From the course: Audio Recording Techniques

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Checking polarity

Checking polarity

From the course: Audio Recording Techniques

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Checking polarity

Phase cancellation can destroy your sound when you're tracking multiple instruments before you even push Record, but there is a sure fire way to eliminate it before it ever begins. I'm going to show you how to check the polarity of your mic cables in order to get rid of phase cancellation. While we'll be talking about acoustic phase problems in this course, there is also an instance of electronic phase cancellation you should know about as well. This has nothing to do with the mic placement, it's strictly an electronic problem that never shows up until multiple mics are used. Electronic phase problems are almost always caused by a cable in the studio that's been mis-wired during an install, repaired incorrectly, or originally wired incorrectly from the factory, which is rare. Checking microphone phase is one of the first things to do after the mics are wired up and tested. This is especially the case in the tracking session where a lot of mics will be used since having just one mic…

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