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[henrizzle]

Sunset Sound drums tracks by Marc Martel. NOT inverted 🙂

[henrizzle]

Inverted.

This actually is a common mistake. I recently got some drum tracks to mix by a guy from Nashville, a total pro. I always do a phase check first, it avoids tons of issues when phase and polarity is correct. In this case his kicks were inverted. I mentioned to the guy I got the tracks from to let him know. He confirmed it was inverted when he checked his drum recording rig that he has setup all the time. It can be a mic, a cable… blah blah blah. You should know what direction up and down is, it pretty basic and this is not up for debate. If you prefer the thin sound and want it inverted that a whole other matter. But often it is overlooked because no one checked.

[henrizzle]

Your second screenshot was also sketchy as is hard to tell with the way you blown it up and the section that it shows. Try to find one clean good snare hit.

[henrizzle]

This is not a matter of opinion but physics and fact. You should ask your two engineer why their snare tops are inverted, maybe they preferred to invert or didn’t know it was inverted.

[henrizzle]

Here is a screen shot of snare tracks from Blackbird Studio. A good snare hit should look something like this.. again negative initially.

[henrizzle]

Anyhow I give up on you, I got to get to make music. Good luck with all the reversed polarity tracks 🙂

[henrizzle]

Why don’t you record a snare and show the wave form?

[henrizzle]

You are confused. This is a matter of physics. Unless your mic->preamp->cable some where has +- reversed it should look like the above.

[henrizzle]

Snare top should look like this where it starts by going negative.

[henrizzle]

Those are also reversed in polarity.

[henrizzle]

Please record a snare with a mic and post the wave form here.

[henrizzle]

Your screen shot clearly shows them reversed. No relation between the snare and toms you are confused… just that they are reversed.

[henrizzle]

“in and out of phase”.. while not totally accurate description is typically a phrase used to describe this issue but more accurate phrase is “reverse polarity”. Okay so more specifically this is issue with polarity reversed on the snare and toms. Make sense?

Phase alignment on the overheads against the snare is an issue I expect to see and will correct with a time shift when I want the snare to have more energy. However here, the left and right channels are not aligned to the snare. This can be an artistic choice and I can realign by shifting not a big deal. But… this is one of the things I make sure to measure when I go to setup spaced pair overhead mics… but they always seems to be a little off. I would think these developers would align this because most users don’t know this is happening.

>>>>> The main issue is the reversed polarity on snare and toms.

[henrizzle]

Wow, what will it take to get through. Please do me a favor and record a snare with a mic and examine the wave form and put up a screenshot to show everyone. Snare as well as tom hits are from the top side, when you hit the drum it starts with negative energy as the skin is depressed initially. If you have produced drums as you say you should know this well. Kicks on the other hand are recorded from the resonate side so they start with positive energy as the skin pushes out initially. If you have snares and toms inverted they will start opposing the overheads and lead to thin and lack energy sound… which is exactly what you get here out-of-the-box, some might think this sounds clear but it wont get you an energetic mix as it is thin thus the top end tends to cut through. Try inverting your snare and tom track you will immediately notice more energy. This would be a simple enough fix how ever at this point you don’t know what all has been done. These were likely EQ’d while out of phase for example (I can’t speak to the production process as this is not documented). Now you don’t know what you are getting.

[henrizzle]

No confusion here. this is drum mic 101. In your screenshot, the snare and tom tracks have positive and negative in reverse. If you apply the Ø switch it will become correct. You should record some snare and toms using a mic and see for yourself. I think Massenburg knows what he is doing but the engineer that edited these samples does not. SD2 had all the samples inverted. Here only snare and toms. If you look at your overhead waveform those are correct, notice the snare starts by going negative not positive. This is plain as day smoking gun evidence, really not a debate, the facts are in screen shot you supplied.

• This post was modified 1 year, 10 months ago by henrizzle.

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