How to correct phasing issues (??)

[CPhoenix]

I posted a little while back on what phasing was, and how I didn't know what it sounded like.


Well... I have finally heard the god awful sound of phasing lol, to say the least. (I guess when the student is ready.. the teacher really does appear, b/c this has certainly been mentioned that phasing issues can arise from doubling vocals).

So.. how'd it happen? I took a vocal, Melodyne'd it in Studio One and copy/pasted it to a new track, and adjusted the notes of the duplicate to create a backing vocal for the singer. Wanted to add some harmonies. It has potential to sound amazing, b/c Melodyne did a great job of changing the notes... however it's leaving some terrible sounding "things" while they are playing together. Sounds like a "phasing" type of issue, unless I don't understand what phasing is (which I think I have a good general idea).

It sounds like they are shredding each other apart is the best way I can describe it lol.

I nudged one of the tracks a few millesecs forward and it seemed to help significantly. However it's not quite there yet. So... I figured I should reach out to see if someone has other tricks they use to get rid of phasing... or if moving it along the timeline is all I can really hope to do.

Of course I'm going to do my research on my own... but just wanted to post this for the purpose of having a new/fresh topic on it. The topic doesn't get brought up much, so maybe someone else can learn from this thread as well as myself. I kno I certinaly wasn't experienced enough to notice this type of issue until maybe a year ago... but just hadn't encountered yet until now.

Thanks!

 

[theleonfrick]

You can reverse the phase on of the tracks! I'm not allowed to post links yet, but google "reverse phase in cubase", and go to pictures and it's the fourth picture!

 

[Foggy]

I'd guess the problems come from duplication a tuned track , making a precise frequency relationship .
Try getting the artist to sing the doubles instead .

Remember phasing is part of the natural world (we like to fatten synth sounds with two very close oscillators) , and how it comes about (one freq-the other=phase freq) .

I had this with one particular singer who's pitching was accurate to within a couple of Hz , the best way I found to deal with it in this case as to take lots of vocal takes and use the parts that work well together . This involved some chopping and changing , but sounded fine , I ended up using parts that were quite dissimilar .

 

[City Beats]

Load up just about any EQ and hit the phase switch ... it's a little circle with a line through it.

That's crazy how you're getting phase issues with vocals though... phasing only occurs when you use two or more mics, due to the distance of soundwaves hitting the mic at different times.... using Melodyne shouldn't throw your vocals out of phase. I've used AutoTune and Waves Tune with no problems before... maybe it was out of phase to begin with? Possibly the mic is out of phase and wasn't switched when tracked... I don't know.... strange.

 

[Foggy]

Load up just about any EQ and hit the phase switch ... it's a little circle with a line through it.

That's crazy how you're getting phase issues with vocals though... phasing only occurs when you use two or more mics, due to the distance of soundwaves hitting the mic at different times.... using Melodyne shouldn't throw your vocals out of phase. I've used AutoTune and Waves Tune with no problems before... maybe it was out of phase to begin with? Possibly the mic is out of phase and wasn't switched when tracked... I don't know.... strange.

That will just put a 180 degree shift in it , it still will have a relationship that may be audible . It is a valid first step though .

I know what you are saying about two mics , that part is correct .
Think about how this causes a problem , IE exactly the same wave form hitting the output "bus" at slightly different times .

When you Melodyne a voice , then the pitch is fixed to accurate points , thus when you add another Melodyne wave , it can hit the same point (pitch) but at a different times (Phase) .

The simplest ways would be to not melodyne the waves so hard , or not at all/one not at all (or loose) etc ;
Or
You could just aim for an actual harmony rather than replicate the same note (get the singer back)


You also have accept that phase relationship and it's associated "distortions" are actually part of the natural world .
Sometimes we put things under our computerised microscope and become obsessed with the tiny details and miss the big picture .

For instance I often "catch myself on" when judging my photographs at pixel level , but in reality it wold take a 8 by 8 foot print to even see them !
I watched this documentary on Marvin Gaye last night , and it played some of the multitracks of his later stuff (What's goin on) .
The harmony tracjs were played , one by one , building up . I could hear so much warbling it was incredible ..... then caught myself on a heard the beauty and genius of the song/work .
Both the same kind of fixating on the tiny details .(Note , I wish my photos were anything near as good as that music!)


Any chance of audio clips of this CP ?
Be interesting to hear :
First and worst case phase (acca)
Then the time adjusted tracks (acca)
Then the time adjusted with full backing .

 

[bandcoach]

I agree with foggy here, I need to hear something acapella at all three stages.

The phase issues may be time shifts due to the melodyne , in which case you need to nudge the track backwards a few ms.

They may also just be the fact that the original vocal part will have certain overtones that are naturally occurring within a just temperament tuning, and when you pitch shift them with the melodyne, the new notes are out of tune with the original notes, mainly because the overtone series will either be too small (if you raised the pitch) or too wide (if you dropped the pitch).

We used to get similar artefacts by using the pitch shift knob on the reel-to-reel recorder (up to +/- 15% on a Fostex E-16) Notes recorded at a slower speed would have their overtone series shrunk when played at normal speed and similarly notes that were recorded at a higher speed would have their overtone series stretched when played at normal speed.

so, some audio will help us know for sure

 

[City Beats]

I know what you are saying about two mics , that part is correct .
Think about how this causes a problem , IE exactly the same wave form hitting the output "bus" at slightly different times .

When you Melodyne a voice , then the pitch is fixed to accurate points , thus when you add another Melodyne wave , it can hit the same point (pitch) but at a different times (Phase) .
.

