Phase invert - Would you want it, or use it?

I am surprised there is not much talk about sample phase invert! seems no one needs it like I do. So here is a poll about it. I am curious on how you flip the phase of a sample. Computer is obviously the first choice, as well as a desk to resample through and invert phase. But that is resampling and there is a chance of noise, as opposed to MPC or computer. (not that my MPC can do it). So tell me how you do it. I usually just chop of the front of the wave, but wished there was just a phase invert.

never heard of it - whats the point?

It is in relation to the sample waveform. When you look at the wave of the sample do you notice how the wave form starts from zero either up, or down from zero at the beginning. Inverting the phase of the wave will flip this picture, or waveform.
I prefer to have samples start in the positive phase first, some samples arnt.

interesting. it's extremely easy to program. i haven't needed it (unless the sample is out of stereo phase for some reason) but i could see it being useful

It would be nice to have. many sonic possibilities when two of the same sample is played back with the one in opposite polarity and in different speed.

Nym wrote:interesting. it's extremely easy to program. i haven't needed it (unless the sample is out of stereo phase for some reason) but i could see it being useful

Yeah I am not a programmer, I do not know how hard it would be to impliment, but it does seem very simple data conversion from negative value to posative value,

eimer wrote:It would be nice to have. many sonic possibilities when two of the same sample is played back with the one in opposite polarity and in different speed.

and yeah even vice verca, which i didnt really think about, and now i do i just wanted it implimented more.

And this

http://www.hometracked.com/2007/02/12/t ... l-changes/

Because of phase cancellation, when you mix a track with a phase-inverted copy of itself, the two tracks cancel each other out and you hear silence.

However, if you then make a small change to one of the tracks, they’ll no longer cancel each other completely. Instead you’ll hear the parts that don’t cancel out, or effectively the difference between the two tracks. You can use this to hear when an effect has altered the sound of a track by even the smallest “just noticeable” amount.

The concept is straightforward: By mixing the effected track with an inverted copy of the original, you’ll hear the difference introduced by the effect.

And the process for applying this concept is straightforward too: Duplicate the audio track, and invert the phase of the second track. (Like this, in Sonar)



Tracks out of phase
Note the phase-invert button on the second track has been activated. In most DAWs, including Sonar and Cubase, the phase-invert button is denoted by the greek letter phi. As stated above, if you play the two tracks at this point you’ll hear nothing, since they cancel each other out.

Now, on the first track, add the effect you wish to monitor. Adjust the effect a small amount. As you raise its level, the two tracks will increasingly differ, and since they no longer completely cancel each other out, you’ll hear that difference.

Further, you can mute the second track to remove the phase cancellation altogether, and hear how the first track sounds with the effect applied. With some practice, flipping between the original track, the effected track, and the combination which highlights the difference, you’ll get better at judging when an effect is just noticeable.

Seems like a very very easy thing to add.
You can run into phase problems when recording with multiple mics, as the distance to the mic determines the phase, and so occasionally the combined signals will interfere with each other in the mix and not sound so good. Flipping the phase of one mic usually helps.

As an aside, balanced audio cables use phase inverting to eliminate noise. You take the (mono) signal to be transmitted, make a copy, and then invert the copy. If you add these together now you'd get silence. Both signals are transmitted over the balanced audio cable. Some noise will be introduced (radio interference for example), but the same noise is introduced on both signals. When receiving the audio, the copied and inverted signal is inverted once again (its now back to simply being a copy of the original), but at the same time, the noise that was introduced becomes inverted. When you add the copy to the other (never inverted) signal, the signal you want is doubled, and the noise cancels itself out.
Neat.

Layering samples. Thats another big domain of this feature. Some samples just don't seem to work together and sounding thin instead of big/fat. This could be an phase issue (for example one kickdrum cancel some frequencies of the layered second kick). A phase invert button can do wonders in such cases.

This is btw an often used option when a live drumkit gets recorded. If the snare is recorded with two microphones (one on the top the other on the snare wires) it can result in "cancellation" of some frequencies (depending on the distance/position of the microphones) cause their receiving the sound of ONE instrument but at different times. This will decrease some frequencies and increase others. The snare is sounding thin or on the other hand dull. The phase invert button on desks is used to avoid a bad sounding snare. If it sounds bad neither if the button is on or off one of the microphones need to be replaced on another position (just a few inches)

peace

so in TRIM mode it'd be good if we had these 3 functions:

flip phase (both channels / mono)
flip L phase
flip R phase

if the sample is mono, all 3 options would essentially do the same thing.

interesting to see everyones phase game is in effect. For me I would like it mainly for drum hits, but there is obviously many other things that would benefit from phase flip function, if JJ would do it for us. G nym i didnt think bout stereo my drum kicks and snares are usually in mono. But yeah stereo invert of just one channle is, as lampdog said, a world of phasing fun for freq attenuation. Thanks everybody for your imput.

Nym wrote:so in TRIM mode it'd be good if we had these 3 functions:

flip phase (both channels / mono)
flip L phase
flip R phase

if the sample is mono, all 3 options would essentially do the same thing.

That would be fantastic! I hope that JJ will implement it!!!

I have requested it for a bit now, and since has not been implimented so thats why i did this poll to find out if i was just wanting something no one else would use.
The results so far are tied with first three answers getting 29%.
I want it as i dont use computer in my studio to make music and i dont want to resample through hardware to just invert phase, but thats pretty much my only work around at the moment.