Out-of-phase monitors and vocal recording

[scott anthony]

Try this as an alternative:

-- leave your monitor wiring as is (i.e., don't invert the phase of one monitor)

-- track the vocal with the monitors as loud as you like (avoiding feedback, for obvious reasons)

-- record a second track with EVERYTHING set exactly the same, except flip the phase on the mic preamp and have the singer stay silent. Nobody talks, nobody moves, nothing.


When you put both of those tracks at the same gain in the mix, the inverted phase of the bleed on track #2 almost perfectly cancels itself out in the primary track. Voila, a clean vocal track. The only problem is that you "waste" two tracks per track of vocal, but ultimately, you could comp them to a 3rd track and record over the original tracks. Or, if you're "in the box", you probably don't care.

Cool! I imagine you'd have to buss the 2 channels together and insert EQ's or compressors there. Or just bounce to a new file...

[midiot]

Try this as an alternative:

-- leave your monitor wiring as is (i.e., don't invert the phase of one monitor)

-- track the vocal with the monitors as loud as you like (avoiding feedback, for obvious reasons)

-- record a second track with EVERYTHING set exactly the same, except flip the phase on the mic preamp and have the singer stay silent. Nobody talks, nobody moves, nothing.


When you put both of those tracks at the same gain in the mix, the inverted phase of the bleed on track #2 almost perfectly cancels itself out in the primary track. Voila, a clean vocal track. The only problem is that you "waste" two tracks per track of vocal, but ultimately, you could comp them to a 3rd track and record over the original tracks. Or, if you're "in the box", you probably don't care.

Cool! I imagine you'd have to buss the 2 channels together and insert EQ's or compressors there. Or just bounce to a new file...

The problem with this is if something is a little different in the chain on the 2nd pass, it may not cancel as accurately, so you'd best to do these back to back.

[max cooper]

Not to be persnikety, but it's a bit more correct to say that the monitors have their polarity reversed.

Being out of phase is dependent on other factors.

There's another technique for tracking vocals with a live band if the singer isn't too loud vis a vis the band.

If you have two of the same microphone, you set them both up with basically the same directional relationship with the band, the only difference being that one of the microphones shouldn't be able to hear the singer.

Bring up the mic with the singer, then flip the polarity on the second mic and bring it up until the background noise (music?) disappears (well, almost.)

Sometimes this works pretty well.

WRT AC/DC recording at low levels, I remember reading a Joe Perry interview back in the late '70's and he insisted that low volume on the guitar amps was the way to a big guitar sound. I've tried this and it works. In my opinion, the amp has greater dynamic range at lower levels; as the level increases, the dynamic range becomes compressed. So, for example, when you really smack the guitar, the amp has enough dynamic range to really respond whereas if it's dimed, it doesn't have much of anywhere else to go.

Then smash the frug out of it with an L2. (hee hee.)