please explain.......

[Super Seven]

what does the following quote mean? and how would you do so in PT?

"Stereo width expansion : "Ghetto Blaster Trick". Take some of the right hand signal and feed it "out of phase" (left channel phase reverse switch "on") to the left hand channel and vice versa. This trick can be applied to individual subgroups within a mix or to stereo effects returns to add an extra dimension to a mix"

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">thanks

[polly serial]

pt can and usually does use split stereo files, with for instance left channel on one track and right on another. select one channel and nudge it forward just a little. the sound that you hear, with one being a little out of sync, is what it means to be out of phase. the sound waves are no longer occurring at the same time.
best,
ps

[where02190]

Be advised that when summed to mono, there will be major cancellation.

[polly serial]

oh whoops just noticed that i didn't read you post carefully. i gave you a similar trick.

that trick is usually accomplished with a mixing board, of which a decent one will have a phase reverse switch. you send the same stereo signal to two different sets of 2 tracks, and then hit the phase reverse switch on one of the pairs. adjusting the volume creates interesting effects, which play on a principle similar to the one i mentioned above.

i'm actually not exactly sure how to reverse phase in pt, although i imagine there's a plug in....
anybody???

[digidesigner]

There is a phase switch right there in a digi eq plugin,
be careful [img]images/icons/wink.gif[/img]

[Super Seven]

so in theory you should be able to send what ever tracks you want to bus 1+2 then put a phase reverse on 2 aux inputs with the input set as aux 1+2 and send them out to bus 3+4 and record 2 new tracks with inputs set to bus 3+4 as inputs? or am i totally lost here? [img]images/icons/confused.gif[/img]

[polly serial]

the tricks we're talking about are tricks for the mix, not for laying tracks.

easy method, no aux, or other confusion.

take a stereo pair, output it to 1/2.
duplicate the stereo pair, output to 1/2.
add, as someone suggested above, a digirack eq, with a phase reverse, to the second pair of tracks.
if you have the volume equal, you will get very strange phasing effects, approaching cancellation.

if you lower the volume on on or the other you will get a stronger but still colored signal. the odd phase relationships create a very wierd stereo image. some people like it a lot, some hate it.

more on this i cannot add!! try it, have fun and good luck.

[SoundWrangler]

All good posts. In particular, Polly Serial's brings up a pet peeve: nudging one copy of the waveform in time is indeed altering the "phase" of the 2 waveforms (their relationship in TIME). Digi follows the (IMO erroneous) mixing board industry practice of mislabeling POLARITY reversal as "phase" reversal in their plug-in windows/manuals. That just ain't right, & Digi could just have easily called it Polarity Reversal (FWIW).
When two copies of the waveform are out of POLARITY, one's going positive as the other goes negative; they're mirror images (which are exactly synchronous in time; OK?) - they should cancel each other out. (Which is why you reverse the POLARITY of the track you use for the bottom head of a snare drum; air is "pulling" it's diaphragm while the mic on the top of the drum is being "pushed", & vice versa.)

When two copies of a waveform are out of PHASE, one copy is delayed later in time with respect to the other. Some of their freq. components may (or may not) interact to boost/cut certain freq's, produce "phasing" effects, etc. But as complex waveforms (a snare being a great example), how much cancelling & what kind depends on many factors (incl. possibly delay time due to different microphone distances, track nudging as polly serial describes, plug-in processing delays, how complex or periodic the waveform is, etc.).
The ONLY time "180 degrees out of phase is the same as reverse polarity" is when you're dealing with idealized simple sine waves, & the time relationship btwn them is exactly equal to half the sine wave's periodicity. This just doesn't correspond to any real-world situation with audio recordings.

But of course, I'm whipping a dead horse here... [img]images/icons/rolleyes.gif[/img]