Phase question

A

andicustherobot

New member
Hey guys, first thread here, looking forward to a long a healthy relationship.

Anyway, my question is about phase.

Here's the situation. I'm about to track some slide guitar that the guitarist wants a "huge" sound from. So I've decided I'd try to use an A/B/Y box from the guitarist to split the signal to two different amps, one is a vintage fender champ, the other is a marshall bluesbreaker, which we're recording in two different rooms (one's a dead room, the other a large room) both amps close mic'd with a PZM room mic taped up high on the wall in the large room.

My question is this, should I have to worry about inverting the phase on either of the close mics? or since they're recording through two different sources should I not worry about phase?

Thanks in advance guys.
 
You'll really only be able to tell when you're listening to it. In any case, the problems are going to be lessened if he plays the part twice...
 
you'll pretty much just have to try and see which sounds better.
I, personally, would just wait 'till I could try it in a mix because it's gonna be pretty hard to predict how it's gonna go in advance.
 
Yeah I was afraid of that... The only reason I say that is that I'm tracking everything to tape, and my console doesn't have a phase invert built into the channels... it's a little on the cheap side

Do you think that during playback I could send it into the line input of one of my preamps, invert the phase there, and send it back into the console? Kind of elaborate just for a phase invert but I suppose work with what you've got...
 
Can you just get him to play for a minute, try it both ways, make an assessment as to which sounds best, and go from there?
 
Armistice said:
Can you just get him to play for a minute, try it both ways, make an assessment as to which sounds best, and go from there?
Click to expand...

Yup, I plan on that, but I also like to over think things through the day before, so that I don't go into over thinking the day of tracking.

Thanks for all the replies, I'll post to let you know how it turned out
 
andicustherobot said:
Do you think that during playback I could send it into the line input of one of my preamps, invert the phase there, and send it back into the console? Kind of elaborate just for a phase invert but I suppose work with what you've got...
Click to expand...
Yes, you could do that ..........
 
Quick solution for inverting phase without a phase inversion button. If you are dealing with dynamic mics, take a spare mic cable and swap the wires going to pins 2 and 3, then mark it so you won't get it mixed up with your un-hacked cables and keep it handy. Anytime you have a mic that needs inverted just swap out the cable for the hacked one and presto, instant cheapo phase inversion. I don't know if this will work for phantom powered mics though. I have never been brave enough to try it.

Here's a clearly professional diagram:

xlr.png
 
Last edited:
Murdersgalore said:
Quick solution for inverting phase without a phase inversion button. If you are dealing with dynamic mics, take a spare mic cable and swap the wires going to pins 2 and 3, then mark it so you won't get it mixed up with your un-hacked cables and keep it handy. Anytime you have a mic that needs inverted just swap out the cable for the hacked one and presto, instant cheapo phase inversion. I don't know if this will work for phantom powered mics though. I have never been brave enough to try it.

Here's a clearly professional diagram:

xlr.png
Click to expand...

+1 on this.
 
And just to reiterate:

You can't invert, reverse or flip phase. You can only shift/rotate it. In all cases where there is a switch, real or virtual, the parameter you are changing is polarity. There is a difference and it matters.

Phase is a matter of time, which is the horizontal axis of the waveform in a DAW. Polarity is in the vertical axis. You can use polarity to treat phase problems with varying degrees of success.
 
Well of course. I think mixer and pre-amp manufacturers just label the button/switch things like "phase invert" or "phase reverse" for the sake of the customer, instead of being technically correct, to let the customer know "Hey dummy, phase problem? Just hit this button".
 
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