vanceen nailed it. It's not as difficult as it sounds, because you only have to do it once. In case you have to routinely tear down your kit for gigs, take physical measurements and write them down to save time for the next setup.
 
And don't forget to invert the polarity on your bottom snare mic.
 
 
 
 

bitflipper
vanceen nailed it. It's not as difficult as it sounds, because you only have to do it once. In case you have to routinely tear down your kit for gigs, take physical measurements and write them down to save time for the next setup.
 
And don't forget to invert the polarity on your bottom snare mic.
 
 
 
 

Ok
 
Time over distance and polarity........and in MONO..going to try this this afternoon.

And lets not forget the 3:1 rule and how it play's into this. 
 
from a Sweetwater document:
 
When using two microphones to record a source, normally you will get the best results by placing the second mic three times the distance from the first mic that the first mic is from the source. This is known as the “3:1 Rule of Microphone Placement.”
An example: If the first mic is 1 foot from a source, the second mic should be placed 3 feet from the first mic.
While many engineers believe that adhering to the 3:1 Rule will minimize phase cancellation, technically this is not true. The 3:1 Rule works because the level of the signal entering the second mic (the one farther away) is reduced in level compared to the signal entering the first mic; tripling the distance substantially reduces the relative level of the signal in the two mics. This reduces the effects of phase cancellation, since the most cancellation will occur when the two mic signal levels are equal. In fact, if you crank up the gain on the second, more distant mic, you will still hear phase cancellation when it is added to the first mic.
Keep in mind that rules are meant to be broken; you may prefer the sound created by ignoring the 3:1 Rule — experiment and let your ears be your guide!

There seems to be a glaring mistake in vanceen's observations.  Which seems to have gone unnoticed.  If a signal is travelling upward in one channel and in another seems to be travelling downward then the phase difference is not 90 degrees but rather 180 degrees.  90 degrees only represents a phase shift of a quarter of the cycle not half the cycle.  Although this could be happening due to only slight time differences so a full 180 degree phase reversal may not improve the situation either.  It might sound the same. eg changing the phase by 270 degrees all up.
 
There is a test you can do to ensure all your microphones are actually in phase.  It requires a few things though.  It starts by feeding a non symmetrical signal into a speaker.  This type of signal is different above and below the line.  Then you put your mics in front of the speaker one by one and observe the polarity of the signal on a CRO.  If all your mics are wired correctly you should see the same non symmetrical signal on the CRO for each mic.  When I did this I found about a third of my mics were wired the wrong way around!  After rewiring them things all sounded much better in a multi mic situation such as a drum micing setup.
 
You will be amazed at what pieces of hardware audio gear actually flip the polarity around without you knowing it too.

Jeff, you correctly point out my error in the phase angle.
 
Actually, to my understanding, what I described isn't a 90° nor a 180° phase shift in time. It's an inversion in the polarity of the signal with or without a time shift, which is really another thing. Sorry for the loose terminology.
 
I haven't done the test you describe, but I have made recordings where I knew very well that the polarity should be reversed, but the waveform didn't show it, and reversing the polarity made things worse (e.g. top and bottom snare mics). So I think you are right, it's not uncommon for things to be wired backward. 
 

Mackie had there 1604? Mixer back in the 90's that the Main balanced outs where flipped. They even put it in the manual with a " This is not a typo" disclaimer. So you had your whole PA or studio out of phase.

Having a mixer flip the output polarity is not a big deal and you certainly won’t hear it unless there is more than one mixer in your setup and you happen to have say a stereo signal split over the two mixers which I guess we would not do anyway.
 
At one stage I had 3 sound cards in my computer and one of them flipped the polarity.  On the actual software even non symmetrical waveforms were in phase eg on the arrange window but not in their outputs.
 
The non symmetrical waveform test is very interesting and revealing.  Lots of things showed up as polarity flipped.  A standard sinewave is no good because it will look the same everywhere.
 
The biggest thing I got was when I tested ALL of my microphones and found that about 3 or 4 of them were polarity flipped. Had to rewire the XLR connector to put them back the same way as the others.  Not sure what was going on there but one would assume there is a standard.  May have been a wiring error or some just not caring.  Some external hardware will flip the polarity around too.

Got the stereo issue fixed. Helped a lot. Don't know why they were set to stereo since my saved templates are mono. I would guess a minimalist approach would be best for manual time alignment? I want to try it that way as well as plugins. Maybe just a few hits around the kit before real tracking starts??

Wow just realized I've been on this board almost 12 years. Just goes to show how little of sonar i actually use. Just regular analog inputs, a few plugind and triggers from my e-kit into battery..
 

https://youtu.be/ficmNNrXwnQ
 
I went ahead and tried testing all my mics.
 
The video above shows how to use Z3ta to create an asymmetrical wave form.
 
One thing I noticed is the polarity of the waveform when you put a mic in front of a speaker and record it inverts.
 
No big deal. All my mics are wired the same. I did find an old mic with a slightly corroded battery which I fixed.