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01-27-2019, 04:14 PM
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#1
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Mar 2009
Posts: 604
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Why am I having to phase invert harmony guitar parts?
I'm recording all my guitars via DI (no mics) using the same plugins in all instances. I double track rhythm left and right, no issues there.
Issue comes when I do a lead down the middle and then a harmony lead down the middle. With the phase invert button unselected on both channels the sound becomes tinny and choked and the harmony and lead parts sound like they are canceling each other in certain frequencies, hit the phase invert button on one channel and the sound becomes fuller and the harmony and lead part can both be fully heard.
From what ive read, when recording guitars seperately there should be no phase relationship so why is this happening?
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01-27-2019, 04:50 PM
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#2
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jan 2014
Posts: 5,208
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It is possible the harmonies are generating some harmonics that cancel with the original line but it shouldn't be drastic. Can you post separate file examples of each?
Did you use the same cable both times? Another possibility is the polarity of two cables are different.
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01-27-2019, 05:10 PM
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#3
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Calgary, AB, Canada
Posts: 6,551
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Are you using a different pickup? Is it wired out of phase?
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01-27-2019, 07:40 PM
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#4
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: May 2017
Posts: 3,202
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It sounds like your speakers are out of phase
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01-27-2019, 08:02 PM
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#5
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: Kalispell
Posts: 14,745
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What is the Harmony track playing, is it different notes. If they are different notes it would be weird for them to be having that kind of phase issues. However, if the notes are the same, then there's definitely going to be phase issues, especially if they are both going down the middle.
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01-27-2019, 09:02 PM
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#6
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jan 2014
Posts: 5,208
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Philbo King
It sounds like your speakers are out of phase
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If the tracks are lined up down the middle I think it would have been noticeable from just one track but yes, definitely rule out speakers by using headphones or turning one speaker off.
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01-27-2019, 09:16 PM
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#7
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Mar 2009
Posts: 604
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Philbo King
It sounds like your speakers are out of phase
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I'm using headphones
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01-27-2019, 09:29 PM
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#8
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Mar 2009
Posts: 604
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https://soundcloud.com/mikethemental...ies-phase-test
same passage repeats twice
first without phase inverted
second with phase inverted
you can tell just looking at the waveform there are slight differences
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01-27-2019, 10:15 PM
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#9
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jan 2014
Posts: 5,208
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They only sound different in the second half of the riff when you switch to playing the same note in both parts. That is to be expected, really.
Any other difference is just wave cancellation which is happening all the time no matter what the sources are.
With distorted guitars, you are looking at a lot more potential for interference because you are accentuating the harmonics of the notes.
The same reason why a power chord sounds so fat with distortion on it
Below are two sine waves in perfect fourth (which is what your using mostly in that riff) with distortion added:
The two highest peaks are the original waves. But with distortion you can see we also get harmonics above and below at substantial volume and these are bound to interact with each other.
Last edited by Fergler; 01-27-2019 at 10:25 PM.
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01-28-2019, 08:52 AM
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#10
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: Silicon Valley, CA
Posts: 2,779
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Quote:
and then a harmony lead down the middle.
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I assume you are not actually playing a separate harmony part... You are using a harmony effect, right? Where the harmony part is derived from the lead?
Different delay/harmony/chorus/ADT effects will behave differently but these things can happen since the 2nd waveform is derived directly from the 1st because the phase relationships are determined by a computer algorithm.
If you play the parts separately the phase & timing differences will be random and this shouldn't happen.
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01-28-2019, 11:56 AM
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#11
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Mar 2009
Posts: 604
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DVDdoug
I assume you are not actually playing a separate harmony part... You are using a harmony effect, right? Where the harmony part is derived from the lead?
Different delay/harmony/chorus/ADT effects will behave differently but these things can happen since the 2nd waveform is derived directly from the 1st because the phase relationships are determined by a computer algorithm.
If you play the parts separately the phase & timing differences will be random and this shouldn't happen.
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I'm playing all parts seperately
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01-28-2019, 12:18 PM
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#12
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: Oblivion
Posts: 10,255
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It's generally not a good idea to double guitar lines using the same tone. The waves will be too similar and will likely cause phase problems. Best thing is to change guitars and/or amp for overdubbed guitar, esp if they play the same part. You'll get a bigger, more characterful sound this way too.
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01-28-2019, 12:21 PM
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#13
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: May 2009
Posts: 29,260
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DVDdoug
If you play the parts separately the phase & timing differences will be random and this shouldn't happen.
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And sometimes the timing/phase will be near identical and things will cancel/add - pretty much everything we ever hear is due to some cancellation somewhere. I see this when a guitarist is extremely tight with themselves and play the same part, once performance for the left and one for the right, when they happen to line up perfectly, they will sort of jump to near mono for a moment. I suspect the OP is experiencing something like this, except it's already in mono and they are just hearing the stuff that matches up (or rather off just enough to cause some cancellation) - aka what Fergler said.
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Music is what feelings sound like.
