MAutoAlign for INTENDED phase cancellation + getting tracks in phase for substitution

[DanielCowman]

Hello! I searched the forums and didn't find the answer to my question. I'm thinking of getting MAutoAlign for two specific use cases and I'm wondering if someone here could help me out so I can determine if it's something that can be helpful for me. I know that its intended use is to get multi-mic recordings of the same source in phase, but it seems like it may be useful for my purposes as well. I'm a novice at mixing so I don't quite understand how MAutoAlign works.

The first is that I sometimes have old tracks lying around for which I only have a bounced version and then incomplete multitracks. I've been quite successful in using phase cancellation to isolate the missing tracks from the bounced mix...however, it's a huge pain to do as I have to line everything up manually so that I can invert the phase, especially since I use Ableton as a DAW and it's really not designed to do that sort of precise alignment. Would MAutoAlign work in locking the tracks together in this way if I get them really close to being in phase first? I know it's made for using different sources of the same sound, but for example if I were to EQ the bounced mix to emphasize the part I want to cancel out and line it up very closely with the isolated take of that part, would it lock them into phase so I can then invert the phase and cancel it out? Or is there simply going to be too much going on in the bounced mix for MAutoAlign to be able to figure out the phase? Does that even make any sense? I hope I'm explaining this in a way that is coherent.

Then, I use backing tracks when I play live and I often have the chance to get a multitrack recording of my set, but when I mix it later I want to replace the live recording of my backing tracks (which is mixed for the room) with the actual backing tracks which, again, is obnoxious to do in Ableton. If I line them up together pretty closely, MAutoAlign will lock them into phase with each other, right?

I know that there's a demo that I can try out but I don't have too much time to tinker with it right now and it's on sale, so I thought I'd ask y'all if anyone has any insight. Thanks!

[mibby]

First off, that's a really great idea to isolate tracks that way! I'm a little shocked it works...

Secondly, MAutoAlign has a time element to it, so I think it may work. I use it to check phase alignment for bass/kick, bass DI vs Amp and guitars too.

Thirdly, you will find MAutoAlign immensely useful and easy to use even if it doesn't work for this. It was one of my first Melda plugins and is probably one of my most used Melda plugins.

[mike_the_ranger]

I tried something simialr and I don't think MAutoAlign will work good. It doesn't work good in general from my experience. Try faTimeAlign instead which is on sale right know too. It's a manual time aligning tool with subsample precision and may fit your use case better. You can adjust the range of a very big knob to easiy dial in super small amounts. It also offers a group mode, so you can group tracks together and move them with a single knob without losing their relative distances.

For future automatic time/phase alignment, I'd recommend SoundRadix AutoAlign. It works reliable and precise.

[DanielCowman]

First off, that's a really great idea to isolate tracks that way! I'm a little shocked it works...

Secondly, MAutoAlign has a time element to it, so I think it may work. I use it to check phase alignment for bass/kick, bass DI vs Amp and guitars too.

Thirdly, you will find MAutoAlign immensely useful and easy to use even if it doesn't work for this. It was one of my first Melda plugins and is probably one of my most used Melda plugins.

Thanks for the reply. Yeah, it definitely works! Well, as long as the sound you're trying to remove is identical to the one you're using to cancel it out. It's just very time consuming! I'll hold off on MAutoAlign for now, though. I can definitely see myself using it more in the future as I plan on recording more drums at some point.

I tried something simialr and I don't think MAutoAlign will work good. It doesn't work good in general from my experience. Try faTimeAlign instead which is on sale right know too. It's a manual time aligning tool with subsample precision and may fit your use case better. You can adjust the range of a very big knob to easiy dial in super small amounts. It also offers a group mode, so you can group tracks together and move them with a single knob without losing their relative distances.

For future automatic time/phase alignment, I'd recommend SoundRadix AutoAlign. It works reliable and precise.

Awesome, thank you! faTimeAlign seems like exactly what I am looking for. I'll look into the SoundRadix plug-in as well when I have a bit more time. I really appreciate your help!