Phase prob. or what?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Rusty K
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Rusty K

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Hello,

A technique of mine is to crank my monitors and move to another room to listen to my mix. On this one prarticular mix I'm getting a "honk" that is messing with the snare when I listen in the next room....up close I can't hear it. I'm thinking that it's a reverb but I was also wondering if it could be a phase issue. I've never really gotten a grasp of "phase", a comprehensive tutorial link would be great.

The fact that it's "playing" with the snare is problematic since the drum tracks are looped. This raises another question for those experienced with looping....how much processing could/should be done to otherwise good sounding loops?

Rusty K
 
Getting up and listening from a distance..I've seen alots of guys do it..for me it helps to hear how a mix is jelling mainly for levels ect. Take some of the prossesing off the loop and see if the offending feq. is still there..if so then listen to see if you have a buildup due to other instr. gathering up with the snare..just a guess..good luck :)
 
thats sound is there in the original sound you just dont notice it because of harmonics and stuff.

it could be like 500hz or something and that seems to be the frequency that travels easy to the other room. I actually noticed this same thing today when i went to a buddies studio, i had to wait outside the door before i went in and he was mixing some drums. The snare sounded honkey and weird but when i went in it was crisp and i didnt hear any of the honkiness at all.

danny
 
Thanks,

I don't think the links helped me much in that they were talking more of recording hardware issues...I mean I'm homerecording a track at a time with usually one mic at a time so it's not an issue with two out of phase input sources.

The drum loop is a very "live" sound with some overtones/rings. The only processing I've done to the loop is some eq trying to find the offending freq's....so far no luck but I'll check out the 500k area. I'm still thinking that it's a problem with the interplay of a verb on another track and some of the overtones/ring in the drum track. I should probably just start eleminating some effects and see if it disappears.

I could probably fix this when I master but I'd prefer to know how to avoid the problem in the first place.

Rusty K
 
Rusty,

> I'm getting a "honk" that is messing with the snare when I listen in the next room <

Brad's answer makes a lot of sense. Some frequencies "travel" better than others, and the filtering added by any rooms between the source and you further color the sound. Yes, every room acts as a filter!

The correct approach is to have good monitors in a good room. Then you can mix the way mixing is supposed to be done! :D

--Ethan
 
update...

I've gone back and re-eq'd most everything...took out more around the 200k It's sounding much better now. Sometimes it's just hard to know when enough is enough.

My biggest problem is that everything sounds good when I'm in front of my monitors. I come back later or listen to the mix on another player and it doesn't sound so good. That's why sitting down in another room kind of gives me just one more perspective before final mix.

Rusty K
 
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