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01-29-2019, 01:30 AM
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#14
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jul 2014
Posts: 674
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Quote:
Originally Posted by karbomusic
And sometimes the timing/phase will be near identical and things will cancel/add - pretty much everything we ever hear is due to some cancellation somewhere. I see this when a guitarist is extremely tight with themselves and play the same part, once performance for the left and one for the right, when they happen to line up perfectly, they will sort of jump to near mono for a moment. I suspect the OP is experiencing something like this, except it's already in mono and they are just hearing the stuff that matches up (or rather off just enough to cause some cancellation) - aka what Fergler said.
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Seem like the most likely cause.
The one thing I might try to narrow it down is just copying the first track to another track to see if it does the exact same thing.
If it isn't really along the same line when an exact double is playing against itself, it is most likely what Fergler and Karbomusic are discussing.
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01-29-2019, 01:36 AM
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#15
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jul 2014
Posts: 674
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One other thing that occurred to me while listening on earbuds...
Sounds like the harmony is there in the left if you take the right earbud out as well as the right if you take the left earbud out.
Is that the case? While it sounds like what you are describing, I just want to be sure.
If so, you could try to some panning closer to hard left and right(let's say one part at three o'clock and the other at nine o'clock) and see if the issue you mentioned seems as pronounced.
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01-29-2019, 08:39 AM
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#16
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: Sweden
Posts: 1,541
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Are you using two mono recordings - or are you using two recordings from a VST amp sim which are stereo each?
You should normally be safe as you describe it if doing mono recordings.
But two stereo - becomes a mosh if blended like that.
Anyway, Waves S1 Stereo imager is really useful
https://www.waves.com/bundles/gold
Gold bundle contains muchos goodies 30+ plugins for $99 right now. Including S1.
I use S1 for many things, like narrowing leslie from hammond, which usually is full stereo and things like that. You can set it to occupy 1100-1400 or so in pan if you want.
But as always with spatial kind of processing - check in mono also to see nothing surprising is happening.
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01-29-2019, 08:44 AM
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#17
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: Sweden
Posts: 1,541
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..continued, for some reason I cannot post edited posts....
Fake stereo is often created by doing 180 degrees phase between channels. So blending two of them later, not good.
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-- Windows 11 Pro, i7-12700F 2.1GHz 32G, RME Digiface USB Audient ASP800 Lexicon MX200, Reaper 4.78 --
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01-29-2019, 05:06 PM
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#18
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Mar 2009
Posts: 604
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Nip
Are you using two mono recordings - or are you using two recordings from a VST amp sim which are stereo each?
You should normally be safe as you describe it if doing mono recordings.
But two stereo - becomes a mosh if blended like that.
Anyway, Waves S1 Stereo imager is really useful
https://www.waves.com/bundles/gold
Gold bundle contains muchos goodies 30+ plugins for $99 right now. Including S1.
I use S1 for many things, like narrowing leslie from hammond, which usually is full stereo and things like that. You can set it to occupy 1100-1400 or so in pan if you want.
But as always with spatial kind of processing - check in mono also to see nothing surprising is happening.
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I dont use any kind of stereo enhancement stuff
The guitars in question are both panned center, mono tracks
Rhythm guitars i double track, using two different guitars, and pan 100% left and right
When i listen in mono it sounds like shit, almost like somebody turned a flanger pedal on
I dont copy paste anything, when i double track i play the part again
I dont edit my playing either. Like shifting notes around and stuff. Quantizing the audio. None of that in my music
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01-29-2019, 05:28 PM
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#19
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jul 2014
Posts: 674
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Quote:
Originally Posted by future fields
I dont use any kind of stereo enhancement stuff
The guitars in question are both panned center, mono tracks
Rhythm guitars i double track, using two different guitars, and pan 100% left and right
When i listen in mono it sounds like shit, almost like somebody turned a flanger pedal on
I dont copy paste anything, when i double track i play the part again
I dont edit my playing either. Like shifting notes around and stuff. Quantizing the audio. None of that in my music
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To repeat, I'd try just copying one of the tracks(probably the initial one that you later harmonized) to a second track without the harmony even coming into play.
If you listen to them in mono and there's no issue, the problem is likely the very nature of harmony guitar/doubling.
If you listen to them in mono and there is an issue, there's probably another issue and it's time to start trying to isolate it if it's a big enough issue.
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01-29-2019, 06:15 PM
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#20
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Apr 2017
Location: South
Posts: 587
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Would not matter what instrument it was - you will be faced with phase issues attempting to use software for harmonies involving the source audio being played with the harmonized audio.
Try this with a vocal or a bass and see what a horrible phase mess you are dealing with.
To expect them to be perfectly in phase is IMO impossible.
Play the harmonies on the guitar - or live with the phase issues.
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01-30-2019, 08:59 AM
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#21
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Apr 2015
Posts: 976
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ChristopherT
Would not matter what instrument it was - you will be faced with phase issues attempting to use software for harmonies involving the source audio being played with the harmonized audio.
Play the harmonies on the guitar - or live with the phase issues.
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OP's most recent comment clearly states he is playing the parts separately, and not using any software methods to double/harmonize.
Fergler answered the question on Jan 27.
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