how come paz analyzer does this?

[laboroflove]

i stick in cd after cd and everything is in the anti phase region of the paz analyzer.major artists 2.what is the reason ?i mean i know my recordings go nuts on it but shouldnt the major labels all be in phase lol

[Smithcok]

Heres the deal:

Great songs can be made with no material drifting into that phase area, and just the opposite. Just because audio is under the "anti-phase" of the PAL, it doesnt necessarily mean anything bad is happening. It is just giving you information about the stereo image. If you do have stuff in the "anti-phase", be sure to check the mix in mono and listen for phase-i-ness and cancellations.

[Rad]

I don't own the PAZ plugin but have heard the same thing as you say from people who have it!
So, my understanding is that, especially when you're mixing from a lot of sources, it is virtually impossible to make a recording in which all sources are completely and 100% in phase, even if you use a calibrating mic to "align" them. What really matters is, whether the de-phasing that exists in your record, -- in fact, in any record -- is audible. And the easiest thing to check is switch to mono and watch out for the base, or in stereo, look for muddy base without definition. These are things that need to be fixed, if they are there. But otherwise, I'd say no reason to worry.

[5454stevef]

I have a sinking feeling that maybe we have TOO MANY tools at our disposal these days - it allows us to worry about things that are not only not significant to the end result, nothing can be done about it anyway. By the time you slap reverb and delay into a mix I think it would be a miracle if you DIDN'T have some signals that were out of phase.

It would be interesting to see, in a sort of crude test, what one of these analyzers would show if used on a stereo track recorded with a binaural mic setup. If it indicates signals that are out of phase on recordings that sound good, I would think that might be indicative that this kind of thing is just part of the deal with audio and not to lose sleep over it.

SF

[Rad]

[\QUOTE
it allows us to worry about things that are not only not significant to the end result, nothing can be done about it anyway.
\QUOTE]

Ha, I'm totally with you on that. A signal can be analyzed in a variety of ways, not all of which are acoustically meaningful as far as human hearing is concerned. An analyzer that tells you something is in the wave doesn't mean that you can hear it, and in fact is not very useful because the end result is want a recording that SOUNDS good, not one that looks good on an analyzer. Makes me wonder why the PAZ was made that way to start with.

[5454stevef]

[QUOTE=Rad
Makes me wonder why the PAZ was made that way to start with.[/QUOTE]

I guess maybe it could be useful in detecting gross problems, like one track out of several that have a lot of the same content, like drum overheads, being reversed in polarity, because of a cable wiring problem or something. I don't use PAZ but I do use Inspector to make sure my mixes have about the same amount of energy on both sides, because my room is not perfectly balanced. So in cases like mine where you have an imperfect listening environment it can be good to have another reference to use along with your ears.

It seems to me that especially with instruments like drums and cymbals that have a more or less fixed fundamental and overtone content, the kinds of persistent phase issues you can detect with PAZ are almost unavoidable if you use more than one microphone that may pick up a lot of overlapping information. It might be useful in minimizing these effects, I don't know, I've never used it, mostly just move the mics around till I like how it sounds. Who can say for sure that minimizing out of phase signal pickup between various mics will necessarily improve the sound - in the case of using several identical mics it might actually emphasize the personality of the mics more, which depending on the mics could be good or not.

Beats me. Ha... I mostly just grip it & rip it, if it sounds good I don't worry too much about phase.

SF