Is this Phase Cancellation?--Solved!

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KeithAdv
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2011/03/24 17:34:37 (permalink)

Is this Phase Cancellation?--Solved!

Something has been driving me nuts on a video project I've been working on.
 
As I've done many times before, I created the music and then threw a scratch V/O of my own voice over the top so the client could hear it all together.  (I started the project in 8.5.3 but flipped it to X1 when that came out, FYI. I don't think this problem is related to either version.)
 
Okay, so everything sounds great on the monitors. So then I double check it on the computer speakers and my voice sounds really weird. Kind of like in-a-tunnel weird.
 
Then I listen to it on my WinXP little laptop speakers and my voice nearly disappears altogether.  However, if I pull up the volume control and pan either hard left or right on that laptop, my voice shows back up.
 
I thought phase cancellation occurs when you mix a stereo track that is 180 out of phase down to mono and that track disappears. But in this case, I simply have a mono vocal track that is panned dead center.
 
This isn't a major problem (the music is fine!); it's just perplexing, especially since it's never happened before.  Anyone know what's going on?
post edited by KeithAdv - 2011/03/24 22:48:47
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    HumbleNoise
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    Re:Is this Phase Cancellation? 2011/03/24 17:42:50 (permalink)
    Keith, Are the two tracks, music and voice, still separate? Or bounced to a stereo track? If they are still separate perhaps you can just increase the volume of the vocal and find a happy medium for all your speakers. Have you tried changing the phase on the vocal? I've got a feeling since has never happened that you've got something activated that shouldn't be or forgot to activate something that should. Sorry I couldn't be any more helpful.

    Let us know what you find out.

    Humbly Yours

    Larry

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    Dave Modisette
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    Re:Is this Phase Cancellation? 2011/03/24 18:28:31 (permalink)
    Make sure your vocal is on a mono interleave track.

    Maybe some of your other speakers are wired out of phase.

    Dave Modisette ... rocks a Purrrfect Audio Studio Pro rig.
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    #3
    KeithAdv
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    Re:Is this Phase Cancellation? 2011/03/24 22:48:27 (permalink)
    Well, I certainly just had a fun trip through audio land. For the record, the project file had only two tracks--one was the completely mixed and mastered music (which is all I cared about) and the other was my scratch V/O.

    I wasn't at my DAW today when I posted that my V/O was mono. I discovered later that it's stereo.

    I'm pretty sure I recorded it mono, which means for some reason I later thought it would be a good idea to convert it to a stereo (therefore interleaved) track. Don't remember if I did that in Sonar or Sound Forge.

    Anyway, the stereo track that got created was apparently two channels precisely out of phase with each other. I discovered that when I selected the track just now in Sonar and clicked convert to mono. The action nearly zero'd the entire track, leaving a barely audible trace--like audio matter and anti-matter coming together! The same thing happens in Sound Forge. So, I just turned it into a mono track by using only one channel as the source.

    The reason my voice sounded funny on my first computer speaker sound check was because the mixdown zero'd out the source audio on the V/O and left only the effects.

    And the reason for the completely disappearing V/O on the laptop check today was because on that version I had mixed down with no V/O effects as I was trying to find the answer to the problem.

    I'm a little intrigued to know how the out-of-phase split got created when I took the track from mono to stereo. I've been cakewalking since the DOS days and I've never seen that happen before, although I don't claim to be an audio whiz. Interesting.
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    bvideo
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    Re:Is this Phase Cancellation? 2011/03/24 23:21:29 (permalink)
    If you did it in Sound Forge, you could check the settings you last used. There is definitely a phase invert setting available.

    Bill B

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