I see what you're getting at... I thought CP was basically saying he had left his lead voc alone and then Melodyned his backing tracks to make them sound different for harmonies...

Still though, it's pretty strange... I've had to Autotune an artist really heavily before, and have played them in the mix with other voc tracks that weren't Autotuned and everything was still phase coherent. (And if it wasn't phase coherent it was too miniscule to even notice, or make a difference)

Thanks for clearing that up though, Foggy

 

[Foggy]

Well , none of us are certain without audio , I am just taking a bit of a jump and a guess .

It's good to have exchanges as above , it open up ideas and viewpoints .
More viewpoints the better , we all learn all the time IMHO .

 

[CPhoenix]

Right on cue my new computer setup just completely copped out on me about an hour ago. (I'm close to jumpin out a window lol)

I'll try to post up the vox when I can. Admittedly, i'm still not to firm on what phasing is per-se, but from what I understand after multiple attempts in other threads from people explaining to me lol... this definitely sounds like a phase issue.

Again, just to clarify... I began with one vocal track only. I Melodyne'd it to fix her notes (she doesn't sound very good at all IMHO, but it was fixable). After I got that sounding okay, I wanted to get creative and give her some background vox, so that's when I duplicated the Melodyne'd copy... bounced, and re-Melodyne'd so I could move her notes around. That's when I noticed terrible terrible clashing which sounded like what I imagine phasing to me. Best I can describe is they were shredding each other to death lol. Maybe it'll come out better if I make the backing vocals with the Un-melodyne'd vox, just so it's not so "perfect" of a match (i use that term loosely lol).

I won't be bringing her in to sing background vox. It's not that serious. If this were a regular track then yes, but with it being a movie... and also her not being all that great anyway, i'm just going to roll w/ what I have. If i can't get it sounding good, i'll just keep it as a solo. All of this provided I can get my computer back up and running again. I think i blew my CPU

 

[bandcoach]

well at least you can access your hard drive - it is not a total disaster if you have only blown the cpu - you attach any drives as a secondary drive when you fix you machine and then use admin privileges to take ownership of all files for all users on the old drive. Expect to spend a day moving files about and reinstalling old programs (I've had this happen twice in the last 13 years - cpu just burns out due to age and a dust clogged heatsink) - can be avoided with fluid cooling, but much more expensive and much higher maintenance issues

 

[City Beats]

The easiest way to tell if something is out of phase is zoom in really far on both of the waveforms... if the audio from Vocal 1 is going up while the audio from Vocal 2 is going down then it's out of phase and you're going to get, what I think is the easiest way to describe it, weird EQ filterings from different frequencies cancelling each other out.

I still don't think it's a phase issue, especially since it's an exact duplicate of the original vocal track, but I guess it's possible like Foggy pointed out.

On a side note, sorry about your computer bro.. that shit blows.

 

[CPhoenix]

well at least you can access your hard drive - it is not a total disaster if you have only blown the cpu - you attach any drives as a secondary drive when you fix you machine and then use admin privileges to take ownership of all files for all users on the old drive. Expect to spend a day moving files about and reinstalling old programs (I've had this happen twice in the last 13 years - cpu just burns out due to age and a dust clogged heatsink) - can be avoided with fluid cooling, but much more expensive and much higher maintenance issues

Thanks man. I've got it under control. I went against my better judgement when buying used parts from a friend who does some crazy overclocking and hardcore gaming. Didn't put me in the hole too much. Long story short... both the 3930K AND the ASUS mobo I grabbed from him are failing (which directly correspondes to my terrible luck w/ electronics lol, which i constantly still underestimate in order to save a dollar here or there for some reason.) Thank God i7 3820's are relatviely cheap now... so I grabbed that and am grabbing a new mobo this week. Simple switch out. I hear I may actually not need to reinstall anything on the X79 platform b/c I hear Win 7 doesn't really care about mobo switches (news to me), but i'm prepared to do a fresh install and redo my system anyway b/c of how junky it got on me from testing too many programs and drivers this year. Installation files are backed up across multiple drives and i'll benefit from a downsize I recently did on my freeware. Good looks though.

Also.. I do use water cooling. So, I know it's just the CPU was previously under heavy abuse and finally gave out. Not sure if it still qualifies for an Intel replacement, but i'm going to find out.

 

[yada]

Bought from a gamer you say? I bet they skimped on the power supply like most do in my experience. I'd check the psu's any good before putting new components in. If it's delivering poorly on the rails you're just going to wreck your new components over time also. Google what it is, check the specs and note what temperature it was rated at. Higher temps are better, 50C+. If there's no temp rating my bet is that it was rated in fridge or freezer and therefore it's a piece of shit. Throw it away and get a new one would be my advice.

 

[CPhoenix]

^thanks for the advice, i meant i grabbed just the mobo + cpu from a gamer buddy. lol

I been wanting to get rid of this mobo anyway b/c 1) a new refurb corsair PSU didn't power it on, and then 2) a Enermax Platimax 1200W PSU blew out on it. I think the mobo did it, not sure if it's possible, but whatever it is... been looking to get rid of it.

I've got an Antec 750W PSU now... seems like a very nice unit, and Antec has been doing well for me lately... i have their cooler also.


Going w/ a ASUS P9X79 tonight with the new 3820 i grabbed, hoping i won't have any more issues since i'm buying new. hopefully i get power up tonight, reconfig, and post up the audio tomorrow b/c it's bothering me how bad it sounds lol.