|
Post by jeremygillespie on Oct 16, 2018 13:17:25 GMT -6
Every old school guy I’ve spent time in a room with making records thought it was a big deal. It seemed to be a bit more scientific for them and I sort of picked up on it. Now - with the tools at our disposal to fix basically anything, maybe it’s just not that big a deal anymore. I just like to make things right from the get go. I also understand that I generally have more time to mess around with stuff. If you have a 3 hour session where 2 songs have to be tracked start to finish I’d imagine you don’t get much time to sit around and mess with sounds - you record and go with what you have. I see good and bad sides of that. What's your process for checking polarity? For outboard I take a 1k tone and mult it. One goes to a channel on the console and the other goes to the piece of gear and comes back on another channel. If you pull the two channels up and they are additive, then the gear is correct. If it is subtractive, then something is wired wrong. It’s usually the gear as most places have their patchbay sorted. I have run into a few situations where barrier strips were wired up wrong, or where some of the xlr fan outs had a mistake. For checking mics, you can take a clicker (like one of those dog training things) and have somebody click it right by the microphone and watch the speaker movement. It should push out towards you first. Cables can be beeped out, I have a little box I build like 15 years ago that makes it really quick and easy. You can also buy little xlr adaptors that allow you to connect any two pins - then you can plug them into the live room panel and go in through the patch bay and beep out those lines as well.
|
|
|
Post by jeremygillespie on Oct 16, 2018 13:18:36 GMT -6
Every old school guy I’ve spent time in a room with making records thought it was a big deal. It seemed to be a bit more scientific for them and I sort of picked up on it. Now - with the tools at our disposal to fix basically anything, maybe it’s just not that big a deal anymore. I just like to make things right from the get go. I also understand that I generally have more time to mess around with stuff. If you have a 3 hour session where 2 songs have to be tracked start to finish I’d imagine you don’t get much time to sit around and mess with sounds - you record and go with what you have. I see good and bad sides of that. Or close to 20 songs in 6 hours like I did recently with a group. Luckily they were prepared, but that doesn't really leave time for anything. Not my favorite situation. Yeah that’s definitely a situation where you just have to make the best of things and deal with it later!
|
|
|
Post by Johnkenn on Oct 16, 2018 13:22:32 GMT -6
|
|
|
Post by Johnkenn on Oct 16, 2018 13:35:56 GMT -6
|
|
|
Post by drbill on Oct 16, 2018 13:53:42 GMT -6
I've never been on an orchestral recording where the 2nd weren't clicking the speakers ahead of time - making sure of absolute polarity between every mic and it's destination - mic>pre/console>pro tools>monitoring.
Now...studio overdub sessions...a different story. Different calibre of studio / engineer / client too.
I applaud Jeremy for his dedication!! I have to admit, I don't always do it....
|
|
|
Post by Tbone81 on Oct 16, 2018 15:05:11 GMT -6
This looks interesting. Anybody use this? I used the demo on a live recording I did, vocals, acoustic guitar and cello with a mix of close mics and room mics. In my situation the monitoring was poor to non existent when I was setting up mics. It did help but it’s not a fix all. It basically calculates the delay and polarity reversal needed between multiple sources to have the best overall phase cohesion. How much it helps depends on the source material. There’s no substitute for proper mic technique. That said, it can be a very useful tool. What initially confused me when using it is that there is more than one “proper” phase “position” for each source and you have to audition them to find the best one. Which makes sense when you think about the fact that any given mic is getting bleed from multiple sources, at multiple positions, with multiple reflections.
