>>Progress Audio PHASEPHIX : Phase alignment tool

[Alex@ProgressAudio]

Hello, here's some info about a new release for Windows VST.



This VST utility allows you to control the phase difference two signals, allowing
you to correct phase problems that can arise from recording instruments using
2 microphones, or recording a guitar using a DI feed and a mic, for example.
If the two signals are out of phase, some frequencies cancel out and others add
up, causing changes to the tone of the recorded instrument. PhasePhix allows
you to get a fuller, more accurate sound.

FEATURES
- Independent phase-shift control for left and right audio channels.
- Shifts all frequencies by the same amount, therefore preserving the
phase relations within the signal. This gives better results then a simple
time-shift can achieve.
- ‘Auto detect’ feature to analyse your sound and find a setting that
minimises the phase difference between the 2 channels.
- Meter displaying the current phase difference of the audio
- Balance and gain controls.


Its available to buy from July 29, however the free demo is available now for download.
http://www.progressaudio.co.uk/Products.htm

Thanks,
Alex

Progress Audio

[Alex@ProgressAudio]

The full version has now been released and is available to buy.

Comments welcome

[stefancrs]

I have a question about this feature:
"Shifts all frequencies by the same amount, therefore preserving the
phase relations within the signal. This gives better results then a simple
time-shift can achieve"
Isn't the problem (when using for instance two microphones) that the signal IS time-shifted, not phase-shifted?

Nice GUI btw.

[BobYordan]

Hi

Just downloaded the demo, what are it's limitations?

Agree nice GUI. Green, me like that.

I will it try on some test mastering, I think primarily.

[Alex@ProgressAudio]

Hi stefancrs,

Isn't the problem (when using for instance two microphones) that the signal IS time-shifted, not phase-shifted?

Nice GUI btw.

Yes, time-shifting can help give some improvement the sound in some cases, but the problem is that a time-shift affects each frequency differently.
For example, if you time-shift by 200 samples, then a wave with a wavelength of 400 samples gets shifted by half a cycle. But another wave with wavelength of 200 would get shifted one whole cycle, so it actually would sound the same. So you've affected some frequencies more then others.

So PhasePhix uses a different technique so that are frequencies are shifted equally. This sounds a lot different and usually works better.

I've probably not explained very well, it might be helpful to check out this link, its for a hardware box that does the same job as PhasePhix, and I think it explains things quite well:
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/nov03/a ... lelabs.htm

Hope that helps,
Alex

[Alex@ProgressAudio]

Hi

Just downloaded the demo, what are it's limitations?

Audio cuts out temporarily every 30 seconds.
Other then that there's no limitations, all features work as normal

[stefancrs]

I know how timeshifting / phaseshifting works. It's just that the problem you usually want to fix is that signals gets timeshifted, not phaseshifted. You can't place two microphones in such a manner that you introduce a constant phaseshift across the spectrum, you will get a timeshift.

This is why I wondered why you've done it like a phaseshifter instead of a timeshifter and I also wonder why phaseshifting would give you a better result.

[BobYordan]

Hi

Hmm, your plug does some kind of chopping of the music in my DAW?? 3.2Ghz Pentium + 2Gb Ram with Cubase SX 3.0.2 built 623.

Sounds a little like the effect LiveCut producess by in a more minor way.

[Alex@ProgressAudio]

Hi

Hmm, your plug does some kind of chopping of the music in my DAW?? 3.2Ghz Pentium + 2Gb Ram with Cubase SX 3.0.2 built 623.

What buffer size (latency) is your sound card set to? Using a larger size should fix the problem. On my system(Athlon64 3200), 512 works well but 256 can cause chopping

[ObsoleteAcc99]

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[egbert]

This sounds like nonsense to me.

The reason why you get phase problems when you record the same signal from two mics within proximity of one another is exactly time shifting due to the path difference between the source and the two mics. This results in comb filtering = alternate phase reinforcement and phase cancellation up the frequency spectrum. This is basic recording technique and is covered in any audio recording textbook.

The correction is a simple time shift. There is no need to move all frequencies by the same number of degrees/radians.

[Alex@ProgressAudio]

is this like the vxengo pahse thingie? I already bought that one. Or a different use?

Both plug-ins do the same job so if you have one you don't need the other

[Alex@ProgressAudio]

The correction is a simple time shift. There is no need to move all frequencies by the same number of degrees/radians.

Its not that simple. If both mics were picking up exactly the same sound then this would work perfectly, but of course the 2 mics each record a slightly different sound (which of course is the point of using 2 mics).
You can't use a time shift to match up 2 different waveforms, some parts line up but some don't.
Now the phase technique can't match them up perfectly either, but it does give a better match and better sounding results.

Actually, I first made a prototype of this plug that used time-shifting, and so I did a direct comparison of time-shifting and phase-shifting. The decision to use phase-shifting in the final plugin was therefore an informed one.

[ObsoleteAcc99]

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[Alex@ProgressAudio]

is this like the vxengo pahse thingie? I already bought that one. Or a different use?

Both plug-ins do the same job so if you have one you don't need the other

shame, yours is so much prettier

well it does have the killer feature of being green, so worth buying just for that! hehe