typek wrote on Thu, 08 March 2007 11:26 |
Maxim... thanks for the answer.. so.. then.. what exactly determines if the mics are in or out of phase? Doesnt it have to do with the direction they are faced in relation to eachother? Also, what do you use to flip the phase?
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If you're using a DAW, chances are you have polarity reversal buttons on each channel. Or you can find a plugin to do it.. or if you're working on an analog mixing console, you might have polarity switches.... or if you use an external preamp or mixer, it might have polarity switches.
Quick pedantic aside:
Polarity switches are often labeled "phase", but that's technically not the correct term. Phase refers the measure in degrees that two waveforms are apart. (360 degrees is a whole wave). So you could say two wave forms are out of phase when they're 45 degrees apart. Polarity is a 180 degree swap. Flipping the polarity of one wave form doesn't fix phase cancellations, it just makes them sound different.
How the phase of two tracks matches up is mostly luck... sometimes you can predict phase problems, like if you close mic the front and back of a guitar amp... or top and bottom of a snare. But for two mics that are further apart, like overheads that will include some kick, matching up with the kick itself, you just have to experiment.
One method is to just try it and listen to the results... flip the polarity of one of the tracks, and see if the combination is better or worse. Listen for a tonal difference, like the snare gets fuller/fatter. Keep whichever polarity sounds better to you.
You can also zoom in and look at the wave forms. Check where the zero crossings are, and whether the waveform of one track goes up while the other goes down. If so, they'll cancel out somewhat.
Stealing a graphic from somewhere...