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Processing Dilemma

D

DJRobbioRobbio

I already sent this as an e-mail to Cgould...but I thought I'd post my message in the forum to get some open ideas on the problem (you know, as a collective).

And as an added bonus, if anybody wants to be clued in as to what the message means...I can send you an audio clip that was taken directly from the processor!

-Robb

My Message:


Hey I got a bit of a processing issue........ And this time I have recorded audio from our chain..Let me know where I can send you the file....

I can only describe it as a bit of a warbling/ ululation of the audio where certain elements of the music (primarily vocals and louder instruments/ noises/ music elements), it's very uneven and just sounds horrible on air....

The audio was recorded directly from the headphone output on the front of our Omnia One.....and it's really noticable.. (at 1:58 in the recording for Ne-Yo & Rihanna - I Hate That I Love You, and for the Foo Fighters - The Pretender). I would just really like to know what this issue is, why it is happening, and how I can fix it so we can just go back to loud, clear, consistent audio =) This issue just cropped up the other day, and it's frustrating the hell out of me.

Again, just let me know where to send the file!
 
Hey Robb,

in this clip your sound is totally out of phase! This practically means that you have some broken cable somewhere before your Omnia. If you listen your station with mono receiver you notice that there is no vocals at all?! Also a lot of low frequencies are missing when we are out of phase.

So please check all of your cables. There is maybe broken XLR where the pins 2 and 3 are across... or 1 and 2... :)

-Jammy
 
I agree, you have an out of phase issue. Ouch!

Check all of your wiring, as previously suggested.
 
jammyjii said:
Hey Robb,

in this clip your sound is totally out of phase! This practically means that you have some broken cable somewhere before your Omnia. If you listen your station with mono receiver you notice that there is no vocals at all?! Also a lot of low frequencies are missing when we are out of phase.

So please check all of your cables. There is maybe broken XLR where the pins 2 and 3 are across... or 1 and 2... :)

-Jammy
Click to expand...

Oh I know the clip is out of phase ( I forgot to mention that)..... I have to rotate the phase for the right channel 180 degrees because there is an absolute phasing problem through our fiber STL line.... no bueno...and that's just ONE of the problems I have to deal with on a regular basis that nobody here at the school is really in a rush to get done....
 
DJRobbioRobbio said:
Oh I know the clip is out of phase ( I forgot to mention that)..... I have to rotate the phase for the right channel 180 degrees because there is an absolute phasing problem through our fiber STL line.... no bueno...and that's just ONE of the problems I have to deal with on a regular basis that nobody here at the school is really in a rush to get done....
Click to expand...

That really needs to be addressed and corrected. Tell 'em it's a criticle situation.
 
Yeah, that's true! You can't drive your Omnia with wrong phase. It cannot process your audio correctly even if you reverse the phase AFTER processor. You can't get the better sound before you (they) correct that thing. Try to wire the signal as straight as possible from your studio console to Omnia. Maybe your STL line is ok after that and the main problem is in your studio.

After that you can send a new clip and then let's listen again :) Happy wiring!

-Jammy
 
If your fiber is in fact 180 out of phase, swapping it will not result in phasing errors, it will correct them. Why not, one dark night when you can knock thje system down and feed it some tones take either your PI test set or your scope and look at the pahases of the channels and see what's happening. Some folks in the early days of stereo fed channels purposely out of phase to cancel telco artifacts, without problems.

I remember having this problem on a station once, and etermining that we had produced a 90 deghree phase shift in one channel only. (We = I) By simply not quite getting all the jumpers set properly on a pair of 6000 series Moseley STLs, which are capable via jumpers of operating as composite or discrete.

Depending the topology of the outputs and inputs, swapping a ground and a signal wire on an XLR can give you a strange phase shift.
 
Hi

I saw your message, and listened to the clip. You definitely have an out of phase issue going on before the Omnia One, and you need to correct it at the source.

I took your file, and simply flipped the polarity on the left channel, and it sounded closer to what you would want...with exception to the processing sounding a little strange from operating with out of phase stereo audio.

It sounds (by the way you wrote your message) that this just happened on its own? One day it sounded "fine", and the next, it sounded like this. Am I interpreting correctly?

-Cornelius
 
While we're on this tack, lemme suggest something I do with annoying regularity. Get a spool of red vinyl tape, and any time you have a cable which isn't deadbang stock for your facility, put a strip of red tape around each end. Gender bender? Tape it. Phase reversal? Tape it. Crossover net cable? Tape it. Ground lifted to kill RF buzz? Tape it. Catch the habit, and you can quickly take a look at a hookup and ascertain whether everything is kosher or not. Makes life a lot simpler one cold dark night when the processor pukes and you hook up the backup and don't remember where the reversal was... or which end didn't have a static drain connected.
 
littlejohn said:
While we're on this tack, lemme suggest something I do with annoying regularity. Get a spool of red vinyl tape, and any time you have a cable which isn't deadbang stock for your facility, put a strip of red tape around each end. Gender bender? Tape it. Phase reversal? Tape it. Crossover net cable? Tape it. Ground lifted to kill RF buzz? Tape it. Catch the habit, and you can quickly take a look at a hookup and ascertain whether everything is kosher or not. Makes life a lot simpler one cold dark night when the processor pukes and you hook up the backup and don't remember where the reversal was... or which end didn't have a static drain connected.
Click to expand...