|
|
|
Post by EmRR on Oct 16, 2018 17:13:45 GMT -6
Not a myth. Tons of research pointing this way for many decades. You have some disproving data, point it out. ”Disproving” or “proving” is gonna be pretty hard to come by when we’re talking about squishy terms like “intelligibility” isn’t it? But it would seem to me at first blush that the burden of proof would be on the claim that “absolute polarity” does matter. Different instruments produce opposite polarity naturally. Ok, ‘disprove’ is a tough one, but he did call it a myth. As others referenced earlier, there are AES papers which suggest some people hear absolutely polarity relatively clearly, and others not at all. As to your comment, it is indeed the realm of science with a long history and a lot of official testing standards for different situations. It’s hardly squishy. Goes back to the first use of the telephone, with tons more research once military radio had to be intelligible in tough conditions with weak signals. Continues with the introduction of amplification to enclosed spaces, the ‘Talkie’, the TV, etc. One more recent paper comes up which makes a blanket statement about speech polarity making no difference, in the context of hiding data within a speech audio stream. Other papers give examples of the way words can change into other words with a combination of polarity swaps and modulation. The reference I can’t find again was one that said evidence suggested that polarity made more and less of an intelligibility difference depending on the language spoken/sung. I found that most interesting. The voice and many wind instruments present as wave compression cycle rather than rarefaction cycle (maybe I’m phrasing that correctly - air comes out, creating a leading compression wave portion; we don’t speak or play the trombone while inhaling), and the ear expects it that way. Not that it’s unintelligible, but backwards can be a factor amongst many in it being less intelligible. It’s a matter of degrees. Back to your comment on instrument polarity, there’s the relative moment of the wave you are experiencing which can matter not, then there’s what the leading edge does when you encounter it in the free field, and I don’t believe the leading edge of any new sound ever presents a differing polarity in the free field. Certainly not a kick drum, certainly not a wind driven thing like a trombone or a shout. We take a lot of cues from that initial presentation. Very clearly recognized, and highly relevant to us, is the fact that many speech processors do undesirable and unexpected things to reverse polarity speech. Many of those are downstream after us, in the streaming or broadcast chains. There’s a lot of info out there if you look, and a whole lot of noise along with it. There's a lot of sound that's 'right', and a lot that's 'wrong', and it all has varying degrees of intelligibility for a myriad of reasons.
|
|
|
Post by ragan on Oct 16, 2018 19:54:23 GMT -6
”Disproving” or “proving” is gonna be pretty hard to come by when we’re talking about squishy terms like “intelligibility” isn’t it? But it would seem to me at first blush that the burden of proof would be on the claim that “absolute polarity” does matter. Different instruments produce opposite polarity naturally. Ok, ‘disprove’ is a tough one, but he did call it a myth. As others referenced earlier, there are AES papers which suggest some people hear absolutely polarity relatively clearly, and others not at all. As to your comment, it is indeed the realm of science with a long history and a lot of official testing standards for different situations. It’s hardly squishy. Goes back to the first use of the telephone, with tons more research once military radio had to be intelligible in tough conditions with weak signals. Continues with the introduction of amplification to enclosed spaces, the ‘Talkie’, the TV, etc. One more recent paper comes up which makes a blanket statement about speech polarity making no difference, in the context of hiding data within a speech audio stream. Other papers give examples of the way words can change into other words with a combination of polarity swaps and modulation. The reference I can’t find again was one that said evidence suggested that polarity made more and less of an intelligibility difference depending on the language spoken/sung. I found that most interesting. The voice and many wind instruments present as wave compression cycle rather than rarefaction cycle (maybe I’m phrasing that correctly - air comes out, creating a leading compression wave portion; we don’t speak or play the trombone while inhaling), and the ear expects it that way. Not that it’s unintelligible, but backwards can be a factor amongst many in it being less intelligible. It’s a matter of degrees. Back to your comment on instrument polarity, there’s the relative moment of the wave you are experiencing which can matter not, then there’s what the leading edge does when you encounter it in the free field, and I don’t believe the leading edge of any new sound ever presents a differing polarity in the free field. Certainly not a kick drum, certainly not a wind driven thing like a trombone or a shout. We take a lot of cues from that initial presentation. Very clearly recognized, and highly relevant to us, is the fact that many speech processors do undesirable and unexpected things to reverse polarity speech. Many of those are downstream after us, in the streaming or broadcast chains. There’s a lot of info out there if you look, and a whole lot of noise along with it. There's a lot of sound that's 'right', and a lot that's 'wrong', and it all has varying degrees of intelligibility for a myriad of reasons. Fair enough. FWIW, I just meant the concept of "intelligibility" is a little squishy due to the pretty subjective nature of each of our ear-brain situations.
|
|
|
Post by kijiji on Oct 16, 2018 20:59:53 GMT -6
Thanks for that and no worries man. It didn’t even occur to me that the MKII’s would still be shipping with reversed polarity after this was revealed way back with the very first run of the MKI’s. But either way, easy enough for me to fix (but good to know it’s already taken care of!) This SA2A sounds great! So I got curious about my SA-2A because of reading this thread, so this afternoon I did some tests. Based on these waveforms, it looks to me like my SA-2A has reversed polarity, too. Grrr. The attached waveforms are from taking a kick sample and routing it out to a few pieces of gear and back in: 1. SA-2A 2. Silver Bullet 3. Stam 1073 MPA Ch 2 4. Stam 1073 MPA Ch 1 Only the SA-2A appears to be reverse polarity. stam any thoughts about how I might remedy the problem? I do not trust my soldering skills enough to attempt the repair myself. But I'd really rather not have to ship it, either. Aren't there a couple local (or local-ish) folks from RGO around the Durham/Raleigh, NC area who are more skilled in these matters than myself? Despite the polarity miswiring, I want to say that I love the way my SA-2A sounds. It has tons of vibe. Really nice work on the sonics, Joshua. Hello the people of RGO. Big time Stam follower here. They just sound good. So the pin3 thing.......is it a mis-wired at the input, at the output or is the whole unit pin3+ ? Thanks.
