Bass issue making me crazy...(phase related)

  • Thread starter Thread starter stash98
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stash98 said:
So what you are saying is that if I got a clean transient on each track it still wouldn't matter?

So the only solution is to slide the amp track round until it sounds best.......there has to be a better way.
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Better way to what? Isn't the idea of using two tracks together to make it sound different than one track?

The concept is quite simple. You do things to the audio to make it sound the way you WANT IT TO SOUND.

A lot of people go around advocating that you should time align your overhead mics with the snare mic on a drum kit. Now, sometimes, this can help enhance the sound, in certain types of productions. Often though, I find that lining up the snare transients on the overhead to match the snare mic takes all the liveliness out of the overall drum sound. The depth of the sound scape is much less, and often the cymbals sound dull and lack shimmer.

Other times, doing this fattens the snare sound and gets rid of harsh phasey sounding cymbals.

I cannot advocate doing this as a rule. I TRY IT every time I mix drums, but I have to honestly ask myself if it actually makes the drums sound better or not! Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. Until I try it, I don't know.

I have found that I can shift them to be not quite perfectly in phase, and still retain the shimmer on cymbals and what not, but also fatten the snare. So, sometimes, a bit out of phase works well!

Your distorted bass track will not have a well defined attack and decay like the DI signal will, so, you are not going to be able to line things up based upon the "look" of the wave form. What I have been trying to say is that it really doesn't matter how they "look", it is how they SOUND together that you should concern yourself with. Shift it one way, yeah, you get more low end possibly. Shift it the other way, you get a sharper attack and grind which may sound REALLY FUCKING COOL! You don't know until you experiment and have a clue as to how you want the bass to sound for that song!
 
And yeah, if you can't get the two tracks to play together , then there just not compatible spectrally. Back to the drawing board. change settings , try ,try again.


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True Wade...I know pros who still flip put over phasing and think they hear it in mixes...i know an engineer who won't do what I am doing because of the phase issues.

But I read about people who split a signal to an amp all the time and it works just fine.

For example, The Strokes vocals. Pretty sure they were reamped. How did they get them just right?
 
jonnyc said:
Apparently there's a new movement in audio to use your eyes and forget your ears. I've got a bunch of noobs over at tweakheadz and they're trying to get the master volume just right and they're all complaining that they can't tell what's going on because the meters don't exactly tell them where they're at. I mentioned to them that they may want to use their ears and they all told me I was insane that the meters are the only way to know if they've got their mixes loud enough. I said they should just consider learning their set up and use your ears and none of them want to hear it, they want the meters to tell them what volume the song needs to be at. Crazyness I say.
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No wonder FV is about to blow a head gasket!!!!! :p Crazyness, I agree! :(

You can lead a noob to sound waves but ya can't make them listen!!!!!!! :p :p :p


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"2. figure out how much of a delay there is between the amp and the DI track and put a delay inline and delay the DI track so it matches."

How do you do this? That is always a nice option too.

I use my ears when I do music BTW. I just haven't really encountered this issue before, and I want to get down the best system for tackling it.

I also like the RMS idea..it makes sense to try also. I just like to get as exact as I can.

It does sound good to blend the 2 tracks or I wouldn't mess with it...it's just not quite there yet, and still sounds phasey to me.

Ironically, the amped track looks like it is ahead of the DI, but I don't see how this could be possible.
 
It's just funny how fast some people are to throw out the n00b comments, when I clearly stated in my second post that I knew I had to fine tune by ear.

I am just looking for different people's techniques. This thread is definitley helping me out thoug.
 
Back to the lab, don't forget the white coat and cool pocket protector!!! :p

Good Luck!! :)

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flatfinger said:
No wonder FV is about to blow a head gasket!!!!! :p Crazyness, I agree! :(

You can lead a noob to sound waves but ya can't make them listen!!!!!!! :p :p :p


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Now they're saying that they're talking about gain settings and as far as I can tell, well, I can't tell what the fuck they're talking about. I know that they know in their minds what they're talking about but for the life of me I don't get it. I told them just to use their ears, set their preamps gain to moderate levels leaving yourself some headroom and push record. Why does their have to be a meter there telling them where they're at? Why can't they just use their ears, I've been for a few years now and they've never done me wrong, my eyes have though.
 
Put a highpass filter on both tracks and get the lowend out of the equation.

EQ to bring up the attack.

Then use your ears.
 
stash98 said:
It's just funny how fast some people are to throw out the n00b comments,
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thats just the usual noise floor around forums!
people don't really communicate that well, do they!
When you nail it , you gotta tell us all about it!!!!!!!!!!!

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:)

I will for sure. Little things like this stress me out to all hell, and I try and research every angle.

I also stress because i am going to start reamping vocals and snares..synths..etc thorugh my guitar amp. I really like how this sounds under main tracks..This is somewhat of a different animal because I will not be splitting the signal, instead sending out of my DAW and into the amp and back..but still..there will be phasing.
 
stash98 said:
"2. figure out how much of a delay there is between the amp and the DI track and put a delay inline and delay the DI track so it matches."

How do you do this? That is always a nice option too.
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sorry mate, i can't TELL you how to do it. i do it by ear. you could come over sometime and i could show you. :D

sound moves at essentially 1 foot per millisecond. i wouldn't imagine that you need more than a few millisecond's worth of delay to make it work.

but it sounds like if you still can't get it to sound right even after having done all this stuff.......which leads me to believe that there's something wrong with one of the tracks--and probably the amp one.

what are you monitoring on? and what's your tracking (and mixing) room like? there's a possibility you're being "lied to" in terms of your monitoring, or in terms of tracking.

those who split out to an amp know how much delay to compensate for (this is experience), or they use an IBP. or more than likely, they just reamp the DI track, using an impedence matching device like a Reamp.


cheers,
wade
 
Isn't there some softwares that calculate delay caused by using outboard gear? I even thought some sequencers automatically compensated for you, but I'm on PTLE so I don't know shit.
 
Wade..I can definitley Reamp..I have my radial DI coming in soon.

If I do reamp though through my amp..won't I be dealing with the same latency issue?
 
I have a sub and decent monitors..I really want to upgrade to some NS10s because I know those babies well. I have mixed in this room for a while...so it's not the issue.

For this issue, Im using some Sony headphones back and forth with my monitor.
 
Two takes on this- both have mostly been covered but to sum another way..

Go ahead and do the 'record a spike' thing to document and adjust to your offset. (likely a constant- assuming nothing else changes..).

But then find along the way that you can tweak +/- and that 'in-align' may not even be exactlly the coolest tone to be had any way. :)
 
jonnyc said:
Isn't there some softwares that calculate delay caused by using outboard gear? I even thought some sequencers automatically compensated for you, but I'm on PTLE so I don't know shit.
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No you are right.

What I can do when I get my reamp box is send out of my Firebox and make that out an External FX channel. I can then send it back thorugh my mic and that will calculate the delay..that will not help me with my bass DI though, because the routing is different.

Also, if I do make an external FX channel for reamping, I still would have to figure out how to get the reamped sound in time back into my DAW on it's own channel.

Using an external FX channel will bring the reamped track back into the original in parallel, but I would like to be able to have freedom to tweak further down the mix.
 
Im still using the ol ears along with a visual cue from some spikes I made, and I think I got it. It appears to be around less then half an MS off after alignment. The transient spike does work, but just as a ballpark figure.

The tone is there now..and it is worth the hassle..but im going to try and figure out the exact delay time once I get my reamp box.

Will delay change according to what pedals are on? or as long as they pass through the same chain will it always be consistent?
 
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