[Gary Eickmeier]

I have been a recording glutton of late. I have a Zoom H2n, as you know, and
have been exploring its surround sound capabilities. I walked around our
local First Friday event downtown to search for "soundscapes" to record in
surround. Not a lot of luck, because there weren't many musicians that
night. Next, went to my daughter's Youth Orchestra performance at church
during a service. They are conducted by the symphony conductor, who is a
member of that church. Very good music from their strings, plus the bonus of
the organ and the faithful singing all around me.

Went to a dance band event at a local hall, put up three Audio Technika
2050s for the front sound, used the Zoom for the rear sound. But there
wasn't all that much rear sound, and the hall was not real good.

Finally, today I decided to get lazy and put the Zoom on a Jam Stand all by
itself and let it record the Lakeland Concert Band with its internal mikes
in surround, on Concert AGC setting. The AGC on this recorder is very good,
not pumping or splashing on the first loud note at all. So far the sound
quality seems very good. Tomorrow I will play it loud in surround and see if
I think it could use any EQ at all. There are no published response curves
for this recorder.

It's really wonderful how long the batteries last in this thing. Another
plus is that the front channels are recorded in MS, adjustable as to the
amount of Mid and Side - or even recordable raw, so you can mix the Mid and
Side in post. Very easy to make a DTS disc in discrete surround for myself,
and just use the MS front channels for a stereo copy for others.

I encode the surround sound with the Zoom encoder, available at
Vorteczoom.com. You just plop the front channels into one window and the
rear channels into another, and press DTS and it creates a discrete surround
mix that is playable through any home theater receiver with Dolby Digital
and DTS decoding. I burn to CD, and play on my Blu Ray DVD player.

Anyone out there care about any of this? Want more info on encoding discrete
surround? Who else records surround sound? I am evaluating the advantages vs
the extra trouble. Also, whether you want a single point surround recorder
or if it might be better to use extra mikes placed further back in the hall.

Gary Eickmeier