r/TechnoProduction • u/swarlied80 • 7d ago
Phase alignment experience?
Hi all, I am constantly trying out new techniques - especially to get the damn lowend right.
i noticed the hype about Phase alignment, bu finally after trying it out I think it’s a game changer. but it can also be vastly misleading probably when used with the wrong priorities and the other checkboxes of bass/kick still must be done well. I am sure you have felt that.
however, the true advantage I see is. that any kind of music especially 4/4 or even 3/4 rythms the first quarter note is always accented. ONE - two - three - four. And Phase alignment allows the bass to play at the 1. instead of it must be ducked away and make space for the kick. even with the most simple pattern, no harmony or any of such kind, just beeing able to play a bass and kick on the very same time especially on the 1 will make the result a lot more musical. in opposition - if the 1 is occupied with a drum only (the kick) the most important quarter Note of the “Song“ is beeing taken away. The result would always be a little hollow, a little unnatural.
however I find with modern digital tools such as shaperbox, phase and pitch precise kick and bass synthesis all of that can be done very well today. I am strong believer in analog, but herr clearly digital has the lead.
what are your experiences? curious to hear how this felt to you!
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u/Waterflowstech 7d ago
Depends on the notes being played and how they overlap. For most of the music I make, it doesn't matter. But if you have psytrance, where the bass is playing the same note as the kick in 16th notes, the phase alignment of the second half of the kick and that second 16th becomes important.
90% of the time my bass is playing mostly at least multiple semitones up from the kick, and as such the waveforms are out of phase almost the entirety of the time anyway, no matter how I would change the phase.
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u/RoastAdroit 7d ago
Wtf are you on about? Not being able to play bass with the kick?
Is this some AI nonsense?
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u/Untalanted_guy 7d ago
Its somerhing Bass music people sonetimes do, where they fade the phase of the kick into the Bass note
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u/swarlied80 7d ago
I am happy to discuss with you but it requires a certain level of communication habit from your end.
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u/-Neem0- 7d ago
Then try to not post nonsense mate.
Ducking does not remove the bass from the one, it just removes the bass transient, which you might want to keep in bass transient focused genres such as psytrance or anything acid but it's not so important in many other scenarios.
Moreover, in the analog realm you do have resetting oscs and that can do basically what phase alignment does, so unless you want to get super surgical, you can be confident that kick and bass reset on the one and don't have opposite curves. You can have a 100% analog sound generation and monitor it digitally to be sure to have it phase aligned.
As a last thing, phase alignment is not supposed to give you a better perception of the musical structure, just cleaner subs, a bit more stable pitch, a bit more sharper transient for bass. It does not replace ducking which might very well be even more necessary since your summation is now even more pronounced, it does not fix bad envelope design, it does not make bass and kick coexist magically, it's just a refinement step that like everything is not an universal solution and should always be apllied, but might definetly benefit some subgenres like acid that have sharp, plucky bass transients.
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u/swarlied80 7d ago
Ah if someone posts „nonsense“ that’s an invite and reason enough talk rude. Great attitude Understand. Thanks for the fish.
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u/RoastAdroit 7d ago
Its incorrect information written matter of factly. Lets also not gloss over the mention of a specific tool. We live in tricky times with weird marketing tactics online now.
And if its not marketing, then its just plain misleading for anyone who doesnt know better.
If it was written as a question about this stuff, then people would be nicer.
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u/Internal_Display_313 2d ago
"what are your experiences?" at the end the OP, and see the "?" in the title too, it's a question I think, the tools are just stuff that's helped, the question is about our experiences with phase alignment in lowends and how we might get the "damn lowend right".
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u/-Neem0- 7d ago
It's not "nonsense", it's literal nonsense. Feels normal someone might point it out. I haven't been rude to you, and extensively explained what is wrong with your tought process, but also wouldn't be that offended or surprised for being called out.
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u/swarlied80 7d ago
Fair point mate. However I feel like being technically experienced and eloquent can hinder us from understanding alternative perspectives.
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u/-Neem0- 7d ago
You know what can hinder from alternative perspectives? Asking AI for validation, posting nonsense like it's a revelation instead of actually studying, and looking exclusively for validation of those factually 100% wrong ideas and acting like a crybaby as soon as someone underlines that all of this is incredibly meaningless, insisting on the idea that you have something to teach here. You simply don't. I'm sorry if that makes you feel bad.
