Mar 01, 2005 02:37 pm Thanks for taking the time to share in such detail ! Good stuff, for sure !
Ima gonna bea busy guy . ; )
Phase
Posted on Mar 01, 2005 11:41 am
whosyourdaddy00
Hold 'Em Czar
Member Since: Dec 30, 2004
ok i've finially got my computer to play 23 tracks at once (still sense unstability) but heck it's workin' for now!!!
i'd like to take a second to share something i learned last night, and that is how important phase is. i put it second to gain staging as far as how to get a real slammin' sound.
my adventure started a few weeks ago when i was lining up drum tracks, after gettin' the snare in the OH mics lined up with the accual snare track, my snare sound was jumpin right outta the speakers! so i did the same with my two bass tracks.
lastnight i began to mix 5 distorted guitar tracks, i thought i did a good job with my placement, but i learned that that was not enough. when i zoomed in real close i could really see the Direct track was just bit earlier than the 57 close track, then after that the condensor mic was last. so i lined everyone up with the condensor track....this took quite a bit more time than i thought. at first i was going by the very first transient that was on the track.
upon playback i'd listen to them two at a time then all three together, it was really cool because i could tell if they wern't perfect because it sounded like the guitars were beein' played through a drinking straw, and when i flipped the polarity of one track, it just sounded like a bigger or smaller straw. that's how i knew they wern't in phase yet....when flipping the polarity practically sucks the sound dry (pun intended), then it's in phase. this took some practice but after a few mins. i felt confident, that i had them lined up real good, off to the other two tracks....
i got the other guitarists tracks lined up the same way, then i got to thinkin' what if ALL of the guitar tracks were in phase....HOLY ****! i got all 5 lined up and all of a sudden the low end was sooo deep i had to roll off at 200hz! so then i take it a step further and get the bass tracks in phase with all the guitars....omg there's the thunderus sound i was lookin' for!!
i've never paid that much attention to it b4 but man oh man does it make a difference. i've already got a good ruff mix of the drums and bass (compression, eq, reverb) and man those guitars hold their own completely dry, infact i'm considering just using minimal eq to layer them properly then levin' them dry!!!! i'll have a sample for ya later this week so ya can hear.
on this subject, i've got a friend who, by default, flips the polarity of say any mic that's facing another direction then the rest of the mics...i've found this to be not always best. them polarity switches are quite interesting, i've learned to check them ALL and see what accually sounds best...because those things have alotta impact on the final sound.
peace
wyd
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Mar 01, 2005 02:37 pm Thanks for taking the time to share in such detail ! Good stuff, for sure !
Ima gonna bea busy guy . ; )
Mar 01, 2005 02:59 pm i know good mastering houses have awsome phase tools, kinda similar to the plugins that take vocals out because they're dead mono, i can immagine hearin' that mono track and you'll be able to hear anything that's not supposed to be there, and that'll tell you somethin' is amuck. i'm quite curious to find some tools for checkin' phase...i've got a 'phase scope' in wavlab, but it dosn't tell me a whole lot.
wyd
Mar 01, 2005 03:03 pm now that i think about it, what's the point of checkin' mic phase on guitars anyway??? if you're gonna check in the DAW to fix it, wouldn't it make sense just to get the best tone outta each mic and say to hell with them beein' in phase while tracking??
Mar 01, 2005 03:05 pm WYD, I just wanted to add somehting that helped me through this problem...Check your mix in mono. If your mix sounds good stereo and you switch it to mono and it sounds like crap, you have phase problems. Keep at the phase correction until your mix sounds as good in mono as it does in stereo, then you know your good.
Mar 01, 2005 03:11 pm oh good call bro!!! makes hearin' these things alot easier!
Mar 01, 2005 03:46 pm WYD, if you can spring for a little labs IBP (google it) it will save you laods of time. want one real bad...*drool*
Of course, I track guitars with one mic anyway 'cause I don't like to deal with this phase crap.
Mar 01, 2005 03:49 pm yes it does, I always EQ & mix in mono...worry about the stereo field later. It's also very important as well if your music will ever be played on FM Radio. When your in your car next time listen to what happens to the radio station when your FM signal gets weak, the left and right channel will be blended into mono until there is a strong enough signal to play stereo. So, your mix might sound pretty good in stereo but as soon as it turns mono you may be very surprised at how horrible it sounds (unless you've done your phase corrections like you explained).
Great topic WYD, this is a very important part of mixing.
Mar 01, 2005 04:13 pm I've been checking mixes in mono for a while... never understood why it helped, until now . I feel smart and dumb all at once . heh
Mar 02, 2005 02:14 am Thank you all sooooo sooooo sooooo much for all the info on this thread I've never checked the mono mix b4 as all my tracks inout in stereo and yes It Sucks here goes more work (thnx for giving me more of a headache) LOL
Mar 02, 2005 09:10 am Kaos62, it is a headache but once you teach yourself to mix/EQ/adjust phase in mono you won't believe the difference. This is in my opinion one of the most important steps towards getting a professional sounding mix.
Check any big name commercial CD, they will all sound amazing in mono, and of course even more amazing in stereo because of this.
After I've spent a couple of hours mixing in "mono land" and it is sounding great I sometimes forget that I'm in mono...then of course when the mono/stereo switch gets flipped I can't believe how great it sounds...
