Radial Engineering Phazer Owner's Manual - page 11
9
APPLICATIONS
Acoustic Guitar - Mic and Direct Box
A good application to try out the Phazer's capabilities is recording
with a direct box and a microphone. Start by setting up a mic and a DI
box and connect them to separate channels on your mixing console.
Adjust both signals in the monitors to an equal level and panned to
the center.
Radial Engineering
Phazer & Phazer-Bank
Insert Phazer
on direct box
Direct Box
Distant Mic
Once you have the DI and mic set up take a look at the time line
below. It will help you understand what you are hearing. When the
guitar is strummed the DI sends an electronic signal off at near the
speed of light while the mic has to wait for the slower sound waves
to travel through the air. This creates a phase-offset between the two
signals that is measured in degrees. Listen for a few moments to the
combined signals without the Phazer before continuing.
Direct Box
Microphone
Phase Shift
Direct Box
1130 feet
per/second
Speed of
Light
So, how does it sound? What you are hearing is the complex interac-
tion between the DI, mic and the room causing phase cancellations
at some frequencies and reinforcement at others. It may sound good
or it may not. It depends on where those cancellations and reinforce-
ments are occurring in the audio spectrum. Before the Phazer, the
only way to "tune" the phase response would have been to move the
mic around the studio until a sweet spot was found.
Next, insert the Phazer into the DI signal path. While mic placement is
still very important, the Phazer gives you another approach. Instead
of moving the mic around the studio to fi nd the sweet spot, place it
where it sounds good on its own then use the SHIFT control to tune
the phase of the DI signal until it aligns with the mic in a way that
sounds good to you.
True to the Music