Phase offset

Have an urge to learn, or a calling to teach? Want to share some useful Youtube videos? Do it here!
Post Reply
User avatar
Jagwah
Posts: 2549
Joined: 16 Jan 2015

13 Jul 2021

Are there synths in Reason that let me adjust the phase offset of any of its oscillators? Can Europa do it? Can Reasonista's CoreReLation Phase device possibly help me with it? I am using Robotic Bean's Time Slider and it kind of works it's just hard to find that sweet spot. If I could dial in 25% or something like that that would suit my needs.

Any ideas?

User avatar
LABONERECORDINGS
RE Developer
Posts: 401
Joined: 16 Jan 2015
Location: UK
Contact:

13 Jul 2021

Are you wanting to phase rotate? You'll need something like a Hilbert Transform filter (like a bunch of all pass filters) so you can change the phase and not the timing

Time slider sounds like it delays the signal?

We're looking at Disperser as well as Zplane to do some phase rotation, which at the frequency of interest (same tuning to your oscillator) should affect the phase and not the frequency content

User avatar
Loque
Moderator
Posts: 11175
Joined: 28 Dec 2015

13 Jul 2021

I do phase rotation with a Math VST. I think this can be used for phase offset.

Sadly there are not many synths that allow exact phase offset.
Reason12, Win10

User avatar
Jagwah
Posts: 2549
Joined: 16 Jan 2015

13 Jul 2021

Loque wrote:
13 Jul 2021
Sadly there are not many synths that allow exact phase offset.
LABONERECORDINGS wrote:
13 Jul 2021
Time slider sounds like it delays the signal?
Thanks guys, not familiar with phase rotation but I played around with RB's Time Slider some more and yes it does delay the signal but it does it so incredibly slightly (increments of 0.01 milliseconds) that it works just fine for offsetting phase.

In the image attached I'm using one oscillator from Europa in stereo and delaying the right channel only and I can adjust the phase quite easily using Time Slider.

TS.jpg
TS.jpg (287.68 KiB) Viewed 1103 times

User avatar
deeplink
Competition Winner
Posts: 1073
Joined: 08 Jul 2020
Location: Dubai / Cape Town
Contact:

13 Jul 2021

I'm not sure what is more useful in your situation, but a kind reminder that every mix channel has a "sample delay" function - so you can delay your track forwards or backwards in sample integers.

You can use the phase invert button on the channel strip to flip the audio phase coming in to the mixer.

Scream4's tape mode also inverts the phase.

Europa has phase invert, mirror and distort as modifiers.
Get more Combinators at the deeplink website

Sterioevo
Posts: 407
Joined: 02 Apr 2015

13 Jul 2021

Subtractor has phase offset, is this what you are looking for?
Last edited by Sterioevo on 14 Jul 2021, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar
Voyager
Posts: 535
Joined: 21 Dec 2015

14 Jul 2021

Haven't tried https://www.reasonstudios.com/shop/rack ... -inverter/ ?

May help and it's free..

User avatar
LABONERECORDINGS
RE Developer
Posts: 401
Joined: 16 Jan 2015
Location: UK
Contact:

16 Jul 2021

Ok phase rotation.

Think of a sine wave, running left to right. Starting at the first zero point on the left, lets call this zero degrees.

Now move 25% through the waveform, this is 90º
50% = 180º
75% = 270º
100% = 360º / 0º for next cycle

Now still think of the sinewave but visually you look along the timeline (so where we were looking linear left to right you're now looking front to back, 0º being closest point to you and 360º is the furthest point away). A sinewave is a circle at the same amplitude, the only difference is that the rotation point at a specific moment in time (so 0º and 180º we see at max +1 / -1 and any other level is still max amp, only the phase rotates because we're looking flat side on which gives the illusion of amp height reduction instead of actually rotating around the timeline as a spiralling constant level).

Check this image below and you should make a bit more sense of how it works.

Image

Now we see visually the sinewave in oscilloscopes / waveforms on screen (the vertical plane in this image), so when you rotate the phase, you rotate the waveform degrees - the waveform signal is the helix and the circle phase rotation is adjusted, so where you would start at zero, you might adjust phase to 25% / 90º as a new start point.

Serum uses a phase start point for example, where you slide the starting cycle point at a phase offset position. This is easier with waveform driven synths because of how it's easy to 'rotate the phase', but what you're doing is changing the start point in the cycle and not really rotating the phase - it's cycle offsetting (but phase is just probably easier to use as a tech term in cases like this) - If you had 2 waveform cycles the same and offset one by 50%, then yes you would have phase offset, but if you have 2 cycles not the same, you're changing the timing of the cycle, not really the phase in audio frequency sense.

