Phase issues with samples????

[nate_dennis]

So after a year of picking your collective brains, planning, researching, etc I finally started a proper project. But I've run into a weird issue that maybe you can help me with.

I programed my drums and synced it to my 488mkII. I decided to try to make them as realistic as possible, so I ran them through my KRK's. I put one mic on the left speaker and ran both speakers together. My reasoning was that I wanted the mic to pick up some of the right speaker but mainly the left. Then I reversed this. I thought this would give a decent illusion of overhead mics. Since each one picked up a little of both sides but focused on one. (I hope that makes sense.) Amazingly, even though they were recorded seperately I still ended up with phase issues. I re-did the experiment using only one speaker at a time and this helped tremendously. But i still had a little bit of a problem. This doesn't make sense to me. Is there any way for me to do this without issues? Thank you for all of your help thus far and in the future.


-Nate

 

[sweetbeats]

I'm sorry...I don't quite understand what you mean when you say you 'put one mic on the left speaker and ran both speakers together.' Can you clarify?

 

[DuddyGuy]

I'm sorry...I don't quite understand what you mean when you say you 'put one mic on the left speaker and ran both speakers together.' Can you clarify?

My understanding was that he has both speakers playing a stereo drum track (L+R) while mic'ing only the left. He has then gone back and recorded a second track with the mic only on the right speaker. He wants to simulate an overhead mic setup by catching both sides of the stereo spread in each of the virtual overheads... boy don't know if i actually managed to clarify that

This doesn't make sense to me. Is there any way for me to do this without issues?

I would make sure that you have the mics equal distances from the speakers and at perfect opposite angles, also experiment with changing the angle and try to find the point at which the phase issue is at the least, and also ensure that however you are syncing is one hundred percent on time.

 

[The Ghost of FM]

And as a set up aid, monitor your placement of the speakers and microphones through a mono mix on your mixer and when you hear the loudest amount of high frequency information in the cans, you'll have achieve a fairly optimal Mic placement angle. The same idea can also be used when adjusting the azimuth of the heads of a stereo cassette deck when you don't have an oscilloscope handy.

Cheers!

 

[nate_dennis]

yeah, sorry, I'm not always good at explaining things. I had both monitors in relatively close proximaty to one another playing my programmed drums in stereo. I put on SDC (naiant xq) in front of the left speaker so as to pick up mainly the audio from it, but also some bleed from the right. I then reversed this to try to get a stereo image. Thanks for the help. (I hope I explained it better.)



edit: looks like I'm a little late in the game explaining myself. Yes you all had it right. Thank you and I will try your suggestions. I just didn't know you could get phase issues working this way. Live and learn.

 

[sweetbeats]

rule of thumb to minimize phase issues when micing in stereo pairs is to ensure that the mics are at least 3x the distance from each other as each is to their source. In other words if each mic was 1' away from its respective speaker then you want to make sure the mics are 3' from each other.

Ghost's suggestion about monitoring in mono is excellent.

You may as well track both mics at the same time...there is no advantage to doing them separately.

 

[nate_dennis]

You may as well track both mics at the same time...there is no advantage to doing them separately.

Yeah, I'm getting that! LOL I thought I'd avoid phase issues, but I guess not. Thank you all so much. I hope to be posting some results soon.



-Nate