A lot of musicians and producers stick their heads in the sand when it comes to phase and proper phase management during the mixing stage. That’s because it isn’t sexy and it doesn’t involve using the latest and greatest plugin or piece of gear.
Now, while this article is not going to go completely in-depth on everything and anything to do with phase issues, adjustment and correction, I do want to put forward one very important point.
When checking for phase issues in your mix, I highly recommend you monitor in mono
In fact, I recommend you monitor in mono for a large portion of the mixing process but especially when it comes to checking for and fixing phase issues.
And I want to give you a similar example from another artistic domain.
You know those sketches that the police will put out when they’re looking for someone? Bear with me here…
Now, imagine that the police sketch artist has drawn two people with some similar features and some almost identical features. Let’s say the eyes in each drawing are exactly the same. They’re two unique pictures but the eyes in each are identical.
When you layer the pictures on top of each other, certain elements in the picture will mesh and blend nicely but others will smear and distort the image. The eyes remain the same because they’re identical in both pictures. However, you won’t notice any of that when they’re not layered on top of each other and kept as two separate pictures.
Something very similar happens in music production.
If you have some similar tracks in your mix that are spread out in stereo, you might not notice that there are any phase issues. But when you fold down to mono and the stereo width is reduced, you might hear a smearing of certain frequencies or frequency ranges. If there are phase issues, something will seem off and sound a little weird. Things will be very flat and dull.
That’s when you can start investigating the phase relationships between similar waveforms to see if any adjustments or corrections are needed to get everything back in phase and sounding rich and full.
Remember that just like the similar pictures that sketch artist has created, the waveforms have to be similar. Those similar waveforms are created when you multi-mic anything like drums, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, bass amp/DI combination etc.
If you only work with samples, you might think you’re free of phase issues, but kick samples and many other layered samples work exactly the same way. They have to be in phase with each other.
Fixing phase problems is usually very easy when you know what you’re looking for.
Depending on the issue that presents itself the solutions are usually to:
- Flip the phase of a phase-inverted track
- Correct phase shifts by nudging the start time of a waveform to match the similar track
- Correct any time delay or offsets created by the addition of multiple plugins
So, while you might only hear the issues when the mix is folded down to mono, if they’re there, they’re always there. That’s why you should monitor in mono when checking for phase issues.
Once they’re fixed and you spread your mix out into stereo, you’ll notice a massive difference in clarity, width, depth and definition.
They’re the results I want you to get!
Now, I’d love to know…
Do you check for phase issues in mono or stereo?
Leave a comment below!
professional sounding mix every time...
How shall I know on which tracks I should look for phase issues?
If you click to “mono” an something is at a lower level than in stereo, this one has probably a phase problem.
Any similar waveforms could potentially have phase issues. So, any source that might have been recorded with multiple microphones could have potential phase issues.
Think of a drum kit or a guitarist with multiple microphones recording the source.