Waves PAZ Analyzer, part of the Waves Masters series plugins. It also contains a Spectrograph.

http://www.brainspawn.com

They have some pretty decent stuff; a little cheezy-looking, but it works and it's cheap.

Jeff,

Check out this page. Joachim Michaelis, has written a free little app called VUmeter that is simple but is nice way to check phase.

[[url=http://[/URL]="http://error.homepa…"]VUMeter[/]="http://error.homepa…"]VUMeter[/]

Yes, but really work on being able to just "hear" it. Out of phase is very obvious.

RM I agree completely. I have noticed a trend in people talking about how some thing LOOKS not what it sounds like. I am visual person but I find video monitors can some times be distracting.

Of course visual tools can be useful in helping you identifing what you are hearing but no substitute for a learning to trust your ears.

What's funny is many times some thing doesn't "feel" right even before I identified there is a problem.

Training yourself to be an "active" listener is hard enough as it is without other distractions.

The reason I asked is that a dialogue file that I am working on looks sort of funky (the waveform). By that, I mean that the peaks are not symmetrical about the infinity line - more than DC offset could account for. It sounds fine, but I wanted to check the phase to see if there is someting going on that I can't hear...

I downloaded the JM VUMeter but have not had a chance to test it out yet. Thanks for the replies.

Originally posted by On-Track Recording:
The reason I asked is that a dialogue file that I am working on looks sort of funky (the waveform)..

Human voices...and many "sounds" are Asymetrical. They have more energy on the negative or positive side. It could very well be that your dialog was recorded out of phase 180. Quite common...it's only a problem with sources that are multi mic, As your dialog probably doesn't have another source for it to cancell with, it shouldn't have any detrimental affects. It can affect tembre a bit. Flip polarity, and choose the position that sounds best.

Absolute polarity, can be checked at the time of recording with a polarity checker...or a "phase popper" or "phase clicker" as it's variously know. Very handy if your in a new room and do not know for sure if everything is wired the same way (i.e. is everything pin 2 or pin 3 hot...or a mix). In some of the older rooms (with 20 or 30 years of gear/history/tech's) combinations of polarity opinions can accumulate...untill there's booby traps all about that most people don't catch...until it's too late.

Become allergic to phase...it's a good allergy to have...it'll save you from a condition of the "thin hives"
:w: