Phase issues when mixing in Vegas

brandondrury wrote on 8/23/2004, 10:11 PM
Well,

I've been using Vegas for years now. I'm quiet comfortable with the program and find using it be about like using my hands (although I'm quite clumsy). Anyway, I'm having phase issues when using the aux sends. I may send all my drums to Bus A with a Waves Rcomp across the entire buss. Sometimes I want to compress the crap out of the kick and snare on a seperate bus which I can bring up in the mix as I see fit.

This occassionally leads to phase problems which quickly destroy a mix.

I realize that there is some latency due to the Busses and the plugins. I've tried using just one track such as kick drum and the test is repeatable. Plugin latency will cause phase problems.

What are my options? How do I fix it?

Brandon Drury

Comments

MrPhil wrote on 8/24/2004, 4:11 AM
Try putting the plugins on the channels directly, instead of busses.
bog wrote on 8/24/2004, 3:27 PM
Taking a break from the folks over there at PSW I see :)

Well obviously you can't do what MrPhil says, because the compression needs to work OVER the summed tracks. But his point was that insert plugins take on automatic compensation....

It truly sucks that one needs to take extra steps do do this properly, but hey I figure with the time I save using Vegas in the first place....

Just creates a submix of what you want compressed (usually kick, snare, and sometimes I find a little bass works great YMMV) and print that to a new track and slam it with the compressor on the insert point. Of course you may need to do some trial and error getting that submix leveled the way you want. When creating it, I throw a temporary compressor on the final buss, and solo the kick/snare/whatever and then print it bypassing the compressor of course. This is probably all obvious to you.

The classic “New York compression” trick was to, after the compression, slam it with heavy EQ, boosting at 100 and 1k. Tucking this in so you’re just hearing it can made the drums seems much bigger and closer, without become louder.

MrPhil wrote on 8/25/2004, 5:24 AM
If the kick and snare are on separate channels, why can't he compress them on the channels directly, if the goal is to compress the crap out of the kick and snare?

Or did I miss something?
tmrpro wrote on 8/25/2004, 6:56 AM
Hey everyone, hope all is well in Vegas land... Bog's suggestion is correct

MrPhil Said:
If the kick and snare are on separate channels, why can't he compress them on the channels directly, if the goal is to compress the crap out of the kick and snare?

The response of the compressor must be defined by the Kick & Snare as a summed result to get "that sound".
MrPhil wrote on 8/27/2004, 2:55 AM
Why?
Are the attack/release times set in special way, or do the snare & kick hit a lot at the same time or what?

Merge the tracks then, and compress.
bog wrote on 8/27/2004, 8:10 AM
The kick when played will 'duck' the snare drum track level and vise-versa. Often, attack/release times are setup so they work together to get this 'breathing' type action, where things are pumping in time with the music.
tmrpro wrote on 8/27/2004, 11:08 AM
MrPhill Said:
Merge the tracks then, and compress.

This too, is an option that requires another step and more file management, which would not make sense to an engineer that received the multitrack files a couple years down the road and wondered; "Why in the world would somebody merge the kick & the snare onto a single track .... ahh .... I know, maybe their application couldn't allow for a bussed compressive result without the introduction of phase issues..."

Although I agree that this would produce the same result for the compressive effect, it would not allow a person to tweek other elements individually to coincide with what the overall compression is doing to the rest of the processing because you would have had to "print" your other individual processings in that same summed track.
Kyoto wrote on 8/27/2004, 4:06 PM
Why didn't they desigh auto compensation to work on inserts, busses - in other words, everything the signals pass through?????
brandondrury wrote on 2/21/2005, 11:30 AM
I didn't get the emails telling me that there had been a reply.

While probably not ideal, I've found that by slapping a compressor on the main drum bus (even it's not doing anything) will allow it to line up much more clearly with the "Crush The Hell Out of it" Bus.

I'll definitely try the heavy boosting of 100hz and 1Khz.

Brandon