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phase.... what`s the story?
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parapsyched
Scratch 22
Started Topics :
72
Posts :
548
Posted : Jun 7, 2006 14:04
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any insights on phase differences and how to use them to our advantage?
cause for me it`s kinda of a blur....
i`ve been playing around with it a bit and realized this can be used for 2 million different things but i can`t figure out what exactly is going on...
and what about using phase shifts in your mix?
thanks to all u "santas little helpers" out there......
  if u dig deep enough u just might reach the sky...
"dream is destiny"
http://www.scratch-22.com |
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le barde
Electrypnose
Started Topics :
32
Posts :
348
Posted : Jun 7, 2006 17:14
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phase is mostly regarding music records with microphones.
we almust don't need it in electronic productions, except to simulate a larger pan fx or to correct a pan fx we don't wish.
it's pretty important to not be out of phase in the bass frequencies coz it can result quality loss.
but most kik-bass nowdays are mono. |
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zafer
IsraTrance Full Member
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65
Posts :
290
Posted : Jun 7, 2006 17:44
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how do i know-hear my bass is out of phase? ....big pupils, red eyes, nervous tics,.....?
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Colin OOOD
Moderator
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5380
Posted : Jun 7, 2006 18:38
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One single sound cannot be 'out of phase', as phase is a purely relative thing between two sound sources. For maximum impact with your kick and bass though, you should bounce down a short section including all processing, and check that the waveform makes its first greatest journey in a positive direction, as this indicates an outward movement of the speaker cone and therefore a solid compression wave of sound, rather than a rarefaction. Strictly speaking though this isn't a phase issue but one of waveform inversion.
BTW the concept of phase is used a lot in electronic music production as all modulation effects (flanger, phaser etc) use phase cancellation of one sort or another to get their sounds.
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le barde
Electrypnose
Started Topics :
32
Posts :
348
Posted : Jun 8, 2006 00:02
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Quote:
| BTW the concept of phase is used a lot in electronic music production as all modulation effects (flanger, phaser etc) use phase cancellation of one sort or another to get their sounds. |
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yeah .. and also phase decay i think you mean.
Zafer, if your bass is out of phase, it can result you hear the sound more on one or other side of the pan center (even if it's well center placed sound).
if you're difference is 180° .. it may be almust inaudible.
in theory, if you put 2 speakers closed and turned opposite to each others, with a out phase of 180, it should cancel the sound.
but practicaly it's totaly different .. so an analyser is welcome to find such troubles.
i tried to pass many stuffs in phase analyzers, well known artists or even professional pop music .. and lot of time you can see a good amount of "out of phase" sounds.
i dunno all theory about, but it's certainly very useful at a stage of the process ... maybe not entierly for the end mix.
will look for some infos.. if colin do have some more infos about, im pretty interested.. coz i still trust more my ears than the analyzers |
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Fugga
IsraTrance Junior Member
Started Topics :
23
Posts :
203
Posted : Jun 8, 2006 02:23
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if my memory serves me well ..... one of the major things to look out for in phase is similar to what "le barde" said with phase 180 degree effect.
RADIO stations in the past often used to broadcast there shows in MONO in a result some tracks that had bad phase issues would change dramaticly and with alot of the case certain parts of songs were tottaly different due to bad phase.
so it's suggested that it is a good idea to bounce your music to Mono.. and check for phase.
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Colin OOOD
Moderator
Started Topics :
95
Posts :
5380
Posted : Jun 8, 2006 02:39
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bandarlog
Bandarlog
Started Topics :
44
Posts :
809
Posted : Jun 8, 2006 02:53
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Quote:
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On 2006-06-08 02:23, Fugga wrote:
if my memory serves me well ..... one of the major things to look out for in phase is similar to what "le barde" said with phase 180 degree effect.
RADIO stations in the past often used to broadcast there shows in MONO in a result some tracks that had bad phase issues would change dramaticly and with alot of the case certain parts of songs were tottaly different due to bad phase.
so it's suggested that it is a good idea to bounce your music to Mono.. and check for phase.
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I have this problem sometimes, when I stereo enhance or seperate sounds harshly they sound different in mono. So my solution is: make it sound good in both  But it would help knowing how to solve thos problems quickly (by correcting these phase issues.) |
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WAVELOGIX
Wavelogix
Started Topics :
136
Posts :
1214
Posted : Jun 8, 2006 09:17
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phase decay ... ? me neither .. ? pls fill up guys !
