adjust the levels of Mid and Side to achieve the desired amount of stereo separation (http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/au ... .html#gain)

Optionally, you can "mix and render" the tracks to create a single stereo track (Tracks menu > Mix and Render)

[ZoneIII]

Whoops! I found the answer to my second question so I removed it. I couldn't find the drop-down command to split the stereo track in the Tracks menu but then found it in the track itself. Thanks much and thank you for your clear instructions.

[Gale Andrews]

You did not say what version of Audacity - see the pink panel at the top of this page. If you do not have the latest 2.0.6, get it here http://audacityteam.org/download/windows.

Yes, as you found while I was typing this, Split Stereo Track is not in the Tracks menu but in the Track Drop-Down Menu.

In any case, if you get the 32-bit version of the Zoom MS Decoder from http://www.zoom.co.jp/products/h2n/software/ it should work in Audacity. See How do I install VST plug-ins?.


Gale

[ZoneIII]

Thanks. I have 2.0.6.

I am having a little trouble with this. (I really appreciate your help!)

Here's where I am:

I split the original stereo track into two mono tracks. Then I highlighted and duplicated the (presumably side track) with Edit/Duplicate and it duplicated it but it also duplicated the top track. I.E, I have four mono tracks now. I'm not sure if that's a problem.

But then I highlighted one of the two side tracks and inverted it (Effect/Invert) but that had a visual effect on all four tracks even though I selected just one of the duplicated side tracks. I'm also surprised that the invert made both sets of matching tracks appear to be the same. The two side tracks changed but they look identical after the invert.

I couldn't figure out how to join the two mono side tracks to make one stereo track because they weren't in consecutive order so I deleted one of the original mid tracks. That's probably wrong but I'm trying to figure this out. Now I have one mono mid track and one stereo side track but the stereo side tracks appear to be identical so I don't think I will be able to adjust stereo separation. As I mentioned above, when I did the Invert, it changed all tracks including the non-selected original mid track but it made the separated mono tracks from the side track identical but different from they looked originally.

I feel like a dummy! I appreciate your patience with this dumb newbie.

[steve]

I split the original stereo track into two mono tracks. Then I highlighted and duplicated the (presumably side track) with Edit/Duplicate and it duplicated it but it also duplicated the top track. I.E, I have four mono tracks now. I'm not sure if that's a problem.

But then I highlighted one of the two side tracks and inverted it (Effect/Invert) but that had a visual effect on all four tracks even though I selected just one of the duplicated side tracks.

I think that you may not actually be "selecting" correctly. If no audio is selected, then by default, Audacity will select the entire project and the effect will be applied to everything.

The quickest way to select the audio in a track (assuming that there is just one continuous piece of audio in the track) is to double click on the audio waveform.
More information about "selecting" is here: http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/au ... ction.html

[ZoneIII]

Ah! That did it. You were right. I wasn't selecting the track correctly. Now I just got two mono tracks and when I selected the duplicated one for the (presumably) side track, the invert only affected the one that I (this time) selected correctly. It didn't make too much of a change but it did change it. I guess I was expecting to see a pronounced change with the inversion.

Now I'll go on and see what happens.

Again, thank for all your help and patience.

[steve]

I guess I was expecting to see a pronounced change with the inversion.

You'll see a much more obvious change if you zoom in really close on the waveform: http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/zooming.html

tracks001.png (18.23 KiB) Viewed 2554 times

[Gale Andrews]

The plug-in is much less effort. It seems to work fine.

Gale

[ZoneIII]

Zooming in wasn't the problem. In fact, I did zoom in. Your graph confirms what I expected to see. That is, a pattern that is actually inverted. My patterns aren't. They are just slightly different. I'll see if I can post a screenshot of them. It'll take a few minutes.

Well, at least I was able to do the things you helped me with. It doesn't appear that the stereo separation can be adjusted, though. I get no separation effect when I adjust the gain sliders. I simply make each track louder or softer. Maybe it just isn't possible to use this effect in Audacity. But I learned a few things from you that I didn't know before.

I wish I could get that feature to work in Audacity because I like Audacity so much more than the Cubase LE and Wavelab LE that came with the Zoom. I find Cuebase, in particular, to be incredibly confusing. I told a friend who has some studio recording experience about it and he said "No problem!" But after he played with Cuebase for a while, he gave up in frustration. My audio needs have been very basic previously but now that I have the Zoom, I want to learn more.