Mastering

M

mikemoritz

New member
Well, I got my band's CD mastered the other day, and it was a great experience. The engineer however told me that on one track in particular there was quite a bit of comb filtering happening. Now even after I knew about it, I was having trouble picking it out. The closest thing I heard was a slight delay. He picked it out almost immediately. I'm almost positive the cause of the filtering was due to my reverb track being slightly "off", but can someone give me a pointer or two on how to pick out comb filtering and maybe how I can check for/fix it in the future?

Peace out,
Mikey
 
Did he say on what area?? Phase/comb-filtering are very noticeable on cymbal crashes, as you get this distinct, nasal, flanging sound that occurs....

He may have also flipped the mono switch - if part of the tracks drop out in mono, then there's a good indication of phase or comb-filtering effects happening!


Bruce
 
For a vocal, you can get a thin, hollow kinda of sound.... this can occur when mic'ing a vocalist and an acoustic guitar at the same time.
(acoustic phase cancellation occurs because of the slight delay due to the distance the mic are apart - a portion of the other mic's signal is captured slightly delayed. When the signals are summed together - as in mono - the difference in phase between the 2 signals creates hills and valleys in the waveform that look very much like a comb - hence the term "comb-filtering")

You will never get comb-filtering if only a single mic is used to capture a source.... unless you get messy/sloppy with effects. It's a good idea to check your tracks in mono compatibility to see if you've got any such problems. They're easy to correct (usually!) at tracking or even mix time -- they are virtually impossible to fix at the mastering stage...

Bruce
 
Blue Bear Sound said:
You will never get comb-filtering if only a single mic is used to capture a source.... unless you get messy/sloppy with effects.
Bruce
Click to expand...

Not all together true B.B.S.

You can have phase with a single mic as well.
For example - you sing near a reflective source or a Cymbal near a ceiling and in many more situations. In those cases you will have two sound waves.
1. the source
2. the reflection from the wall or what ever....

As the reflected sound is some what delayed compared to the source, when they are summed you can have phase problems.

Even the mic stand can effect the sound of a mic (hence the C1 gets a good name due to the mic stand and is has nothing to do with the mic itself.... :D )
 
Yes... you are absolutely right Shailat... it WAS 2:00am EST when I posted that and reflective interference didn't occur to me at the time!! ;)

Thanks for catching that!

:)


Bruce
 
Thats ok as long as we arent invovled in some kind of mastering thread these days about doing it at home or something like that........:p
 
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