Mono compatibility. Should I care?
It is not important only for situations when you music is played on mono system but it is also important for stereo speakers. Perfect stereo field for loudspeakers doesn't exists. There is a zone that lies at a certain distance and angle to the speakers that are kind of ideal but speakers are not headphones where the sound goes directly to your ears. With speakers there is always some audio summing and you're basically hearing it in collapsed mono. Add you head movement and rotation to it and effect is even bigger. We also should not forget systems with subwoofer where signal for it is always in mono.
Any element in your mix that have left and right channels significantly out of phase will be played on significant lover volume level or in worst scenario when the channels are completely out of phase, that element may completely vanish when summed in mono. Out of phase audio also introduce phasing/combing effect that doesn't sound very nice.
Arx One is tool to help you with correcting those issues. It split signal to four frequency bands that can be adjusted individually. You can adjust panning for each split and choose source channel to use for output. Thanks to this individual band panning Arx can also create stereo from mono source.
There are a lot of problems regarding phase correlation in mixing especially when layering different sounds that can cause problems so as result they may cancel each other. But what if you even do not start any layering or mixing different instrument and you just placed and played one instrument and yet there are already phasing issues especially with ensembles. Many developers do not fix they samples or they want to trick your wallet by that huge & wide sound. No matter what is the reason behind you want to fix it somehow.
Most important question. Can I use Arx One to fix phase without affecting stereo width?
Answer is simple. You can't. The is no way to achieve this in any way. Arx is mean to tame the sound and normalize stereo width. If you are making music just for headphones (binaural) listening then forget about Arx. If you want to have mono compatible mix then Arx could be the tool for you.
Features:
- 4 adjustable frequency bands
- Left, Right or Stereo for input for each band
- Solo preview for each band
- Rotate audio
- Dual master pan, left and right channel can be panned individually
- Dual master do not pan low frequencies, so no matter what your bass will be always mono
- Bypass processing for comparing with original sound (push X on ARX logo)
- Phase trace to preview phase correlation in time.
Version 1.1
- Fixed phase trace causing high CPU usage when enabled
- Added option for phase trace to change frames per seconds
- Bypass processing have better visual feedback.
If you like the product please support it by making small donation. Thank you.
Quick overview video
{See video at top of page}
Very useful plugin and quite unique too. I use it often to check the phase of my mix, as well as fix any phase related issues. It can also be useful in creating interesting stereo effects. The GUI looks really nice and simple, if only there was an option to make it bigger though. VSTZone has some very nice plugins. Hopefully we'll see 64-bit versions of their other plugins, sometime in the near future.
Read ReviewNo. Wrong.
The video gives you a brillian instrument, but then gets to a completely wrong conclusion, or to a misleading one at best.
No, these instruments do not sound louder. They sound louder IN-THE-MID-CHANNEL. Only in there. They become narrower, thus the mid numbers jump up. Why do we go for these numbers at all? It's not like mono music is in fashion now, and yes. you get mono-compatibility this way (great tool for that), but there're not that many scenarios where you'd like to listen to one speaker only and mainly. There are some (like a lonely speaker in a mall that should blast a crowd with commercials). But what the narrator effectively did there is removing stereo. Providing stereo was the point of these banks in the first place.
I would suggest using these stereo drums as a "dressing" for a narrower, focused hit, and they would compliment each other just fine.
If one would go for every decorrellation, he would effectively kill all the stereo, greatly diminishing the effect in the headphones.
Once again, it's a good handy tool, but the problem is identified incorrectly and thus the conclusion ("instruments with phasing channels are softer") is wrong, too. They're not softer. One could even argue that they could be percieved louder in the headphones and stand out more.
Calling a side channel "a phasing problem" is highly misleading. When something is labeled this way, you then look for a way to "eliminate the problem". But side channel is not problematic (it's, in fact, essential) unless there are some particular circumstances.
Mono compatibility is important, but to a point.
"Calling a side channel "a phasing problem" is highly misleading". Mid = Left + Right while Side is Left - Right, so yes both Mid and Side channel contains problems and change of loudness when Left channels cancels Right channel. Arx is about creating mix that can sound similar whatever system you played it without changing overall loudness or loudness of problematic sounds.Please read the description why you should care about mono compatibillity. If you are one of those who do not care then no problem here. I just giving you tool to fix it. Btw there is a way to create wide mix without using those wide sounds and without widdening effects that will not make any problems when summed in mono.
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"when Left channels cancels Right channel"
Exactly.
So when does it? Please name a system where it does? Because I've named one. Nobody listens to a separate MID. And I know why keeping it clean sounds great. Still in my eyes that's not enough to call diff "a problem".
Here's where is does NOT:
- cell phones have multiple speakers;
- even bluetooth speakers have stereo output unless they are complete shit;
- car systems and television, obviously;
- if one is working on a construction site with a 1990s radio in his pocket, idk if he would care.
I deconstruct dozens of references for my clients a week. It's not a personal preference of mine, it's just statistics. Yes, there're ways to create side by doing an inverse delay trick (and some others), guess what: they sound different.
So I stand my ground here, these are not "problems".
And I aknowledge that it is merely a tool, the tool itself is great. The conclusion I think is not.
Sure, "focus" the high end and the low end. Great idea.
Don't go around saying that "it becomes quieter". No, it doesn't. Practically nobody's listening to a mid channel.
(Can't download Eclipsis.).
You do not read the decription. Any system. I will put again what is in description.
"There is a zone that lies at a certain distance and angle to the speakers that are kind of ideal but speakers are not headphones where the sound goes directly to your ears. With speakers there is always some audio summing and you're basically hearing it in collapsed mono.
So unless you put you speakers directly on your ears there is always some summing of right and left. If sound in mix have phasing problems - phase cancelation then loudness is different based on position of listener according to position of speakers. If you are in ideal position then there is almost no difference but when you are position where your for example left ear get sound directly form left and right speaker then you have almost full sum going direclty to your left ear.
Eclipsis and all other missing stuff will be updated when I have more time.
I suppose if you were to mention your phasing-speakers motivation in the video, I would be more ok with this.
Still, the loudness statement in the end that you're leading up to is just plain wrong.
We do understand each other cause we work in the field; people who're learning need more clarity I think.
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64-bit gui use 22 % CPU in reaper.
But after Close gui use 0.5 % cpu.
I have tested it and it looks you are correct. I have increased CPU usage too on my computer with opened GUI. It is caused by phase trace display. It takes 20480 samples of audio in order to show nice preview on phase in time and this big amount of sample preview cause CPU problems. Will see if I will be able to tweak it somehow but you can also disable/pause phase trace preview by clicking on it and it also decrease CPU usage.
Thanks ! Great ! disable/pause phase trace preview CPU down to 1.2 %
This looks great. Gonna check it out! Thank you VSTzOne.
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Is there any other resources that needs to be installed to run this? I can't get it to run on either Reaper 6.27 or Bluecat Patchwork 2. I'm running Win10 x64 19042.685.
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