Mix restoration - phase issues

M

markburgle

New member
Hi guys, I have a problem. I went to do a new mix of an old tune but the vocals are missing. As redoing them is not an option I decided to try using the original mix as the source for the vocals by manually syncing it to the remaining multitracks (an interesting technical challenge I thought)

Unfortunately the orig. mix and the multitracks seem to be slightly different lengths. I've lined them up to the point where about the first bar sounds right but then they start to go out of phase.

I tried timestretching the orig. mix - but even one sample extra OR fewer in length makes things worse (i.e. before timestretching the drums are merely out of phase - after timestretching you can hear distinct doubling of drum hits by the end of the tune).

This makes no sense to me as surely there's no smaller increment than a sample by which the lengths could differ? Anyone know why I can't seem to fix this, or have any ideas as to how I could? I'd love to hear from you

Thanks!
 
bouldersoundguy said:
Welcome to the forums.

We're going to need specifics. What software are you using now? What system was the original mixed on?
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Thanks boulders, well the tune was recorded mixed on a Roland VS-880 digital 8 track. It was mixed down onto an iMac G4 running Logic 7.

Before I sold the Roland I recorded all the multitracks from it onto my laptop (Powerbook G4, running Logic 7), through a Motu Ultralite 828 MkII interface.

My current system is a Macbook running Snow Leopard 10.6.8, and I'm using Logic 8 (although I've been playing with this in Cubase SE as well).

Hope that helps!
 
How was the Roland connected to the G4/Logic 7 for the mixdown and to the Ultralite for the transfer? Were the connections analog or digital? I'm just trying to identify how the drift may have happened before trying to figure out how to undo it.
 
Yeah, I got caught up in the details. Most likely you won't get it close enough to make it work. But it's a fun exercise.
 
bouldersoundguy said:
How was the Roland connected to the G4/Logic 7 for the mixdown and to the Ultralite for the transfer? Were the connections analog or digital? I'm just trying to identify how the drift may have happened before trying to figure out how to undo it.
Click to expand...

In both cases the connections were via audio cables, jack to jack or jack to phono - I played the tracks back on the 8 track and recorded the signal into the Mac as a 'live' sound source (for both the mixdown, and the later transfer). There was no USB transferring or similar.

And miroslav... bearing in mind this is a pretty noisy, lo fi tune - the original vocals were mixed with nothing much in the way of bottom-end, which means I could afford to EQ all the lows from the original mix, and then using my since-improved skills, use the multitracks to create a new mix with much better clarity and punch in the lows, as well as some extra clarity to the highs.
 
markburgle said:
In both cases the connections were via audio cables, jack to jack or jack to phono - I played the tracks back on the 8 track and recorded the signal into the Mac as a 'live' sound source (for both the mixdown, and the later transfer). There was no USB transferring or similar.
Click to expand...

I take it you mean analog rather than using a SPDIF digital connection. You specify the Ultralite for the track transfer, but don't specify what the receiving hardware is for the mixdown.

In any case, going to analog for either means there is going to be drift of some sort, and the audio is getting resampled. That's going to make it hard to line them up close enough to avoid audible phase interactions.
 
this is a time base issue when the clock drifts. In cuebase/nuendo for example, we can quantize the audio to align the sampling hitpoints to correct time base errors.

most of the times this works nicely and the mix itb works out. If it doesn't there are too many sampling errors for combining itb to work so the alternative is to go and buss out of the box into a passive or really clean active mixer with pads.
 
Cheers drtechno, apologies for delayed response, I don't think my version of Cubase (SE) has audio quantize, I'm going to see if I can do it in Logic 8.

Can you clarify the latter half of your post for me? Not sure what the plugging into a mixer part is about, thank you!
 
markburgle said:
Can you clarify the latter half of your post for me? Not sure what the plugging into a mixer part is about, thank you!
Click to expand...

otb mixing. take the track out seperately and buss the others shift the i/o delay in factions of msec of a time if it just phase.
but it does make me wonder is your tacks are all the same digital format.

...and down to the man who makes a negative remark about my post and don't comment..
 
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