Is there a polarity "button" in PT, or must I use

Drake Speedball · Post by **Drake Speedball** » Fri Dec 29, 2006 3:33 pm

Hello,

Last night, I was tracking a friend on acoustic guitar with 2 mics (Bluebird & Cascade ribbon) and noticed that i was apparently having phase issues. It sounded weird, and when I zoomed in on the waveform, the peaks and valleys were opposite each other.

Anyway, since I apparently fried my outboard preamp, I couldn't flip the polarity on one of the mics while tracking. Or can I? Is there a virtual button on the PT channel strip that I missed, or do I have to just track and then flip it using the Audiosuite "Invert" plugin?

BTW, I am using PT 6.4 LE with Mbox on an XP machine.

Thanks for any help,

40percentrobot

JeremyTappero · Post by **JeremyTappero** » Fri Dec 29, 2006 3:42 pm

Hey man.

Many plugins in PT can flip phase. just look through your list.

Drake Speedball · Post by **Drake Speedball** » Fri Dec 29, 2006 8:05 pm

Yeah, I know that some plugs can do that, but I was wondering if there was a way to manipulate the signal while you are tracking...

Nitpicky issue, maybe, but I was just curious.

ledogboy · Post by **ledogboy** » Fri Dec 29, 2006 10:35 pm

FWIW-
I have long thought that it would be nice if you could just hit a polarity button on PT channels. But you can't. I use a mixing board, so it's no big deal when tracking. My usual work around is to just use the basic Digi EQ plug, which is very DSP efficient, and hit the polarity reverse there. It will certainly save you the agony of listening out of phase and then inverting later. Cheers,
Ryan

amyatt1 · Post by **amyatt1** » Fri Dec 29, 2006 11:04 pm

Also, you can nudge one of the tracks forward or backwards until you get another desired sound and the wave forms are more in phase.

ledogboy · Post by **ledogboy** » Fri Dec 29, 2006 11:12 pm

amyatt1 wrote:Also, you can nudge one of the tracks forward or backwards until you get another desired sound and the wave forms are more in phase.

Ahh,
But that's a whole 'nother can of worms than simple polarity reversal. And certainly not possible whilst monitoring.

rydaken · Post by **rydaken** » Sat Dec 30, 2006 12:39 am

you could "duplicate playlist" and apply the "invert" audiosuite plugin. It's found under "other". That way, using the playlist, you have the in & out of phase signals to toggle between. But then again, this won't work on the incoming signal. Only for what is already there.

jmiller · Post by **jmiller** » Sat Dec 30, 2006 1:20 am

I often just use the "Trim" plugin. Or, with 1-band EQ3 I can kill two birds with one stone: phase and hi pass filtering.

Professor · Post by **Professor** » Sat Dec 30, 2006 2:20 am

I also always just use the Trim plug-in, although I'm not sure if that was present in vers. 6.4 or if it showed up later. I wish they would just have something there on the channel strip, but obviously they don't.

Sliding tracks to align attacks is ultimately the best bet if the problem is timing related (one mic closer than the other) while inverting is is really only helpful if the signals are really coming in opposite or close to it. Are the two mics in the same position or do you have something like one by the hole and the other by the neck?

-Jeremy

chris harris · Post by **chris harris** » Sat Dec 30, 2006 6:57 am

make an inverted polarity mic cable.
use this for tracking when you are hearing phase issues.

spankenstein · Post by **spankenstein** » Sat Dec 30, 2006 11:22 am

I use the 1 band a lot. It's really handy to have on most of the channels.

Drake Speedball · Post by **Drake Speedball** » Sat Dec 30, 2006 12:14 pm

Great info, guys! Thanks so much.

Professor, the mic setup was as you described: one at the hole, one on the neck. The timing issue didn't occur to me...

Can't wait to get my copy of "Modern Recording Techniques" so I won't be an uber-moron

Thanks again, guys!

RodC · Post by **RodC** » Sat Dec 30, 2006 12:22 pm

Dang, I use Sonar, it has one on each track, I use it constantly to check sounds. Not sure how I would live without it!!

loveless · Post by **loveless** » Sat Dec 30, 2006 1:40 pm

Cubase has this on each track as well. This is what has always confounded me about Pro Tools. I'm not knocking it but it just seems like a serious headache having to insert an EQ to flip the phase on a track.

leigh · Post by **leigh** » Mon Jan 01, 2007 3:21 pm

loveless wrote:Cubase has this on each track as well. This is what has always confounded me about Pro Tools. I'm not knocking it but it just seems like a serious headache having to insert an EQ to flip the phase on a track.

Yeah, not so much a serious headache, but a bit ridiculous for what's supposed to be the most "pro" software package. Somebody at some point made a design decision not to include a polarity-invert button standard on each strip. Now it's kind of entrenched, and if they add one then they've got to update all the hardware controller drivers, and people will soon enough (and with good reason) clamor for polarity-invert buttons on the hardware controllers themselves...

Leigh

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Is there a polarity "button" in PT, or must I use

Is there a polarity "button" in PT, or must I use

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