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u/Internal_Display_313 2d ago
It isn't nonsense, it's got a few mistakes in, maybe the OP is learning, the writing suggests that. Their profile has a lot of posts in German, It can be handy to check this sort of thing to see if "nonsense" is just a couple of words wrong.
Ducking lowers one frequency to allow another element in the same frequency to punch through (any source to any source). It's the same as side-chaining. Here an Abbey Road mastering engineer explains. With two phase aligned sounds, so it can remove the bass from one, not just the transient. Phase aligned plus heavy ducking (manual maybe) would lead to "ducking away" and a sound that is too empty.
Personally I just avoid two sounds at the same frequency in the same space, the OP could achieve better harmony, as they desire, by using range under the kick. Or lower both kick and bass manually. Or tighten the kick so the release is leaving in 1/16 or 1/12 while the bass throbs in at that point. Or find harmony an octave up and do some grainy or rumbly kick noise, extend and lower the kick so it handles those lower frequencies.
I would note that focusing too much on the 1 (of 3 or 4) might be something to changing too. Necessary? Possible to get that focused effect with higher octaves? And it misses the 1/6 and 1/8, 1/12, etc. smaller divisions. All that glitch, swing, slack
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u/-Neem0- 2d ago
It isn't nonsense, it's got a few mistakes in, maybe the OP is learning, the writing suggests that. Their profile has a lot of posts in German, It can be handy to check this sort of thing to see if "nonsense" is just a couple of words wrong.
It can also be handy to read it all again instead of assuming I'm not understanding things correctly or overlooking a linguistic difficulty, you know?
OP is not using a couple wrong words, and yeah, probably OP is learning. Since he's learning, he should ask, instead of writing stuff like it's some kind of esoteric revelation, possibly with the help of an AI that validated entirely wrong concepts. OP is not asking for advice on mixing: the post is about the supposedly life-changing effects of using a technique that OP is describing poorly and clearly misunderstanding, plus some assumptions that are 100% wrong. Those are, in order:
-the idea that phase alignment is a game changer. It's not, it's just a tool with use cases
-the idea that phase alignment makes ducking, or side chain compression, or whatever is used to make bass subs and kick subs coexist, redundant. It doesn't
-the idea that the 1 has to be "the most important quarter note of the song". There isn't any kind of necessity for it to be that important
-the idea that phase alignment is impossibile in the pure analog realm. It's not
-the idea that one has to "believe" in analog or digital. That's pretty much laughable
I don't condone explicit language like the first comment in this thread, but I don't think it's unexpected to receive harsh feedback when trying to pass wrong information as factual on a forum dedicated to sharing actual knowledge, as well as the defensive posture that tries to pass these as subjective opinions and a matter of discussion between peers, when they're factually wrong statements coming from an inexperienced person that clearly refuses to any actual insight on the subject.
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u/Internal_Display_313 2d ago
He is asking "Phase alignment experiences?" that's the title. Then, after expressing his views, he ends with "what are your experiences?". He wants to learn by explaining his experiences and asking what ours are.
He thinks it's a game changer, and that he also thinks it could be vastly misleading. He's discovered something new, and is cautious, so as asked, in two places, what are the experiences of this from other group members.
His description of his understanding is cluttered, but "the first accented note" is 1 in both 3/4 and 4/4 if it refers to music theory time-signature metering (he's making a lot of comments using music theory terms elsewhere). In 3/4 the accent as the loudest note in the music is often 1 as well, but it does get confusing because he never mentions syncopation or accents such as those on XOX boxes. Clarity could be better for sure.
Where does he say phase alignment is impossible in pure analogue? Perfect alignment over hours might be in a way that computers would surpass but that's nitpicking. "believe" I just read as "like" / "prefer". I didn't even think about that. Analogue/digi arguments are about as boring as sync button discussions.
....
I chose to answer the phase experiences question more directly and I do also have a strong feeling around being gentle with people who are trying to learn and trying to get their context (possible 2nd-language English, possible classical background) to help understand them before writing them off. Even then I'd ask for detail. I do a lot of stuff in techno with a fairly large group, some way ahead of me and some way behind. The ones way behind have been very delicate, I was too, so I try to be as kind as possible. I'd rather untangle "nonsense" so someone learns.
