Inverted phase and hard panned. Issues?

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slowcentury
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Inverted phase and hard panned. Issues?

Post by slowcentury » Tue Nov 29, 2011 4:14 pm

So on my bands record i have been mixing the farfisa by making a duplicate inverting the phase and hard panning the two channels to give the organ a wider sound. Other than the fact it will disappear in mono are there any other issues I should be worried about down the road? This album is being pressed to vinyl. Thx!

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Post by farview » Tue Nov 29, 2011 5:08 pm

Listening to stuff that people do that to actually gives me a headache. I'm assuming that I'm not alone.

You might run into problems with the vinyl cutting because phase coherence is a big deal when cutting vinyl. But I suppose that would depend on how much of that sound is in the mix. Also keep in mind that when they cut vinyl, they tend to mono out everything below a certain frequency. That could be a problem, depending on what the farfisa is playing.

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Post by kslight » Tue Nov 29, 2011 6:01 pm

farview wrote:Listening to stuff that people do that to actually gives me a headache. I'm assuming that I'm not alone.

You might run into problems with the vinyl cutting because phase coherence is a big deal when cutting vinyl. But I suppose that would depend on how much of that sound is in the mix. Also keep in mind that when they cut vinyl, they tend to mono out everything below a certain frequency. That could be a problem, depending on what the farfisa is playing.
Yeah I also cannot deal with this, gives me some serious vertigo. I personally would suggest looking into other options for this effect rather than the straight duplicate...

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Post by Galen Ulrich Elfert » Tue Nov 29, 2011 6:38 pm

Probably not a great idea for vinyl, especially if the part is loud and/or has any low end. What two out of phase channels translates to is pure horizontal excursion, the needle just swinging side to side (as opposed to up and down, which is what you get from having two channels in phase).

Personally, I think there are better ways to stereo-ise a sound, even just delaying one side. The effect you're talking about can be really unpredictable depending where your head is relative to the speakers.
But maybe that's what you're going for? I'm all in favour of testing boundaries.

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Post by slowcentury » Tue Nov 29, 2011 6:53 pm

Awesome! These are the things I was wanting to hear! Thank you! I though it was a bit of an extreme technique. Good to know about the phase issues with vinyl!

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Post by standup » Tue Nov 29, 2011 7:50 pm

How about mid-side? How does that translate to vinyl?

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Post by cgarges » Tue Nov 29, 2011 8:04 pm

standup wrote:How about mid-side? How does that translate to vinyl?
Mid-side doesn't give you anything on a mono signal except a left-heavy version.
Galen Ulrich Elfert wrote:Personally, I think there are better ways to stereo-ise a sound, even just delaying one side.
Agreed.

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Post by losthighway » Tue Nov 29, 2011 8:55 pm

I find that I get a pretty organic sounding width out of processing a mono track through something that adds a little grit, and something else that adds some reverb (usually a spring) and then panning the dry track and the effected track to some degree. Not often hard left and right, but sometimes.

I've tried the delay-pan trick and never gotten it quite right.

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Post by vvv » Tue Nov 29, 2011 11:24 pm

FWIW, you can make a sorta fake M/S by mic'ing the monitor with a figure-8, using the original track as the mid.

Even easier is to put a delay or reverb on the original track and run it out the monitor and mic it to a new track. Depending on the effect (consider EQ, as well), the mic/monitor combo, etc., the mic distance you can get something subtly stereo, and cool.

If I'm doing a mono organ-type track I'll often dupe it and delay the dupe by 12ms., and then sometimes use a tremolo on parts (say, just the chorus). You might consider having the track mono in parts, stereo in parts.

And of course, you can combine any of the above stuff, ex., when faking the M/S use EQ and/or an effect on the "re-amp" figure-8 side track(s) but leave the original mid un-processed when you mix.
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Post by Dan Rosato » Wed Nov 30, 2011 4:31 am

Another point to consider is that many times people will be listening to your record in a less than ideal environment. If they've got the speakers too close together for whatever reason, or listen from across the room much of the mix might collapse to mono and your organ is gone! I make a point to check all of my mixes in mono for this very purpose.

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Post by fuzz » Wed Nov 30, 2011 6:33 am

I pretty much always track the Leslie MS for organ pad stuff. If the organ has any part stuffs or lines then I'll abandon MS.

This is one of the only uses I've found that I like MS for.

I monitor mixes partially through a tiny 2.1 home stereo with the speakers directly beside each other. From across the room, It's pretty much collapsing to mono. Although the possibility your mix will be heard in mono is not terribly common, your mix being listened to from a good distance from the speakers is.

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Re: Inverted phase and hard panned. Issues?

Post by Nick Sevilla » Wed Nov 30, 2011 8:43 am

slowcentury wrote:So on my bands record i have been mixing the farfisa by making a duplicate inverting the phase and hard panning the two channels to give the organ a wider sound. Other than the fact it will disappear in mono are there any other issues I should be worried about down the road? This album is being pressed to vinyl. Thx!
Here's a groundbreaking idea:

Stereo CHORUS.

Try putting that on the Farfisa.
Howling at the neighbors. Hoping they have more mic cables.

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Post by farview » Wed Nov 30, 2011 9:00 am

Depending on the type of effect you are looking for, you could just add a chorus and call it a day. What I do a lot of times is use a dual pitch shifter with one side about 7 cents flat and the other side 7 cents sharp. When setting the pre-delays, give the flat side a longer delay than the sharp side to balance it out. (your ear will always be pulled toward the sharp side or the side with the longest delay, so you even the balance by giving the flat side the longer delay)

Add that behind the dry track to get the sense of space you are looking for.

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Post by Darlington Pair » Wed Nov 30, 2011 1:48 pm

farview wrote:Depending on the type of effect you are looking for, you could just add a chorus and call it a day. What I do a lot of times is use a dual pitch shifter with one side about 7 cents flat and the other side 7 cents sharp. When setting the pre-delays, give the flat side a longer delay than the sharp side to balance it out. (your ear will always be pulled toward the sharp side or the side with the longest delay, so you even the balance by giving the flat side the longer delay)

Add that behind the dry track to get the sense of space you are looking for.
This is what I was going to suggest, so +1 I guess.

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Post by themagicmanmdt » Wed Nov 30, 2011 3:51 pm

this seemed to happen for the r. stones 'sympathy for the devil', wherein the piano dissapears in mono but feels like 'wide stereo'.

then again, that might have just been bad engineering...?
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