Mar 03, 2005 09:39 am I don't know exactly why I am drawn to post on this as I really have no answers. I guess I too want to learn more. Phase relationships are tricky little buggers to work with. Change anything: eq, compression, etc. and phase will change, even in the digital world. A simple test of taking two identical tracks and reversing one will result in no sound output. Apply slight eq to one track and you will get a lot of sound out, not just the eq'd frequencies that you have adjusted. Simply applying the algorighm will alter the phase or timing of the entire track. Often times multiband compression will work better than eq per phase alterations.
Using visual inspection to line up specific 'clips' of a waveform can be a good approach, however, if a broad band of frequencies are represented in the waveform you are bound to throw another frequency out of phase as all frequencies travel at different rates.
I've got one that I'm doodlin with now. Same accoustic guitar, each recorded with two mics, with three seperate takes (6 tracks) and an accoustic bass thrown in for fun, also mic'ed. Nice arrangement with two guitar takes doing creative fill / leads and the bass doing a counter melody. But eeeee-gad, the eq / phase infighting is just too much fun.
Anyway, good post, great input, hope more folks will comment!
Mar 03, 2005 10:11 am af_analog
Do you also pan and apply short delays in mono? If so, could you describe how you do this?
Mar 03, 2005 11:14 am Any pan adjustments that you made will not be heard in mono. I am not sure what you mean by short delays...you will hear delay effects in a mono mix the same way you would hear them in a stereo mix (providing it is not a stereo delay effect, if it is it will just be mono).
The point of EQing/mixing/adjusting phase in mono is so that you can hear the relationships of the different sounds much clearer because they are literally laying on top of each other. Once they sound great laying on top of each other look out cause they are going to sound killer when you flip back to stereo.
I usually wait until the mono process is done and I am back in stereo to add effects such as delay.
Mar 03, 2005 11:28 am Ja, I know why mono, and always check in mono, but if I use some stereo effects (I meant stereo delay in my post) or stereo enhancening I almost always ruin the mono, so I ask how you do it, of course if you want to share this knowledge, or why it ruins mono?
Mar 03, 2005 01:12 pm how exactly does it ruin your mono sound? Usually stereo delay and stereo enhancement effects are very easy to overuse...this might be the problem. I wouldn't worry too much about it though unless the effect is being used throughout the entire track, then if it were me I would try my hardest to make that track with the effect blend smoothly with the other tracks in the mix...or go with a different effect. Also, if the track you are applying the stereo delay to is out of phase, the stereo effect will only magnify the problem.
If it were a stereo phaser than I could see how it would ruin the mono sound because it is sweeping frequencies on that track and probably stomping all over everything else in the mix.
I think if your using a certain stereo effect and it's ruining the mix in mono, chances are it's not fitting in that well in stereo either.
Just some thoughts, it's hard to explain something that I haven't heard...
Mar 03, 2005 03:30 pm The example is simple, I have two tracks of distorted guitar (two takes of recording with different type and tone of distortion), bass, snare, kick are in the middle, overheads are paned wide. I check both guitars (being in the middle) with reversing phase of each and see that it is ok. When I pan them to 3 and 9 and route to stereo track, and delay (5-20ms) left chanell with Voxengo audio delay to get big guitar. And if I switch mono on main output, my guitars turns into something in the bottom. Being in mono I try to tweak delay to get something better in mono, but it is not the sound which I could say is good. And if I pan guitars to the middle when it is much better. So I can get quite good sound being all tracks in middle, but when I start doing stereo it is something what I take wrong approach if I want my song to sound good in mono.
Mar 03, 2005 04:17 pm I am guessing that the two guitar tracks were done through the same amp with the same single mic placement?...If this is the case then there is no question if they are in phase with eachother, they are.
As far as adding delay to one side, this is the tricky part. I know a lot of people use this to make the guitars sound bigger but it isn't easy to make it sound great. How do your guitars sound together in mono before the delay? Usually I find I have to fine tune the EQ of both so that they compliment eachother properly before I do anything else. If you take 2 totally different distorted guitars and lay them on top of eachother they rarely sound "great"...try working on this first, then add delay after.
Maybe we have made it sound easy to get great mixes in mono...this is not the case, it is very hard. I would just try to get the best sound you can, you will get better and better at it the more you try.
Hope some of this helps you, CHEERZ
Mar 04, 2005 03:07 am Thanks for thoughts. Yes, the tracks are recorded with the same amp and mic placement. I get much fuller guitars if I pan them and much bigger if I delay one of them. Panned guitars without delay while mono on main output sound neither good nor bad, something not very impressive in the middle, but if I pan them to the middle it is better in this case. Switching delay makes things worse, I thought it can be this combo filter effect and tuned the time of delay, but it makes little difference. I think, I will try to go to the very begining and will get the mix in mono, and when start to pan, and time to time check in mono. Actually I started to mix being guitars and overheads paned, so maybe I have missed something important which has great impact on stereo. Thanks again
Mar 04, 2005 10:32 am Well, you did say that when you listen to the 2 distorted tracks over top of eachother without delay they do not sound great...this is what I suspected. Work on making the 2 tracks compliment eachother (EQ) as good as you can and then worry about delay. If they do not sound great over eachother without delay, adding delay will only magnify the problem and make it sound even worse. Good luck!
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