Stereo Imaging - phase and levels: advice sought
Home > Home Recording Forum > Recording Techniques > Stereo Imaging - phase and levels: advice sought
Posted on Mar 19, 2006 08:46 am
docramage
Member Since: Mar 19, 2006
Dear all
The ear's perception of stereophonic sound is partly due to recognition of the relative loudness of the the left and right sounds, but more important is the phase difference as the sounds arrive at one ear before or after the other.
During studio recording with simple left and right microphones this is uncomplicated - just as long as what is sampled is later reproduced with the original levels and phase differences.
However, with multiple mikes the recording engineer has numerous options on his mixer to alter the stereo image from each source, and indeed further options (with multi-track recordings) to make later changes.
My question is: when adjusting the stereo image, does the engineer alter the level, the phasing, or both? Which does the 'pan' control on my Behringer mixer do?
Is the stereo we are given more dependant upon levels than phase? Are there issues if the level and phase don't match natural sounds?
Thanks
Philip
[ Back to Top ]
Mar 19, 2006 12:24 pm Quote:
The ear's perception of stereophonic sound is partly due to recognition of the relative loudness of the the left and right sounds, but more important is the phase difference as the sounds arrive at one ear before or after the other.
It would seem to me that you pretty much answered your own question.
That said, I rarely, almost never, directly mess with phasing...only panning and levels. Regarding your question about the pan control on your Behringer, each side of the stereo image is an independent signal, to the best of my knowledge, all the pan control does is raise or lower the amount of signal (level) being sent to the channels...if panning to the right, it lowers the signal going to the left and increases the signal going to the right...whether or not that has any indirect affect on the phase I can't say as I have never really payed any mind to it, but I can say I doubt it.
Noize2uCzar of MidiAdministrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002
Mar 19, 2006 08:55 pm Hey doc, welcome to HRC.
dB has it spot on as for using levels and panning to achieve proper stereo imaging. Reverb and Eq can help play a role in placement of a sound as well, although their role in the stereo image is fairly minor.
Phasing is more of an EQ type issue and related to mic placement and type. For instance, if you have only 2 mics to use to make a stereo recording of a drum kit. And they are both differant types this can cause a problem as they are both obviously not going to match EQ wise. The normal phasing issues you might deal with with matching mic types, such as just moving a mic in or out to solve the phase issue will not work if they dont have the same EQ curve. So subtractive EQ would be used to solve that type of phasing issue. And help preserve the stereo image you are going after. Adding EQ in that situation will only add to the phase issue.
Hope that helps a little.
Noize