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UnderTow
Started Topics :
9
Posts :
1448
Posted : Jun 8, 2006 19:19
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What is phase? If you look at a single cycle of a sine wave, the start of the wave is at 0 degrees. The first peak is at 90 degrees, the first zero-crossing 180 degrees etc untill the end of the first cycle which is at 360 degrees or back to zero.
You can represent phase in several ways. One is as I did above in degrees but you can also represent it as time because essentially, they are the same thing. If you take a 1Hz sinewave, it takes one second to go through one cycle so you can say that half way through the cycle, at the zero-crossing, you have passed 0.5 seconds or 180 degrees. As long as you are clear with the terminology, time delay and phase shift are interchangable concepts.
So by now it should be clear that one way to introduce phase shifts in sounds is to delay the sound and thus introduce a phase shift. This is very common issue when recording sounds with more than one microphone. As the distance between the source of the sound and the different microphones is not the same, the time it takes to arrive at each microphone isn't the same either so there is a relative phase shift between the signals recorded by the different microphones. When you later combine these signals when mixing, you can have problems as parts of the signals either add up or cancel. If the timing difference is exactly half a cycle at any particular frequency, you have a 180 degrees phase shift and the sound cancels out.
In electronic music, we don't use microphones that much so this isn't really an issue. On the other hand, we can manipulate the sounds with plugins or by introducing timing differences so that there are phase shifts in the signals. In this case we are always talking about relative phase shifts. For instance, you can delay one side of a stereo channel relative to the other to create a different stereo perception.
Alot of stereo enhancer plugins use this trick. What they do is take the signal from one channel, invert the polarity, mix it in to the other channel and vice versa for the other channel. This gives the perception of a larger stereo field. There are variations on this theme.
This brings me to one of my pet peeves. Most mixers (analogue, digital or virtual) have a polarity inversion switch on each channel. These are not phase shift buttons because the signal does not get delayed. They are just polarity switches and have the same effect as inverting the hot and cold wires in your cables.
Another little note, I never use stereo imagers or anything like that on the main stereo bus when mixing because I don't like to affect all sounds this way. I much prefer to use such plugins (Like the Sonitus Phase plugin) on individual sounds or on groups of sounds. This means I have more control over what is dead center, slightly panned left and right, panned hard left and right and stuff that has phase tricks applied.
The advantage of working this way is that, for instance, the main lead sounds stay more defined and arn't "veiled" or "diffused" in any way by the phase plugins. It also means I have a larger stereo field to place my sounds in without things getting clutterd.
I can have a lead panning left and right (or whatever) and beyond that have atmospheric sounds like pads and wooshes that are behind, further out left or right or even in front without them infringing on the space of the lead.
If you place a stereo enhancer/imager on the stereo mix, you are diffusing all the sounds. This can be a nice effect but you actually have less three dimentional space to work with.
And I have never heard of phase decay either.
Oh and I couldn't give a rat's arse about mono when making music. Mono should die a quick death and be forgotten asap.
UnderTow
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le barde
Electrypnose
Started Topics :
32
Posts :
348
Posted : Jun 9, 2006 09:09
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excuse me .. translation mistake ..
not decay, but shift .. like undertow well explained in his post |
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texmex
Started Topics :
5
Posts :
189
Posted : Jun 9, 2006 10:52
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To iterate Colin's comments:
Some effects like comb filter, flanger and chorus are based on the phase shift to create moving/altered frequency content. The idea is simple: take the original sound and mix it with a slightly delayed signal. Depending on the delay some frequencies will be boosted and others cut. This is the comb filter. Now alter the delay slightly with lfo to create chorus or flanger in which the peaks and valleys of the comb filter are moving (which one it is depends on the delay and the modulation depth). To get more complex sounds feedback can be used too.
Then there is also the phaser, which is based on cascade of filters called all-pass filters which do not alter the frequency amplitudes but only the phase. Mixing the altered signal with original again creates boosts and cuts, but each boost/cut can be controlled independently with the all-pass filter cutoff, so the output can be more lively and complex.
So phase shift can be a friend too
btw izotope's ozone mastering plugin has a multiband stereo width with phase shift... it can be used to expand and shift only the wanted frequency range (like highs). At the same time you can make the bass almost mono just to be on the safe side. Or you can use phase shift on the bass as an effect... ~180 degree phase difference on bass end sounds very mind-boggling and i believe this has been used in some tunes too.
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