Excerpts of this blog repurposed from the “Making Tracks: Quad Squad” article published in the March 2010 issue of Electronic Musician Magazine. The article was written by: David Battino.

Vortex Zoom Encoder (Mac/Win, $29.95), Converts two stereo WAVs or AIFFs and into three standard 2 standard surround formats:

• DTS 5.1 (Digital Theater Systems)
• 6-channel, interleaved WAV or AIFF (CH1 Right front, CH2 Left Front, CH3 Center, CH4 LFE or Sub Woofer, CH5 Left rear, CH6 Right Rear)

AND

• One stereo binaural headphone mix (ImmersiveStereo) that simulates surround for stereo playback.

Step 1.

Record in 4-Channel mode on the Zoom H2 or H4n, producing two stereo 44.1/16 WAV’s or  use two WAV’s of your own.

Step 2:

Convert the WAVs to 16-bit, 44.1kHz resolution if necessary and then drag one file onto Vortex Zoom Encoder, the encoder will retrieve the second matching file. Front files will play through speakers (Left Front, and Right Front)

Rear, through (Left Rear, and Right Rear).

Step 3:

Click the DTS button to create a 2-channel DTS-encoded WAV

Publish or burn the DTS material to CD media using your favorite program; iTunes, Windows Media, WinAmp, etc. That CD will now playback 5.1 surround audio from any commercial DVD player with the DTS logo.

On Apple computers digital audio out can be routed to a DTS decoding receiver directly from iTunes for hours of 5.1 surround audio enjoyment.

How to play DTS 5.1 from iTunes

Step 4:

Click the Headphone button to create ImmersiveStereo, a binaurally encoded WAV file that simulates surround sound in headphones. Enjoy on your favorite portable STEREO device, laptop, blog, or YouTube.

Step 5:

Click the 6 CH button to create a 6-channel interleaves WAV or AIFF.

Step 6:

Drag the interleaves WAV or AIFF from Step 3C onto Fraunhofer MP3 Surround encoder to create an MP3 Surround file.

Dowload a free MP3 Surround Encoder Here: http://j.mp/MP3SurroundEncoder

The Vortex Zoom Encoder is made to be compatible with the Zoom H2, and Zoom H4n recordings. We focused on making it simple to preview, mix, and share your recordings. The first feature you will notice is the handy drag and drop preview window where you load your zoom recordings.

The second feature lets you select an “Export Mix” based on how you plan to listen to, or use the encoded material.

• Button 1 – DTS 5.1 files playback on your home theater DVD player in 5.1 surround.
• Button 2 – ImmersiveStereo is for playback in head phones or any stereo device. For example iTunes, and your iPod, or iPhone.
• Button 3 – 6 CH creates a interleaved six channel file (Left Front, Right Front, Center, Sub Woofer, Left Rear, Right Rear). This format can be directly in other programs like MP3 Surround.

The player is completely FREE for you to listen to your Zoom H2, or Zoom H4n files, allowing you to hear your four-channel recordings through four speakers (four-channel setup required), or enjoy them in stereo anytime.

30 day free trial is offered on the three export formats: DTS 5.1, ImmersiveStereo (binaurally encoded virtual surround) or 6 channel AIF or WAV encoding for $29.95

This provides the missing link in allowing Zoom’s customers to share their work with the world.

NOTE: iTunes, iPod, and MP3 Surround are registered trademarks and the property of their respective companies.

This is an excerpt taken from an interview with Morton Subotnick, one of the United States’ premier composers of electronic music. In this interview, he refers to “Designer” meaning IMR’s Vortex Surround Designer as software which allows composers to work in multichannel audio without limitations.

Download a free fully functioning 30 day demo here: http://im-research.com/products/

Designer facilitates the creative and expressive manipulation of individual sounds in space as well as the combining of these sounds into multichannel sound cues and fully immersive soundscapes.

"Designer - User Interface"

With its intuitive graphic user interface and integrated set of DSP functions, Designer is a professional audio processing tool that allows the user to quickly and powerfully spatialize any mono sound file and save it as multichannel output. Each sound path can be designed with millisecond precision and then saved independently of the sound file itself, resulting in a library of spatial paths that can be re-used to process any monaural sound file. Sound paths adapt automatically to the length of each sound file. The result is a highly scalable solution that can generate unique paths and effects in a fraction of the time required when using manual panning techniques, with a higher return on investment and reduced development costs.

Designer Cost: $200.00 and not just for Surround Sound, it’s great for shaping stereo recordings!

Click on the linked text below to read the whole story:

Making Tracks: Quad Squad

By David Battino

Click on the linked text below to see examples prepared to complement “Making Tracks”:

Vortex Zoom Encoder Web Clips

By David Battino

Below are three audio clips selected from the “Web Clips”. The first two I selected to demonstrate that Zoom H2  four channel recordings sound better when encoded by VZE into ImmersiveStereo™.

