Using phase cancellation to your advantage?

  • Thread starter Thread starter gianelli280
  • Start date Start date
gianelli280

gianelli280

New member
Probably a silly question, but... Supposing the mix NEVER goes mono, could one use phase cancellation to their advantage? Say you have two guitar parts panned left and right, and they're out of phase from each other, would that open up the center if the guitars were panned hard?

It seems like for it to work one wouldn't be able to get the full effect anywhere other than a reasonable listening environment. Has anyone ever played around with this?
 
If you pan them hard, there wont be any phase cancellation. It only comes into play as both start to occupy the same space, so in that regard I don't think there's any PLUS for intentionally reversing polarity of one track.
AFA phase differences...well that comes into play all the time when using multiple mics on one source. There are many boxes that allow you to "dial in" the phase of one mic relative to the other, until the combination sounds good to you, and it may not necessarily be when they are in almost perfect phase.
IOW...the slight out-of-phase position might give just the color you want. :)
 
If the guitars are two separate takes they'll never be coherent enough to be either in or out of phase long enough to matter. If it's one guitar double mic'ed and panned hard the phase won't cause cancellation because they aren't mixed (at least not electronically). Well, there will be cancellation in the listening area that will vary with position, but that's true of all stereo mixes.
 
I see, and these boxes are like preamps, or dedicated to phase adjustment? I only ask this because i've been re-amping guitars recently, and although they aren't exactly the same every time, they're pretty darn close, and i could tell in a mono setting that phase gets pretty wild when you reamp the same guitar part more than once.
 
miroslav said:
If you pan them hard, there wont be any phase cancellation. It only comes into play as both start to occupy the same space, so in that regard I don't think there's any PLUS for intentionally reversing polarity of one track.
Click to expand...

Okay, wait a second, are we talking about phase or polarity?
 
I was talking about both (but separately) as they are tied to each other at the extreme points.

I got the feeling the OP was referring to polarity when he said "cancellation"...though I also mentioned about the varying phase differences where it's not complete cancellation, and how it can serve as a "tone" shaping tool.
 
yup, polarity.. my bad. but glad i asked, thanks for the tip! It seems that i'm unable to nudge parts in small enough increments to where the part doesn't sound out of time, i'll pick up one of those boxes, seems like i could use one in my arsenal.
 
gianelli280 said:
.... I only ask this because i've been re-amping guitars recently, and although they aren't exactly the same every time, they're pretty darn close, and i could tell in a mono setting that phase gets pretty wild when you reamp the same guitar part more than once.
Click to expand...

That would make sense as where the same d/i track reamped twice would be very much the same- +/- some mic/speaker placements, reflections maybe.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top