Tutorial: Mid Side with the H6

[@CraigGood]

It's a few years later and now I'm just using a free plugin. This was a fun exercise, but you can save some time and tracks. goodhertz.co/midside-matrix/

[@SonicVision]

I read a few articles, and watched a couple of other videos about doing this M/S converting but yours is the one that worked the easiest and yielded, what I believe to be, the correct result (ie proper left right panning of what was recorded. Even though some of the other videos and articles were for my DAW, Cubase, this one still was the best. Thank you!

[@fenneeuk]

Really really helpful. Although I use Ableton and so had to navigate a couple tutorials in order to port forward the technique across but this was the most precise, concise and fun, so you have my gratitude. I hope you enjoyed your snack :)

[@CraigGood]

While now you'd just use a plugin for this, I do think the video helps one picture what mid-side means and how it works. Thanks for the nice note. The snack was make believe.

[@fenneeuk]

@@CraigGood Cor, you fooled me. I was imagining a bowl of cornflakes or something.

[@CraigGood]

@@fenneeuk The magic of sound design and performance!

[@sandyclaws4439]

Craig! I love your work on the old Pixar shorts! :D

[@samsicles_jr]

This is a fantastic tutorial, thank you! It's clear what you're doing and why and you explain really well! Also using the H6 with Pro Tools but this tutorial would be useful for any DAW really and any MS files.

[@ArleenEngvall]

Thanks! Nice job. If you want to skip the bus routing and make a stereo file out of the Left and right tracks, you can mark them with same length and consolidate each one of them, then drag them to a stereo. :)

[@ServusLabskaus]

Exactly what i was looking for, thanks a lot!

[@Phibonax]

Hi! If I dublicate and then panpot the track, the system read the two tracks as one identical. When I try to export them, pro tools exports just one of them. How can I manage it?

[@bernieburnalot4261]

Thanks for this. Input 1 is MONO, Input 2 is the side. Now I know!

[@spellchanger1169]

Thank you so helpful! WOOOOO

[@Reflections2013]

Hello Craig, nice Tutorial, but one thing I started wondering about 1/2 way through your video... That was a whole lot of work just to adjust the sides.. So I was just wondering if you knew that Zoom has a plugin specifically created for adjusting the MS side mic in post.. Cool huh? :) Go to Zoom's website, click the "Field Recorders" link, click the "H6" link, and then click the "Download" link, and you will see Links for - Full Manual, drivers for 32 & 64 bit systems, Latest Update Software, and also the VST plugin for controlling the MS mic in your favorite DAW program in post. I am waiting now for my H6 to arrive, and am looking forward to getting started in recording with it. I do allot of sound mixing with Reaper, and was excited today actually when on Zoom's website, to see that they had a plugin for the MS mic. When I came across your tutorial, and after hearing you say that no-one had any videos on how to "post" adjust the mic, I thought I would comment and tell you that there is a much easier way to accomplish what you did in this video, and much quicker.. Disclaimer however Craig... I obviously haven't received my H6 in the mail yet, so as far as actually using the plugin, again, obviously I haven't been able to do that ;), but am just going by Zoom's website, but I will definitely be using that plugin once my H6 arrives. Steven

[@CraigGood]

I was not aware of that. If you're using something that can take the plugins they offer (zoom.co.jp/downloads/h6/software/) it would be very helpful. But if, like me, you use Pro Tools 11, you can't use their plugin. Which is a shame. I sent Zoom an email asking when an AAX plugin might be available. I'll report back if I hear anything useful from them. If you're a GarageBand user, grab the plugin and forget this tutorial! Thanks.

[@Reflections2013]

Craig Good Thanks Craig for the response. Hopefully Zoom will respond to your request and make their plugin AAX ;). I am using Reaper, so hopefully the VST will work with that program. I just received an email that said bad weather has delayed my package, so it may be a couple more days before I get to try it out. Thanks again for your response, and if by chance the plugin doesn't work for me either, I will be able to try your technique. From what I understand the Zoom H6 also has a built-in mixer, so maybe that would be an option as well, just a thought..

[@CraigGood]

Yes, you can do it native in the H6 at record time. But that means knowing ahead of time what kind of mix you want.