• Stereo Mix

The first clip “Stereo Mix” was rendered by combining the two H2 files using a standard quad to stereo mix-down that can be done using any Digital Audio Workstation or DAW.

• VZE’s ImmersiveStereo™ Mix

The second uses only VZE to render ImmersiveStereo™ from the pair of H2 stereo files. In my own humble yet biased opinion the ImmersiveStereo™ Mix has a distinctive and desirable spatial quality. I notice it in the lack of impact on the ear drum, and the sensation that you’re immersed in the scene rather than listening to a recording.

In the next clip I recorded the Hey! Ho! Let’s Go! Band live at U-31 in San Diego with a Zoom H4n. I fed front of house board mix into the H4n’s line inputs and used the H4n’s built-in stereo mics to record ambiance.

Please leave your comments on what YOU hear.

This audio was captured with the Zoom H2 rendered in ImmersiveStereo™

Download Link: Sounds of Ferraris

Rally and Benefit Gala honoring Dan Gurney at San Diego Automotive Museum

This two day Ferrari rally from Los Angeles to San Diego and back offered the opportunity to capture the voices of rare vintage and late model Ferraris. The unique voices of these cars was easily captured by the Zoom H2 in 4 channel mode and rendered in ImmersiveStereo™ as a WAV file, then compressed into an MP3 file for ease of distribution over the Internet.

Equipment Used: Zoom H2 in 4 Channel mode, and Vortex Zoom Encoder software to create ImmersiveStereo™.

Vortex Zoom Encoder (VZE) Demonstration

Try it for 30 days free then (Mac/Win, $29.95)

VZE converts Zoom H2 and H4n four channel recordings into three standard surround formats:

• DTS 5.1 (Digital Theater Systems)
• ImmersiveStereo (Center button / head- phone mix)
• 6-channel, interleaved WAV or AIFF.

All this all with just one click!

Need more encoding and playback options?

more encoders, more control, a speaker assignment utility AND IMR’s famous

GLUE and unGLUE feature

The Vortex Surround Encoder

Little Italy

As captured by the Zoom H2 in 4 channel mode..

Presented in ImmersiveStereo.

Get your headphones on and hear the impact of ImmersiveStereo

The Night Train

Captured from the 13th floor balcony. The 9:58 PM freight train horn.

Edits were done to using Audacity for fade in, fade out,  amplification, and arrangement.

The MainLine

Get your headphones on and hear the impact of

ImmersiveStereo™

If you always record in 4 channel  ”Mode” on your Zoom H2 you get the most options from each recording session. The Zoom stereo pairs can be combined into the following formats:

• DTS 5.1 Surround Sound for playback in any DVD player
• Virtual Surround format -ImmersiveStereo™
• 6 Channel AIF or WAV for MP3 Surround Encoding

You’ll be amazed at the impact well spatialized recordings make for use in headphones when you use ImmersiveStereo™.

CREDITS:

Frank Serafine – Captured the original train recording with a Zoom H2

Denver Clay – Provided production assistance and provided  his “hip crickets“

Jochem Paap’s gifts span the breadth and depth of the musical domain.  In Umfeld he and Scott Pagano push the envelope of what is possible in the surround sound domain, and visual domain respectively.

I had the incredible good fortune to see the Umfeld content performed live at Recombinant Media Lab (RML) in San Francisco. The RML experience is in and of itself impressive. Combine that with two brilliant minds like Paap and Pagano and the result is a night of unforgettable performance art. Jochem had these thoughtful words to say about Immersive Media Research (IMR):

“Immersive Media Research is bridging the gap between Hollywood and the academic field; between traditional surround tools which are designed to expand stereo recordings into a multi channel audio format, and home brew patches and apps which do all kinds of interesting things but are a pain to operate. I’m very excited to see where this is going. multichannel audio has become a very commonly accessible format, … Vortex Surround applications will make this a lot more attractive…”

Apple covered their work extensively in this article: http://bit.ly/PaapPagano

Thank you Jochem and Scott for your collective contribution: Umfeld. I can’t wait to see what comes next.

Umfeld clip, the DVD is also now available for sale so be sure and pick up a copy!

Grab  your headphones and goggles for a dusty bike ride across the Playa at Burning Man. You’ll notice the music from the Robot Heart Bus very faintly in the distance as you approach.

Can you identify the blasts from a very large flame thrower in the background?

This field audio surround recording was gathered by Sterling Ely at Burning Man by a Zoom H2 in 4 channel mode. The H2′s 4 channel mode creates a pair of stereo files. This pair  of stereo files  represent a 360 degree capture of the audio landscape. The sole post production tool used to create the audio represented here was the Vortex Zoom Encoder’s “binaural” or ImmersiveStereo codec.

Put on your headphones for a 13 minute bike ride across the “playa” to a camp called “The Robot Heart Bus” and the music of “3L3TRONIC“.