Analog Drum Samples - Out of Phase

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MarkTarlton
Posts: 795
Joined: 15 Jan 2015
Location: Santa Rosa, CA

05 Jan 2019

I have been going mad with phase lately(patchbay nightmare) and long story short I hear it even in the most subtle of situations... I noticed some analog samples sounding weird when they hit at the same time....it's not a big deal if the kick and snare don't play at the same time, but if they do it falls apart and sounds thin. the acetone samples in king of kongs are a perfect example, and there are a few more I have found. I bounced the samples to a track and zoomed in as far as Reason would allow(don't even get me started on the zoom resolution!) and those wav's are very weird on the transients, so you have to be careful using the refills in Reason because a lot of top designers miss this, they should be re-edited and patches redone so they work better. I bet a lot of songs suffer because of it.

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Boombastix
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Posts: 1929
Joined: 18 May 2018
Location: Bay Area, CA

05 Jan 2019

You can use the edit sample function for zooming.
My guess is that it is extremely rare that any sound designer check the tuning or phase of a drum kit.
Many synth patches do not even work in mixes so they do not design for a mix, just stand alone.
You may need to cut some low end. Many sounds have unnecessary low end that does not contribute to the sound but messes up the mix, especially analog sounds.
You can also use the slide function in the drum sampler to adjust the snare timing.

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selig
RE Developer
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Joined: 15 Jan 2015
Location: The NorthWoods, CT, USA

05 Jan 2019

Is King of Kong a ReFill? Not seeing it in the FSB, so I can't compare/confirm on my end.

IMO, if the sound designer is a recording engineer, phase is one of the FIRST things they would check.

That being said, phase between drums is not an issue in my experience. It's phase on the SAME drum, but between MICROPHONES that's the primary thing we watch for.

Kick and snare are not at the same frequency so cannot easily be "out of phase" (phase is frequency related). And if they WERE out of phase, they would have to be exactly in tune to cancel out, or an exact multiple to have any effect on tone/level - and even then they would only cancel if they were the same level. Meaning, if the kick was 50 Hz and the snare was 200 Hz, the snare could be affected ONLY by the 200 Hz energy in the kick, which would be far lower in level than the 50 Hz and far less likely to be a factor (engineers often cut this range of the kick to remove "mud" etc). Add to that the fact that samples are a specific case where phase CAN matter, assuming you're quantizing things hard core, because it's the exact same sound/recording played at the exact same time, every time.
To be clear, I'm not saying it's impossible to happen, just to say I've never experienced that particular problem myself. And I'm DEFINITELY not saying you're imagining things - once you learn to hear phase issues, it's difficult not to hear it even when it's not a big issue (the curse of ear training…).

Would love to hear the examples you're hearing, if only in the name of science!
Selig Audio, LLC

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MarkTarlton
Posts: 795
Joined: 15 Jan 2015
Location: Santa Rosa, CA

05 Jan 2019

check this out :)

thanks bud for looking into it.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/egcu8etjey85k ... e.mp4?dl=0

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