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Blog: Blog2
  • Writer's pictureAsh Saron

It's not a Phase

Have you ever needed to help your dialogue fit into a scene and only have ADR to work with or Lavalier mics and want to give more depth of field to them by moving perceivable towards or away from the listener without just automating level? This is a neat little trick you could use in any Post-Production workflow or even for a music track to add extra effect.


While there are a couple ways of doing this, I will show you a way to save on processing power by using auxiliaries which you can also automate. i will be using ProTools for this example but the sam principal could be carried across to any DAW. Lets start with a single track of dialogue,



Before you route this to your DX (dialogue mix) track, send it to a Mono mix bus and then create 2 Aux tracks and name one of these these tracks so that you can distinguish between both of them because we are going to send the DX to these. Once you have created these Aux's; insert a plugin on both channels (make sure it is identical) that is capable of flipping phase but is also low on processing power; the ProTools single or multi-band EQ is perhaps the best to use as you may need it later. With the first channel, bypass the plugin and leave the fader at unity (as it is only being used to match latency), and then on your second track enable the Phase flip option and leave the fader at Inf. Moving the fader on your Phase flipped track will now induce a controllable amount of Phase Cancellation which you can use to make you dialogue be perceived as either more distant or closer to the audience. Having a lowpass filter with a fairly gentle curve can help keep the audibility of the DX without losing clarity.



Try experimenting with the EQ and inducing more or less phase to move your dialogue around in a scene. one thing you will need to be cautious of is panning because if you don't match the panning you lose the effect. Having the Aux tracks summed back into a mono channel can help with ease of panning dialogue around (if that is the effect you are going for).



 


I would like to acknowledge Guy Grey for providing this information with me and more can be found about him below:



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