|
|
|
Post by bigbone on Oct 16, 2018 21:02:58 GMT -6
I call it a myth and still do.!!!
|
|
|
Post by chessparov on Oct 16, 2018 22:41:40 GMT -6
"Never let the truth, get in the way of a good story". (Old Irish saying) Chris
|
|
|
Post by christopher on Oct 17, 2018 10:39:24 GMT -6
Direct bass is another one. Ever have those massive transient spikes but only on the positive side? flip polarity, it can help.
|
|
|
Post by kcatthedog on Oct 17, 2018 11:01:44 GMT -6
Wondering if we can slip this polarity confab out to another thread as I keep think there is something new here about STAM stuff
|
|
|
Post by jtc111 on Oct 17, 2018 13:57:34 GMT -6
Wondering if we can slip this polarity confab out to another thread as I keep think there is something new here about STAM stuff Serious question and not trying to be sarcastic, but is this an OCD kind of thing for you?
|
|
|
Post by kcatthedog on Oct 17, 2018 14:33:34 GMT -6
Serious answer but what is the point of having extended conversations not about the thread topic ?
|
|
|
Post by lcr on Oct 17, 2018 15:02:07 GMT -6
If the dogg wrote a 300 page book it would have over 90 chapters.
|
|
|
Post by kcatthedog on Oct 17, 2018 15:09:28 GMT -6
I am writing a book about staying on topic,but I keep changing the topic, so its hard to finish! Forgive me, my mom was a teacher, journalist and editor of her college paper: so their, oops, they're,,oh man, there!
|
|
|
Post by drbill on Oct 17, 2018 15:27:27 GMT -6
Being off topic is a requirement for internet threads. It's mandatory. Sometime take 2 posts, sometimes 2 pages, but it always goes off topic. Don't worry, eventually it will slide back into the groove. Probably by accident.
|
|
|
Post by jtc111 on Oct 18, 2018 11:40:34 GMT -6
Serious answer but what is the point of having extended conversations not about the thread topic ? Real world conversations are organic and I see forums as an extension of that. We're people with a like interest who don't have an opportunity to have these conversations face-to-face so we do this instead. That these conversations allow subjects to flow into other related subjects is part of the natural process of conversation. In real life, we don't change rooms when topics evolve so I don't really see the need to do so in a forum like this one.
|
|
|
Post by kcatthedog on Oct 18, 2018 12:00:36 GMT -6
So, we disagree Unless one suffers from ADHD and is out of Ritalin ? ? I little digression I get. Now this thread has nothing to do with it topic. Is that really good ?
|
|
|
Post by drbill on Oct 18, 2018 12:19:04 GMT -6
Now this thread has nothing to do with it topic. Is that really good ? No. Is it part of life though. If you let stuff like that really get to you, it kills all the internet enjoyment to be had. You can't police it without looking like an ***. (I know from personal experience. ) No worries, like mentioned, it will slide back into the groove. I'll give it a go to help you out.... "Are the Stam retail outlets only in the EU or is there distribution in the US?"
|
|
|
Post by Bob Olhsson on Oct 18, 2018 14:31:46 GMT -6
I asked Jim Johnston who is retired from Bell Labs about this.
His answer was that there is no reason to not expect us to hear changes in polarity due to the asymmetrical nature of our hearing organs however where it gets tricky is that there are also no truly symmetrical transducers for testing that wouldn't also cause a change in sound.
|
|
|
Post by kcatthedog on Oct 18, 2018 14:40:41 GMT -6
What I don't get is ,if someone raises an interesting new topic, why don't they just start another thread about it ?
Who would come to a thread called Stam goes Retail to discuss the sonic artifacts of polarity differences ?
|
|
|
Post by lcr on Oct 18, 2018 15:11:47 GMT -6
Please note - I did mention I like hot sauce on some foods.
|
|
|
Post by Mister Chase on Oct 18, 2018 15:31:28 GMT -6
What I don't get is ,if someone raises an interesting new topic, why don't they just start another thread about it ? Who would come to a thread called Stam goes Retail to discuss the sonic artifacts of polarity differences ? For the same reasons we start life thinking we'll be a fighter pilot and end up giving digital rectal exams in a motel 6 off the interstate instead.
|
|