Fibes wrote on Sun, 19 February 2006 01:29 |
Yeah and a lot of consumer gear doesn't allow for it but a simple flip at the bay, although not as immediate as a switch can be a Mithrasend.
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I think that's a huge part of the problem. People record on gear that doesn't have a polarity invert switch, so they never actually get to check all their mics are in phase. And they never think to check when they get it into their DAW, if they do get it into a DAW.
I used to do lots of live work, and mixing on boards without a polarity button would kill me. Being able to invert the vocal and hear it suddenly jump out of the speakers cos it's now not cancelling against the stage sound makes mixing in a small club so easy.
So many cheaper boards don't have the switches that you never actually get to try that unless you wire a couple of cables crossing pins 2 and 3 at one end. Of course, then you run into problems if you're using phantom power as well.
This topic is close to my hear. We had a client who re-recorded the drums on his album with a different player. He went to another studio and got a producer/engineer he knows to do the session. I now can't listen to his record cos the phase distortion in the kit kills me.
Sticking an FET47 outside the kick gives a great kick sound, but when the drummer plays a really clanky, washy ride, and really digs into the thing, that 47 picks up lots of ride as well, especially with the top of the mic being open and pretty close to the cymbal.
Never mind the fact that the kick channel clips every time he hits a crash. Add that to the overheads with the suspect phase between themselves and the whole image goes screwy every time he goes onto the ride. There's way too much cymbal wash in the kick channel to gate it out, and every crash sounds odd in the gate as well.
And one of the overheads crapped out during tracking as well.
I love the guys work, and can't listen to the album. It's that bad.
He loves it. He doesn't know the difference between a great capture of the wrong drummer, and a bad capture of the right drummer. All he hears is the drummer. Maybe I'm just too anal???
I offered to mic the kit as well, Not very happy about it still. Can you tell?