[SOLVED] I'm ignorant, help! Phase issues between hard panned guitars

From a random website describing the chorus effect "let’s take a moment to remember what the humble chorus pedal was trying to do when it was first conceived. It is designed to replicate the effects that is heard when a group of singers are all singing the same line. Because of the nature of humanity and before the advent of digital manipulation, very few of them will be perfectly in time or even singing the exact same note, so there is a oscillation that occurs and the chorus effect was born"

I retracked the guitars make damn sure i was as close to perfectly in tune as I could be and here is the result Corona Canon Rock 2 by nmans1026 | Free Listening on SoundCloud

I think what we are hearing isnt necessarily a phase issue but just some odd oscillation due to the exact same thing being played twice and being ever so slightly out of tune. I suppose I'm willing to accept this as an answer but if this is in fact the case, how is it that professional recording don't suffer from this problem (not that i've noticed anyways)?

The oscillation is still there in the newly recorded tracks but it isnt nearly as bad as the originals... also, if you'll notice as the mix gets busier the effect seems to get lost in the noise so thats good i guess
At what point do you say "this is good enough"? any ideas on how I could fix or even just improve upon my methods?

Technically the "oscillation" you refer to is due to phase shift. It's not "out of tune", but depending on how close or far the different waveform frequencies are at any given moment, when summed will either; reinforce, reduce or cancel differing frequencies over time as well as "creating" new frequencies by addition of differences.
 
I retracked the guitars make damn sure i was as close to perfectly in tune as I could be and here is the result ...
I think what we are hearing isnt necessarily a phase issue but just some odd oscillation due to the exact same thing being played twice and being ever so slightly out of tune. I suppose I'm willing to accept this as an answer but if this is in fact the case, how is it that professional recording don't suffer from this problem (not that i've noticed anyways)?

It really did seem a bit strange but the last two clips you posted sound identical to me when compared through a mono playback system where the first pair did not.
I can understand the second pair sounding better and the mono version from pair two working better, based on your changes,
but I couldn't understand why the first pair sounded different to each other through mono hardware.

What you're saying makes sense, though. Chorus is pretty much subtle differences in timing and pitch.
I guess your inaccuracies worked as a natural chorus and that natural chorus just didn't like being summed.
 
Technically the "oscillation" you refer to is due to phase shift. It's not "out of tune", but depending on how close or far the different waveform frequencies are at any given moment, when summed will either; reinforce, reduce or cancel differing frequencies over time as well as "creating" new frequencies by addition of differences.
Naw that ain’t how it works. A static phase shift just causes static comb filtering, and if quite definitely does not create beat frequencies. Mixing two zones of exactly the same frequency but different phases does not change the shape of the wave, it just makes the output bigger or smaller depending on the phase difference. This is kind of the basis of all of the FFT processing out there. To get actual beat frequencies - sometimes called intermodulation - the waves do need to have different frequencies. In fact, the beat frequency IS the difference between the two frequencies. If that frequency is the same, that difference equals zero.

Now, if the phase shift is not static but (smoothly) modulated on a single source, it acts very much like the Doppler effect to change the apparent frequency of the output. This is how we make vibrato, and if you mix that with the original, you end up with two waves that are out of tune with one another so they could create beat frequencies. It’s not really the phase difference that causes that, though, but actually the changed frequency.
 
It really did seem a bit strange but the last two clips you posted sound identical to me when compared through a mono playback system where the first pair did not.
I can understand the second pair sounding better and the mono version from pair two working better, based on your changes,
but I couldn't understand why the first pair sounded different to each other through mono hardware.

What you're saying makes sense, though. Chorus is pretty much subtle differences in timing and pitch.
I guess your inaccuracies worked as a natural chorus and that natural chorus just didn't like being summed.

I think what's bothering me about the whole thing is I don't remember having this problem in the past at least not that I've noticed or can remember. Also, back then I recorded real amps, not DI with amp sims. Maybe I just didn't pay attention to it back then? Maybe it's because I recorded with actual amps and microphones? I think I need to spend some time listening to professional tracks in mono to get an idea of what things should sound like
 
Naw that ain’t how it works. A static phase shift just causes static comb filtering, and if quite definitely does not create beat frequencies. Mixing two zones of exactly the same frequency but different phases does not change the shape of the wave, it just makes the output bigger or smaller depending on the phase difference. This is kind of the basis of all of the FFT processing out there. To get actual beat frequencies - sometimes called intermodulation - the waves do need to have different frequencies. In fact, the beat frequency IS the difference between the two frequencies. If that frequency is the same, that difference equals zero.

Now, if the phase shift is not static but (smoothly) modulated on a single source, it acts very much like the Doppler effect to change the apparent frequency of the output. This is how we make vibrato, and if you mix that with the original, you end up with two waves that are out of tune with one another so they could create beat frequencies. It’s not really the phase difference that causes that, though, but actually the changed frequency.

I agree but I did not think we were discussing a static phase shift. IMHO a dynamic phase shift is a phase shift. You are welcome to think differently.
 
But phase modulation on the order of magnitude that happens in a chorus is actual frequency modulation, and essentially the same as detuning the parallel source. If you play two guitars perfectly in tune, but with slightly different timing, each time you hit the string, there will be a static delay between the two. This will cause static comb filtering for the duration of that note. That comb filter will move around randomly each time you hit the strings, but that’s different from what chorus does, and there will be no beat frequencies generated. If OTOH you managed to play exactly in time but one was slightly out of tune, there would not be comb filtering as we normally think of it, but there would be beat frequencies, and it would be more like a chorus effect, though of chorus in a typical chorus, the amount of detune is also constantly modulated. Most of the time when we double track guitars, we end up with a little bit of both phenomena.
 
But phase modulation on the order of magnitude that happens in a chorus is actual frequency modulation, and essentially the same as detuning the parallel source. If you play two guitars perfectly in tune, but with slightly different timing, each time you hit the string, there will be a static delay between the two. This will cause static comb filtering for the duration of that note. That comb filter will move around randomly each time you hit the strings, but that’s different from what chorus does, and there will be no beat frequencies generated. If OTOH you managed to play exactly in time but one was slightly out of tune, there would not be comb filtering as we normally think of it, but there would be beat frequencies, and it would be more like a chorus effect, though of chorus in a typical chorus, the amount of detune is also constantly modulated. Most of the time when we double track guitars, we end up with a little bit of both phenomena.

Yep. Frankly I just didn't feel like explaining comb filtering, which is probably 98% of the OP's issue. So I just used the generic " reinforce, reduce or cancel". My bad.
 
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