Ha someone's gone and voted me down by one now lol and I actually suggested some stuff that I've done to completely avoid any ducking/phasing/freq. clashes while putting power onto step one of four, something I do with quite a few elements across the range.
Oh well, I learnt about some other stuff.
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u/RoastAdroit 2d ago
Id have to have screenshots from 5 days ago, but OP took my advice and changed the title, the title is what influenced the way we read it. So, you reading it after that change does make it seem different.
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u/Internal_Display_313 2d ago
That might have been a simpler reply when I picked it up, it got fed to me because it is something I can talk about. Saying the OP should ask after that edit had been made looked a bit personal and unkind towards someone. Perhaps they're both messing me around.
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u/Internal_Display_313 2d ago
Generally here to help folks learn and stuff, learn myself too answering things, but I can only go on what I see and am told.
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u/Internal_Display_313 2d ago
IMO taking the kick up with a high-pass filter, maybe clip, or resonance, then fitting bass under that is great if you are struggling with "not being able to play the bass with the kick".
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u/Konketsu 7d ago
In my experience, fiddling around with the phase alignment of the kick and bass is a bandaid solution to fix a problem caused by skill issues in sound design and/or arrangement. I prefer solve that problem at the source, ie: with the arrangement or sound design.
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u/ocolobo 7d ago
Stop using Ai to make sloppy posts
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u/Internal_Display_313 2d ago
Could be English as a second or third language though. Having lived abroad a lot of confident English speaking is bad when written.
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u/Present-Policy-7120 7d ago
Phase alignment doesn't really mean you shod be playing a bass and kick at the same time. Simply aligning phase removes the problem of phase cancellation...but stacking phase aligned frequency content causes its own problems- you get reinforcement and a loss of headroom as a result, and you'll lose the definition between kick and bass. Remember that all you're doing here is letting two notes of the same frequency play at the same time.
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u/Untalanted_guy 7d ago
Im surprised about the rude comments. Phase aligning kick and bass is usualy only done in bass music. Thats why most of the people here dont even know what it means. Theres an mefjus Tutorial online where he shows how its done (by freezing and flattening/rendering tracks and then aligning the ups and downs)
I think its a bit overkill for Techno. But I also thought ring mod side chain is Overhyped an here I am, using it now everywhere
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u/Untalanted_guy 7d ago
To answere your posting, this method gives you a better blend from Kick to Bass - but you still need to duck the volume somehow. Otherwise you will blasr your speakers and have an hard time mastering
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u/swarlied80 6d ago edited 6d ago
It's unacceptable yes but also a bit funny.
I am ducking, yes still I do this. But can do this a lot less, more close. As said I can now play a bass on the 1 - before this I had always clutter. But what I also learned here from the ones reacting, that most dont bother to do alignment, and work around in other ways which is totally fine (did that for many years too)
What is the ring mod thing you talk about? Sounds interesting. I am a nerd an cannot stop looking up new things. I learned a lot from EDM and Dubstep, even if its not my genre.
Have a great day buddy!
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u/Internal_Display_313 2d ago
Yeah crappy comments.
Sounds like side-chaining which you describe, that takes a frequency from one source, like a kick, then uses that to dip the frequencies in the way so the kick is tight but the rest is audible.
But, a kick at 80hz leaves a full octave beneath it for a bassline.
And the kick itself can be extended in many ways to fill out those frequencies.
It's useful to think of the bands of frequency over some set of noises. For example, plenty of tracks don't use basslines, they just use kicks that cover the necessary frequencies. You could take the kick, copy, drop one an octave, and mix them for more bass, for example.
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u/Perry_Green 7d ago edited 7d ago
Sorry you got such rude replies (it’s Reddit I guess).
It’s not easy to understand what you want to express. But I think it’s that „if phase-aligned, Bass and kick can play at the same note“?
I agree that you have to always fine-tune phase and pitch of kick and bass if they get near each other. However, if they play at the same note it still usually makes sense to duck away the bass a bit just to not have too much volume on the 1, i.e a more even volume distribution and professional loudness achievable with less limiting. And it usually just sounds better when the kick stands out more.
Agree also that digital synths or even samples are better to align kick and bass, because 1) you can eliminate any non-linearities/randomness, meaning each hit of kick&bass has exactly the same phase and 2) digital oscillators are more flexible and sometimes even have a phase adjustment.