Remixing RAM to fix phasing issues

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by Octavian, May 16, 2017.

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  1. Shaddam IV

    Shaddam IV Forum Resident

    Location:
    Ca
    My mistake then. Logic therefore dictates that you believe remixing should never be done, and we are in disagreement. Glad that's over.
     
    Last edited: Jan 22, 2018
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  2. tables_turning

    tables_turning In The Groove

    Location:
    Mid Atlantic, USA
    I own two original copies of this on vinyl. Happy with the mix. Wouldn't change a thing.
     
  3. Veech

    Veech Space In Sounds

    Location:
    Los Angeles, CA
    Is this the remix that corrected the phase issues?
     
  4. aphexj

    aphexj Sound mind & body

    Yes: the mono mix. No issue if you play the stereo mix in stereo, as our host has pointed out
     
  5. Blue Cactus

    Blue Cactus Forum Resident

    Location:
    Illinois
    Leave Ram alone.

    Now Venus & Mars could use a good remix to get rid of all the compression that bogs down the original mix.
     
  6. Veech

    Veech Space In Sounds

    Location:
    Los Angeles, CA
    ok, I'm a little fuzzy here, I apologize in advance for the stupid questions. Are we calling the mono mix a remix? Or were there two mono mixes? The original stereo mix has no phase issues unless summed to mono, correct? I don't quite get that, does that apply to every stereo album? Or does the stereo mix actually have phase issues but you can't hear them? If you played the stereo mix on bookshelf speakers placed side-by-side, mimicking a mono source, would you hear phase issues?
     
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  7. RingoStarr39

    RingoStarr39 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Baden, PA
    The left and right channels of the stereo mix are off by a considerable amount. About 7 or 8 samples if you're talking about 44.1 digital.
    When summed to mono, everything in the center of the stereo mix sounds phasey and washed out.
    There's not much of a difference when listening in stereo, but some are able to tell that everything in the center sounds a little more defined in the mix.
     
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  8. Steve Hoffman

    Steve Hoffman Your host Your Host

    The mono mix is a remix of the stereo mix, yes. They had to do a remix because radio was having trouble playing the stereo LP on mono radio stations because of the phase cancellation.
     
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  9. aphexj

    aphexj Sound mind & body

    Yes — we are talking about the phase relationship between left and right signals; in this case, a problem inherent to the tape machine that captured the master stereo mixes caused a slight delay between these channels, so the signals that should be common to both of them (ie. in the centre of the stereo field) don't perfectly align when they're summed together into one signal, which produces an unpleasant swooshy sound

    No — electrical (or digital) summation of the two stereo signals is where you hear audible artifacts. By contrast, when the two signals play through speakers in three-dimensional space — even right next to each other — there is still a difference in their alignment, so the phase summation isn't perfect and doesn't produce the same problem
     
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  10. Lance Hall

    Lance Hall Senior Member

    Location:
    Fort Worth, Texas
    A time delay between channels is not the same as a phase difference.

    So the stereo RAM actually has left/right sync issues and not phase issues?
     
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  11. Shaddam IV

    Shaddam IV Forum Resident

    Location:
    Ca
    Right, are we talking about an inverted channel, or a sync issue?*

    *I can see how "out of phase" could be used to describe both a sync issue, and a polarity issue.

    Edit - we are taking about a sync issue!
     
    Last edited: Jan 22, 2018
  12. Veech

    Veech Space In Sounds

    Location:
    Los Angeles, CA
    First, thank you (and Steve) for your replies. Would this be an azimuth issue more than a phase issue? Azimuth mis-alignment can cause a phasing effect but for me, a phase issue is something to do with the (+) and (-) in the signal chain.

    hah.. there's an app for that! "Azimuth adjustment can help repair stereo imbalances and phase issues that can occur with improper tape head alignment or other speed related issues." https://www.izotope.com/en/products/repair-and-edit/rx/features/azimuth.html
     
    Last edited: Jan 22, 2018
  13. Veech

    Veech Space In Sounds

    Location:
    Los Angeles, CA
    Perhaps it has both?
     
  14. aphexj

    aphexj Sound mind & body

    You're welcome, but this is kind of complicated and we're getting into very technical stuff

    Phase is often used incorrectly. It's about the orientation of a waveform as compared to another one; which, incidentally, also changes as it moves through the air lots of times before hitting your ears, so certain frequencies can arrive at your eardrum out of phase compared to the original signal, or in phase, depending on how many cycles it takes them to reach you. This reads to your ear as subtraction of these frequencies in their relative volumes when they're out of phase. The periodic shifting of this addition and cancellation is the "phasey" swirl effect, traditionally caused by delaying a signal slightly by shifting its speed on a tape machine, and playing it on top of the original as they move in and out of time alignment -- but the center information on the stereo RAM doesn't drift too much in a "phasey" way, it's more like a comb filter effect which brutally subtracts certain frequencies and makes it sound "hollow" or "ringy" when collapsed to mono

    Not sure exactly what was wrong with the original tape machine in this case, but the orientation of the (+) and (-) ends of the waveforms describes their polarity, not phase (although when you invert the polarity of a wave it can also be described as 180 degrees 'out of phase' from the original polarity). We mostly talk about the phase of a signal in relationship to a relative comparison, like a stereo pair, because audio is more complicated than whether it points up or down (that's its absolute polarity). The center information in a stereo pair is partly out of phase when you look at the two channels together, here
     
  15. Veech

    Veech Space In Sounds

    Location:
    Los Angeles, CA
    Gotcha (I think). So the phase issue with the stereo RAM is likely due to head mis-alignment when the mix to master was done? I read somewhere that one channel of RAM is something like .008 seconds offset from the other. Do you know if this was corrected on the 2012 reissue or were the original master tapes used?
     
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  16. Strat-Mangler

    Strat-Mangler Personal Survival Daily Record-Breaker

    Location:
    Toronto
    Coming late into this thread, wondering if anybody who has corrected the phase issues in the stereo version can verbalize a bit about how things sound afterwards?

    And a quick tutorial on how to do this would be terrific, if anybody is so inclined. :)
     
  17. marcob1963

    marcob1963 Forum Resident

    Mr. Hoffman, any idea what that distortion on Smile Away is? Was something recorded hot? Thanks.
     
  18. slane

    slane Forum Resident

    Location:
    Merrie England
    None of the CD versions have been corrected.
     
  19. alexpop

    alexpop Power pop + other bad habits....

    DCC Gold Cd?
     
  20. Culpa

    Culpa Forum Resident

    Location:
    Philadelphia, PA
    So for anyone listening in stereo, there's absolutely no need to "fix" anything, and if it was "fixed" we wouldn't notice it anyway. Is that correct?
     
  21. lennonology

    lennonology Formerly pas10003

    Location:
    St. Louis, MO
    Steve - just to clarify your comment. The RAM mono mix was a new remix from the multi-tracks. It was not simply a manipulation of the stereo mix.

    Chip Madinger
    www.lennonology.com
     
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  22. aphexj

    aphexj Sound mind & body

    Yes

    /thread
     
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  23. alexpop

    alexpop Power pop + other bad habits....

    thought it was manipulation of the stereo mix myself.
     
  24. mikaal

    mikaal Sociopathic Nice Guy

    Phasing issues...? I'll have to drink about that.
     
  25. alexpop

    alexpop Power pop + other bad habits....

    Smiling Phases :)
     
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