[MUSIC]
Let's check out the phase on these nine drum tracks.
We'll start with the overhead [inaudible] .
I'm going to zoom in.
I can see that these look just fine relative to one another.
The reason I began with the overhead mics is they're going to be
the true north for the rest of the drum set
since all the other drums bleed into the overhead mics.
To make it easier to hear phase,
let's put all the mics in the center in mono.
So all these nine tracks are now in the center.
I'm going to add a one band EQ to all nine tracks.
One band EQ has a phase reversed so it allows
me to flip the phase on anything I think maybe suspect.
I'm going to solo the overheads,
solo the snare top,
open up that one band EQ on the snare,
and let's listen and we'll flip the phase.
What I'm listening for is a loss of bottom,
a loss of presence,
or some sort of odd type of frequency combination.
It just doesn't sound right but usually it's going to be in the bottom end.
[MUSIC]
Flip the phase on the snare top.
[MUSIC]
and we get more bottom.
[MUSIC]
Again, flip the phase.
[MUSIC]
We get more bottom.
So we're going to leave that top snare flipped.
Let's check the relationship between the top and bottom snare.
I'm going to zoom in for that.
I can see that we're pretty well reversed here,
so the bottom is out of phase with the top snare.
That means we don't have to do anything with it
because we've already flipped the top which would bring
the top back in phase with the bottom and both of them in phase with the overheads.
Let's confirm that.
I'm going to reverse the phase on the bottom mic and we should
hear a loss in bottom, if I'm correct.
[MUSIC]
Bottom flipped.
[MUSIC]
Yeah.
[MUSIC]
More bottom here, [MUSIC] then here.
So we'll leave that out,
no phase flipping on the bottom mic.
Now, the snare is in phase with the overhead mics.
Next, let's check the kick.
For that, let's solo the kick in with the overheads,
open up the EQ one band on the kick and listen.
[MUSIC]
Now, let's flip the kick in.
[MUSIC]
Out.
[MUSIC]
In.
[MUSIC]
So we've got the phase flipped on the kick in and we hear more bottom.
Let's leave that flipped.
Now, let's check kick in and kick out together.
For this, I'm going to zoom in.
I can see that these are mostly out of phase with one another,
not 180 degrees but quite a bit.
So because I've flipped the kick in,
the kick out doesn't need to be reversed,
but let's check that.
I'm going to flip the phase on the kick out.
[MUSIC]
You can hear a loss of bottom, more bottom.
So we have the kick in flipped, the kick out,
normal, snare top flipped, snare bottom, normal.
Next, let's check the snare against the high hat.
So I'm going to move the high hat to the snare drum.
All right, I want to zoom in where this snare is actually hitting.
This is tricky because the phase is partially but not fully out.
Now, I'm not big on shifting tracks to bring the phase in,
not for a drum set.
So we're going to solo and choose the best option available to us.
I feel that shifting a track changes
something about the natural order of the drum relationships,
the relationships of the mics to one another.
So I'm not going to do that,
not for a drum set.
Listen to the two snare mics against the hat and we want to flip the hat.
[MUSIC]
More bottom.
[MUSIC]
More bottom phase flipped.
[MUSIC]
So we're going to leave that high hat flipped,
move it back down here.
So the high hat, the overheads,
the snare, the kick all good.
Let's solo the tum,
start with a low tum and listen to the overhead.
[MUSIC]
Let's flip the phase on that bottom tum.
[MUSIC]
It sounds better to me in phase little more bottom.
Now, let's flip the phase on the high tum.
[MUSIC]
That's how to phase on the high tum.
[MUSIC]
In.
[MUSIC]
I don't really hear an audible difference so I'm just going to leave that.
Now, let's listen to the whole kit
together.
[MUSIC]
What I'm going to do is bypass all those EQs to
go back to the natural order of things so to speak.
So if I hit option control,
click on one of those EQs,
they're all bypassed and I'm going to go in and out on those.
[MUSIC]
Notice no presence on the snare
[MUSIC]
and everything sounds
so much better with the phase flip, much more presence.
Now, that we've got that done,
we can start panning things around and developing the drums.
So there we have it,
correct phase for this drum set.
[MUSIC]