Phasing when recording DI & miked simultaneously

spantini

spantini

COO of me, inc.
Do you use any plugin(s) to correct phasing, or just slide a track over to align them? Or. . you don't get enough phasing to worry about?
 
I suppose, if it was audible. But I'm just thinking about the basic situation of the DI guitar being recorded earlier than a miked guitar taking a longer path.

I guess I'm just wondering if anyone experiences a noticeable delay when doing this, and if so does it bother you to the point of needing correction, and how would you correct this?

Here's some light reading on the subject :facepalm::p

Phase and Group Delay | Introduction to Digital Filters

www.dsprelated.com www.dsprelated.com
 
This probably isn't that helpful as you're working in a DAW (and probably weren't looking to spend $1300.00). But I use a stand alone recorder. I'd wanted an additional "nice-ish" preamp and also wanted to DI and simultaneously record my amp. So I bought this guy which has a cool adjustment that let's you dial in the phase alignment with a knob. Works great.

rupertneve.com

5017 Mobile Mic Pre / DI / Compressor — Rupert Neve Designs

Classic tone and control on the go. Comprised of a rugged, portable chassis with world-class preamp, compressor and DI circuits as well as two channel operation, variphase, Silk and DI/mic blending capabilities, the Portico 5017 is an innovative and powerful tool for recording or live performance.
rupertneve.com rupertneve.com
 
I'm kind of in the camp where I'd not be using a DI on Guitar in a studio setting (presuming acoustic) when I have the ability to mic it.

As my username might imply, I've done a ton of guy or gal with guitar stuff. I've worked with a number of artists with really good preamp systems in really good guitars including an artist that used a Pendulum guitar preamp with multiband compression and studio level parametric in his stage rig (Think Michael Hedges Aerial Boundaries stuff). Not one of them I'd take over good mics with a great guitar.

Now if the question is academic, I might take a different approach.
 
PorterhouseMusic said:
This probably isn't that helpful as you're working in a DAW (and probably weren't looking to spend $1300.00). But I use a stand alone recorder. I'd wanted an additional "nice-ish" preamp and also wanted to DI and simultaneously record my amp. So I bought this guy which has a cool adjustment that let's you dial in the phase alignment with a knob. Works great.

rupertneve.com

5017 Mobile Mic Pre / DI / Compressor — Rupert Neve Designs

Classic tone and control on the go. Comprised of a rugged, portable chassis with world-class preamp, compressor and DI circuits as well as two channel operation, variphase, Silk and DI/mic blending capabilities, the Portico 5017 is an innovative and powerful tool for recording or live performance.
rupertneve.com rupertneve.com
Click to expand...
But this does answer my original question of what you might be doing about this. I find that interesting.
 
Folkcafe said:
I'm kind of in the camp where I'd not be using a DI on Guitar in a studio setting (presuming acoustic) when I have the ability to mic it.

As my username might imply, I've done a ton of guy or gal with guitar stuff. I've worked with a number of artists with really good preamp systems in really good guitars including an artist that used a Pendulum guitar preamp with multiband compression and studio level parametric in his stage rig (Think Michael Hedges Aerial Boundaries stuff). Not one of them I'd take over good mics with a great guitar.

Now if the question is academic, I might take a different approach.
Click to expand...
I suppose this is academic for me as I've not dealt with recording a guitar DI and mic'd simultaneously. I was reading about phase differences between the two tracks and popped over here to see if anyone has experienced this, and what they would do to correct it if they thought it was bad enough.

Would this be much different than recording an acoustic with a matched pair at different distances? I suppose that would generate a more noticeable phase difference - increasing with mic spacing. More noticeable as compared to the guitar being DI & mic'd?
 
May I ask, what are you guys doing with your DI signal? Why do you need it? Is this electric or acoustic guitar?

EDIT: I should be more clear. I know why and how to use a DI signal. I do it all the time to record my guitar tracks.
What I meant was, who cares if it's out of phase? Do you actually use it in the mix?
 
Last edited:
The original article I was reading was referring to an electric bass guitar going DI and mic'd amp simultaneously. I can't imagine there would be much phase difference to worry about - not to my ears anyway.
 
spantini said:
The original article I was reading was referring to an electric bass guitar going DI and mic'd amp simultaneously. I can't imagine there would be much phase difference to worry about - not to my ears anyway.
Click to expand...
Oh, bass. Yeah, I've never mic'd a bass. I do love the sound of a mic'd bass though.

I've known people that have mic'd a bass and combined it with the DI. I don't think phase was an issue. It was never mentioned anyway.
 
Last edited:
Now for bass, I can see DI and mic'd amp and issues of phase. For me it is an issue of keeping the bottom tight and less about phase issues at the top end. Waves makes a cheap though now old plug in called InPhase. Easy to line up phase of the two tracks for this.

Back when I was doing a lot of Folk live stuff, the standard was Fishman Blender system using a piezo in the bridge and Countryman mic in the body. For live recordings, I'd take separate tracks from both. I've gotten some really great performances and phase wasn't an issue. Mixing the two didn't really matter much from a phase perspective.

Same with a stereo pair in the studio. I am not summing them but rather panning them.

Now with drum overheads, I correct for phase to center the snare if it is an issue.
 
I capture electric bass both DI and mic'd-cabinet (I use my 59 Bassman Reissue) on about half of what I do. Depends on the track. But simply having each signal to dump, blend, eq differently, etc... as a project grows and takes on a life of it's own, it's nice to have the options. I don't dig getting bogged down in too many options but this is one that I think has proved worth it. I'm a total amateur chump - but it's become a preference since tracks are plentiful and memory is cheap. Getting the bass gtr sounding dialed in is worth it.
 
At some point, I want to get a small bass combo amp (Ampeg RB110, e.g.) and do the DI/mic'd thing in my apartment (not DI from the amp). I think I can isolate it well enough, but one of the articles I read got into phasing, so I asked about it here.
 
spantini said:
The original article I was reading was referring to an electric bass guitar going DI and mic'd amp simultaneously. I can't imagine there would be much phase difference to worry about - not to my ears anyway.
Click to expand...
Bass frequencies are long which is in your favor.

Starting at 40hz one cycle is 25ms, 80hz 12.5ms. At 70*F speed travels at 1130 feet/s. 0.1 miliseconds is .0001 seconds. 1130x.0001 = .113 feet or about 1.35 inches. Pretty close to the distance you are placing the mic in front of the speaker. So about 1ms of difference.

Electrons travel close to the speed of light so if you are all analog till you go into the computer, you shouldn't see earth shattering phase issues at the bottom end. Add modeling pedals and amps with conversion and all that, well, that's another story.
 
Last edited:
I will just move it in the daw. I would generally record the guitar plugging in, to make a sharp click. This gives you something to see to make sure you can line up the tracks. You will also be able to see if the polarity is the same as well
 
In a word, no. Only if for some inexplicable reason they wer 180 out of phase, I'd flip it, but in my experience, the mic and DI were always close enough
 
I never even think about phase if I do a DI/mic mashup. I think purely in terms of the sound. I've often done a mic'd amp/DI/Line out thingy on the bass, combining all three onto one track. I play about with the EQ and volume on each track but the eventual bass has always been a winner. I wouldn't even know if it was phasing and if it did, I'd probably think "cool !"
I'm more old truant than old school.
 
Very often we’re relying on the DI and the mic for very different things and treating them very differently such that they end up just not overlapping enough for significant phase based interference to be a real issue. But yes, when it is an audible issue, we do what we need to do. Whether that means nudging or phase rotation or actually just creating more separation, we do what sounds right.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top