Cold and Ugly,
If you haven't expierenced an out of phase signal it is kind of hard to describe. You can monitor different mono signals, bass, guitar, a vocal while you reverse the wires on one of your monitor speakers. This should yeild an out of phase signal. It will be thiner sounding and have less body to it. If you listen to it to long it will result in ear fatigue and perhaps a headache. You might make a list of all the questions you have like this and book a couple of hours with a local studio / engineer-recordist who can demonstrate this type of thing and answer your questions. Good Luck Fats

yeah, that's pretty much what i'm getting at. things like that are hard to describe. they're even more difficult to describe without audio examples of them.

i guess what i'm getting at is considering the internet is supposed to give us access to unlimited power through knowledge, or some such hype, you'd figure figure we could utilize the resources available to us to be able to have some kind of vault of audio examples and explanations of them with audio examples.

not that i'm saying it's a bad thing, but imagine how many questions wouldn't have to be repeatedly answered to people like myself, who have some working knowledge but more questions than answers in the area of audio engineering and recording.

of course, then you'd be repeatedly answering people's questions by saying "go to this site for a list of examples and explanations", but it's a much shorter answer! it would probably teach and enlighten a lot more as well.

then again, maybe i should put my money where my mouth is and make up exactly what i'm talking about myself! i'm sure it would be useful. anyone interested in helping out a project like this by providing audio samples (mistakes, problems, examples of "perfect" recording stages, etc.) for the purpose of educating recording enthusiasts of all walks?

I think you could have a common problem/ remedy site, but I agree that it has to be experienced.
There is good examples of great recording out there, and you don't have to log on to the net to get them. If I (or the people I am recording) want a particular sound, I just ask them for a CD (or buy the one that I want) and A/B it. Hell, I probably have A/B'd one of RM's CD's :D
That does'nt mean I am going to get that exact result (because I don't have Ocean Way in my house) but that is what I shoot for.
And, even if you did post examples, I believe there still would be the same amount of questions and answers, because there are to many variables involved. For a lot of the questions, it is not what it sounds like, it is why am I getting this sound with MY gear/ room?
Digital or analog? Console? Multitrack? What interface? AES? Spdif? Lightpipe? Analog? What gear do you have? Mics? Mic technique? Room Acoustics? Control room? Converters? Pre's and dynamics? Clocking? Am I forgetting something?Everything has it's own associated problems and benefits that cannot be explained in one easy to read and hear manual.

I just found out Lightpipe has more latency associated with it than AES and by doing essentially the same thing a different way, but I also found out that my console may have a problem too, which I am investigating further. That is because two different Pro's answered the same question. So, even if it was a repeated questioned, it dealt with my particular set up and a problem was disscovered. In the same thread, I found out what pre to use to get a specific drum sound I was after, which might have been a repeat too, but now I know, I need a 1081. There are just too many types of sounds and techniques for any given instrument and a thousand ways to do the same thing... now throw in your gear, and your room response and shake well. I don't know if you would get that from a FAQ website. I am not saying it would not be helpful to give expamples of varying degrees of phase or to hear what comb filtering sounds like, but it took I while before I could develop my ears to the point where I could pick out (some of)problems in my own enviroment(I am a slow learner). Pass the scope please. I got that from building a studio and recording over and over, and repeating the same mistakes, purposly dumping phase, checking correlation meters, nudging tracks and most importantly, trying diffent suggested techniques and asking a thousand questions, over and over. Looking at more than one persons recomendations (and questions) and finding one that worked for me (or my own sollution through combining the recomendations). Also, it might be a repeated question, but someone might chime in that you never heard before that has a great solution. Now, I could be reamed in the next post, but that is my .01 cent (I have not been around long enough to give .02 cents).

Corny

=D