Implementing a polarity switch on each track?

[Berrado]

Sorry if this has been discussed before, I searched for "polarity" and nothing relevant seemed to come up.

For anyone who works with multitrack music recording, especially in the case of recording drum kits, the polarity flip switch is absolutely necessary. How come I still have to open a plugin in a track to get one?

Also, a track delay ala Nuendo would prove to be immensely useful as well, but I see why one would draw the line there.

[Scott Church]

Hi Berrado,

I understand the first request to have a phase switch on each track. On your second request, there are a few ways to delay a track, and I want to understand how these either don't meet your needs, or why/how a different implementation would make your workflow easier?

One way to delay a track is to use the TimeAdjuster plug-in (Insert > Delay > TimeAdjuster). Another way is if you are using Delay Compensation, you can manually enter the desired delay in the Delay Compensation view. FInally, you can also select a region, and since our Edit window is sample accurate, you can use the Nudge value to offset the region (I happen to use this method myself).

So if you have a few minutes to give those a try and let me know what we are missing, or could improve on, I would be happy to talk about it.

CHeers,
Scott

[Berrado]

Hi Scott, thanks for the quick reply, my name is Bernardo, actually, I should work that into my sig.

I understand all the current options I have for delaying a track (in this context I don't care much for nudging, though), it just happens that it is the one feature of Nuendo that I miss, especially since they let you enter negative times for the "delay", which makes a lot of sense in the digital world, it's one of the things that is not possible in analog. I don't think it'd be a fundamental feature, but the fact that it'd be more readily accessible would interfere positively with the way I work (a major plus of working in analog desks, for an example, is having everything available at once).

But the main thing would be the polarity switch, really. Plus, I think not having one handy is rendering a whole generation of audio engineers ignorant of a fundamental tool in recording.

[hitshack]

You can use the trim plug-in to flip phase and some eq's like the MDW have a flip also.
Not like having a dedicated switch on each track but it works.

[Matt Chan]

we also use a trim plug in on every track. it takes up very little dsp and of course you can use it for gain too.

[Berrado]

Yeah, that's what I end up doing as well, but if it's on every track why not have it IN every track for good?

[holden]

I want to second Bernardo's request that all the capabilities of the trim plug-in be built into each channel. This is a fundamental feature of the channel strip paradigm upon which Digi has modeled their user interface and, frankly, I am puzzled by its exclusion. Inclusion of Trim capabilities in the channel strip would enhance workflow while saving precious plug-in slots.

[Lee Blaske]

For anyone who works with multitrack music recording, especially in the case of recording drum kits, the polarity flip switch is absolutely necessary.

0 or 180 was the old paradigm. These days, by slipping tracks, you can have 0 and 180, and everything in between. Why limit yourself to 0 or 180? Accurately time-aligning all your drum tracks is relatively easy to do within PT.

[Scott Church]

Hi Lee and Bernardo,

Lee, on the phase/delay issue, that's exactly why I find myself using nudge - and as you say on Drum tracks I do this quite often However, the delay value could be in ms or samples, and allow people the same freedom or range when moving a track back or forward. The reason why I (personally) would still use nudge, is that I like seeing how I have actually moved my tracks/regions and how they relate to the others. In this case, I feel like we do have several ways to delay/offset tracks to take care of phase and even regions and MIDI - especially since the Edit window is sample accurate. I will however check out how some of the other DAWs do it as Bernardo suggets.

There are some times when a polarity flip ("phase button in our UI") switch would be convenient for me, and that is when I am trying to compare two signals and see if they cancel, but I still do it quite easily via AudioSuite (Invert) or our EQ plug-in (button). So I am still not sure of the relatively priority of this one

Cheers,
Scott

[Scott Church]

Bernardo and Holden -

Okay...Trim is a very interesting one In my work with end-users (and even my own projects), I do find that people often record the signal too loud, and even commercial loops seem to all be normalized to 0 dBFS (why?), which is an issue when you start to add plug-ins and get mixing. As a result, I often have to use the Gain plug-in to bring it down to a reaonable level upon which I can do my DSP magic. It's quick and easy to do, but it does require more clicks than just turning a knob on the channel. However, I think it is clear to most end-users that they have an audio file on disk, and that gain reduces the level of that file. If the file was distorted because it clipped the hardware, it will still be distorted, just softer. So it's not the answer to their problems in those cases.

Now imagine if you have a trim knob on the Mixer where people unfamiliar with gain staging send a clipped signal into their interface and expect to use the Trim knob to attenuate the level. On the fader they will no longer be clipping (I am assuming the Trim is a pre-fader process) but their audio will be distorted and awful. Such a feature could cause more confusion then good - I already have seen many end-users try to use the channel fader to set the input level, rather than adjusting it at the source or the interface. I have a feeling this is why you don't see this on any other DAW, it's not that we "forgot" or omitted the knob - it's that the knob doesn't actually fit the workflow of a software mixer.

On a personal note, I always appreciate when plug-ins have an input and output gain knob, so I can control the level of the input and output signal - I wish the SDK required this of every plug-in (even ours). So many thanks to the developers who give us this control within their plug-ins, as gain staging seems to be misunderstood by many, but so very important.

Cheers,
Scott