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Are there phase issues when tracking acoustic direct in and mic at same time?

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The Great Fall Sat, 01/16/2021 - 13:25

My studiolive24.4.2 has a phase flip switch.... should I cycle this switch on one of the channels and choose best sound when going in or instead use two mics with 3:1 ..... should I be in the habit of always checking for phase issues (even single mic on guitar cabinet) should I use a meter or my ear. Even then.. when I’m mixing should phase be checked across the various tracks during panning and eq adjustment between tracks?

bouldersound Sat, 01/16/2021 - 13:26

I suppose my response wasn't very useful.

Any time you have two version of the same signal with timing and other differences, there's going to be some kind of phase reaction. Whether it's a "problem" or not depends a lot on how you handle things. If you mix them together, whatever phase interactions there are will be locked in. If you pan them apart, the phase interactions will change depending on whether the recording is played in stereo or mono. Further, if the player moves, the phase interaction will change over time, which can be especially noticeable.

bouldersound Sat, 01/16/2021 - 13:29

Bonecrusher1, post: 466808, member: 52275 wrote:
My studiolive24.4.2 has a phase flip switch.... should I cycle this switch on one of the channels and choose best sound when going in or instead use two mics with 3:1 ..... should I be in the habit of always checking for phase issues (even single mic on guitar cabinet) should I use a meter or my ear. Even then.. when I’m mixing should phase be checked across the various tracks during panning and eq adjustment between tracks?

Technically, that's a polarity switch. While it can be used to treat phase interactions, it doesn't fix them. If one setting sounds a lot better, that's probably the one to use.

Polarity of a single mic is generally not very audible. It's when you combine two versions of the same signal that phase and polarity become important.