[@Reflections2013]

Craig Good I definitely agree with that Craig, you would have to know in advance, but I think you misunderstood me about the built-in mixer. I meant that you can adjust the Mid Side Mic in post on your H-6 - The following is a clip from ZOOM's website about the MS Capsule... "By using the MS capsule, you can later use the H6's on-board MS decoder to adjust the width of the main stereo image in post-production". Thanks again Craig for your responses. A side note (no pun intended) ;) is that the website doesn't mention it but you may need to have the latest 2.0 upgrade for this to work, I don't know..

[@CraigGood]

Ah, good catch. I guess it just doesn't occur to me to do mixing on a field recorder. It does a lot of tricks, though.

[@BaronAshkenazy]

Great video! I just wanted to ask about the computer you have, how much memory you need, and storage for doing music editing like that. I have an old iMac that is now too slow for music editing so I'm looking to upgrade. Thanks for your help!

[@CraigGood]

It's a late 2013 Mac Pro, 6-core, 32 GB memory. But you should be able to do fine with any modern Mac, depending on how many channels and plugins you want to run at once.

[@BaronAshkenazy]

Thanks for the quick reply! My iMac is a mid-2010 so I can only upgrade the memory to 16 GB total. I am hoping this is good enough. :)

[@CraigGood]

This was my project tonight.

[@mayomode]

Hi, im following step by step this tutorial with an ambient recording recorded with my Zoom h6 with the M/S capsule, but inverting the phase in mid R i get -3db less in the mix channel than the left channel, what i'm doing wrong? thanks

[@CraigGood]

Not sure. Which one are you calling the mix channel?

[@mayomode]

The channel where i send the three signals mid side l and side r, like a stem or master channel.

[@CraigGood]

So you mean you're sending Mid and Sides to a Master Fader? I didn't add one of those so I'm not sure what that would do. You may not be doing anything wrong. Do you get the stereo/mono effect by changing the gain on the Sides track?

[@joecaruso9990]

Or you can use the plug in from Zoom with Cubase to narrow or expand the stereo......

[@muusicman2010]

I have a rather technical question about the H6....I hope the way I explain it won't confuse you...if it does, let me know and I will try to clarify better... Ok, I'm a singer and my main goal for using this device is using it in a way that I can record directly from my PC sound card into the recorder....Upload that audio track to my video editor...then record vocals on another track and then upload that...thus making a 2 track recording in the video editor...that way it sounds cleaner than just blasting stereo speakers and recording everything through the XY mic that comes with the unit...I don't think it is possible...I could be wrong, but I was sure hoping this would work...that was my ultimate goal in buying the unit to begin with. I hope that does not confuse you...I'm just really let down by what seems to be a huge problem for me! Any advice?? Thanks 😀

[@CraigGood]

+Lucas Cummins You can hook it up to your computer as an audio interface. I haven't tried recording from the computer to the H6 that way, but it's not clear to me why you'd want to do that since you're doing your editing on the computer.

[@muusicman2010]

+Craig Good I got it! :)

[@hamitcampos4989]

do you get it to record Raw MS though? I forget.

[@CraigGood]

The H6 comes with two microphone modules. One is a crossed stereo pair, and the other is a M/S module. So it just records that way when you put that mic on it.

[@MrHamit64]

Ah okay. So it's just switching to multy track mode then. Here's why I asked. I just got an H6 and I knew it could do MS but my friend Neal Ewers who also has 1 and is also blind didn't explain. Well the only thing he did say is as you turn the volume up the higher you go the wider the stereo spread. But when you get to what would be full blast you have now told the machine to go into raw mode. Note here that i'm not using the H6 in multy track mode. I forget where you go to switch that and the manual PDF isn't accessible. So just using the H6 in it's out of the box stereo mode. I thought you just plug in the ms capsel pump the sucker to full blast abnd bingo raw MS mode. I found it not to be true. Which by the way I do think Neal did say that. But he didn't explain weather you had to go to multy track mode or not. I now assume so. Am I correct? Thanks for your help.

[@carlosortiz1224]

has anyone ever told you that you sound like kevin spacey?

[@CraigGood]

You're the first.