To do it on an audio sample, you can do a looping cycle and change the start point position along the cycle to phase offset compared to a 'start at zeroº phase point'. Similar result, but again not phase rotating, it's cycle offsetting. Similar to delaying but not quite the same (you delay the cycle but the cycle is the same length repeatedly)

For doing it to an audio signal though and not at oscillator level, you'll need a phase rotator / allpass filter network so you can phase rotate all frequencies at the same amount of degrees together. If you try with a single allpass, you only rotate the phase at one frequency centre and all others rotate at different degrees across the spectrum.

Another way to look at it is by doing the FFT in Serum and you get Amplitute for the top section and Phase for the bottom section. If you have 1 top bar at 100% only it'll show you a sine wave at max level (fundamental), with a phase at 0% (which is normal), adjust the phase bar but not the amp bar, and you'll offset the phase now. Check out:

which explains a lot more what real phase rotation can do, if the synth you use has this ability.

http://www.airwindows.com/phasenudge/ may be of use for total content signal phase rotation, as another starting point. We've got Disperser recently which we'll be trying out on specific intruments (phase rotate at frequency of interest, so sounds with smaller freq range or specific parts we want to adjust only, and not fully rotate the full waveform/signal)

hope this helps a bit more to determine what it is you're trying to do in regards to phase rotation / phase offset
Last edited by LABONERECORDINGS on 16 Jul 2021, edited 2 times in total.

Baylo
Posts: 149
Joined: 17 Jan 2015

16 Jul 2021

LABONERECORDINGS wrote:
16 Jul 2021
Ok phase rotation.
That was a great post. Thank you for writing that.

User avatar
Loque
Moderator
Posts: 11175
Joined: 28 Dec 2015

16 Jul 2021

Jagwah wrote:
13 Jul 2021
...
Maybe this one can help you:
viewtopic.php?f=48&t=7507468&hilit=math
Reason12, Win10

User avatar
selig
RE Developer
Posts: 11685
Joined: 15 Jan 2015
Location: The NorthWoods, CT, USA

16 Jul 2021

If you want phase at the oscillator level none of these external solutions will do it. Delay only correlates to phase at one frequency, so you cannot use a static delay unless you only want to play one frequency (and you will be thus limited to sine waves!).
The obvious native solution in Reason include Pulsar at audio rate, but MassiveX can also modulate the phase of it's audio oscillators.
Many synths, such as Complex-1 allow phase modulation via the FM input - you can tell if it's pitch vs phase modulation with a square wave input (sine/triangle waves will modulate pitch when affecting phase, square waves do nothing, saws just offset pitch depending on the polarity and rate of modulation).
Selig Audio, LLC

User avatar
fullforce
Posts: 849
Joined: 18 Aug 2018

16 Jul 2021

Phase offset? What about the Phasys offset?
This is a block of text that can be added to posts you make. There is a 255 character limit.

User avatar
fullforce
Posts: 849
Joined: 18 Aug 2018

16 Jul 2021

Jagwah wrote:
13 Jul 2021
Are there synths in Reason that let me adjust the phase offset of any of its oscillators? Can Europa do it? Can Reasonista's CoreReLation Phase device possibly help me with it? I am using Robotic Bean's Time Slider and it kind of works it's just hard to find that sweet spot. If I could dial in 25% or something like that that would suit my needs.

Any ideas?
I think you need Ammo
This is a block of text that can be added to posts you make. There is a 255 character limit.

User avatar
huggermugger
Posts: 1294
Joined: 16 Jul 2021

18 Jul 2021

Pulsar, Little LFO and Ammo all have audio output and phase control, though even with the Shift key, the phase adjustments are jumpy.

Ammo has the greatest variety of waveforms, and also the greatest frequency range (30Hz - 8372Hz).
Attachments
Screen Shot 2021-07-18 at 8.21.03 AM.jpg
Screen Shot 2021-07-18 at 8.21.03 AM.jpg (248.52 KiB) Viewed 915 times

User avatar
Jagwah
Posts: 2549
Joined: 16 Jan 2015

20 Jul 2021

Thanks for the discussion everyone, I should have mentioned I am doing experiments with lissajous patterns which is why I am interested in this process. I hope to make a video on it soon as it's really cool and everyone can try it out especially us Reason users.
fullforce wrote:
16 Jul 2021
Phase offset? What about the Phasys offset?
:lol: :lol: :lol:

selig wrote:
16 Jul 2021
If you want phase at the oscillator level none of these external solutions will do it. Delay only correlates to phase at one frequency, so you cannot use a static delay unless you only want to play one frequency (and you will be thus limited to sine waves!).
Thanks Selig you are right in that once this is set up (attained desired phase offset) it's going to change as soon as a different note is applied. However for my purposes RB's Time Slider works well but I will also look at Ammo as mentioned above.

Post Reply
  • Information
  • Who is online

    Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 14 guests