When our studio was wired, they put white label tape on every wire, and each tape had a typed indication of where it is to be connected. Excellent idea if you need outside engineering help! 8)
 
One other item that might be of interest to you guys. years ago I was in charge of mastering automation music reels, for a station that had one of those old Century21 CD systems that required use of their index coded CD's. This meant consumer CD's could not be used in the system, because they typically didn't have the index codes. So those songs went to reel.

To save me some time, I built a home studio to do this. I used a Broadcast Electronics 25 Hz tone encoder / decoder and an Ampex ATR 700. Little did I know the XLR connectors on the ATR's line inputs were unbalanced! Since it was a home studio, I didn't have all the test gear normally used for this stuff, and had to go by trial and error.

While I was initially testing the setup, I played back my first trial tape and it seemed to sound a little strange. The real shocker came when a song I used from the Miami Vice Soundtrack came up. Can't recall the song's title now, but it's the one with a soft flute intro. On the tape I made, that one sounded distorted! Long story short, I had to get a balancing transformer inbetween the 25 Hz output and the ATR's input.

I never did understand why Ampex made a deck with balanced line XLR outputs but with unbalanced line XLR inputs! ???
 
cgould said:
Hi

I saw your message, and listened to the clip. You definitely have an out of phase issue going on before the Omnia One, and you need to correct it at the source.

I took your file, and simply flipped the polarity on the left channel, and it sounded closer to what you would want...with exception to the processing sounding a little strange from operating with out of phase stereo audio.

It sounds (by the way you wrote your message) that this just happened on its own? One day it sounded "fine", and the next, it sounded like this. Am I interpreting correctly?

-Cornelius
Click to expand...

I'll take a look at what's coming from out automation computer, and what's running through our EAS.... Yet, my disdain grows with that Trilithic EasyEAS......
 
cgould said:
Hi

I saw your message, and listened to the clip. You definitely have an out of phase issue going on before the Omnia One, and you need to correct it at the source.

I took your file, and simply flipped the polarity on the left channel, and it sounded closer to what you would want...with exception to the processing sounding a little strange from operating with out of phase stereo audio.

It sounds (by the way you wrote your message) that this just happened on its own? One day it sounded "fine", and the next, it sounded like this. Am I interpreting correctly?

-Cornelius
Click to expand...

Oh yeah, I also forgot to mention....You didn't notice that "squeezing" effect of the highs/ vocals of the music? That was the problem I was scratching my head about.. =(
 
DJRobbioRobbio said:
Oh yeah, I also forgot to mention....You didn't notice that "squeezing" effect of the highs/ vocals of the music? That was the problem I was scratching my head about.. =(
Click to expand...

I did....but first thing first. Get the audio issue straightened out, then we can fiddle. Since it's all funky, who knows how that is being interpreted by the "brain' inside the unit!

;)

-Cornelius
 
cgould said:
DJRobbioRobbio said:
Oh yeah, I also forgot to mention....You didn't notice that "squeezing" effect of the highs/ vocals of the music? That was the problem I was scratching my head about.. =(
Click to expand...

I did....but first thing first. Get the audio issue straightened out, then we can fiddle. Since it's all funky, who knows how that is being interpreted by the "brain' inside the unit!

;)

-Cornelius
Click to expand...

Sounds like a plan, I'll check it tomorrow and see what kind of fun I can have....Let's just hope the coffeepot at the station works this time =)
 
busyradioguy said:
One other item that might be of interest to you guys. years ago I was in charge of mastering automation music reels, for a station that had one of those old Century21 CD systems that required use of their index coded CD's. This meant consumer CD's could not be used in the system, because they typically didn't have the index codes. So those songs went to reel.

To save me some time, I built a home studio to do this. I used a Broadcast Electronics 25 Hz tone encoder / decoder and an Ampex ATR 700. Little did I know the XLR connectors on the ATR's line inputs were unbalanced! Since it was a home studio, I didn't have all the test gear normally used for this stuff, and had to go by trial and error.

While I was initially testing the setup, I played back my first trial tape and it seemed to sound a little strange. The real shocker came when a song I used from the Miami Vice Soundtrack came up. Can't recall the song's title now, but it's the one with a soft flute intro. On the tape I made, that one sounded distorted! Long story short, I had to get a balancing transformer inbetween the 25 Hz output and the ATR's input.

I never did understand why Ampex made a deck with balanced line XLR outputs but with unbalanced line XLR inputs! ???
Click to expand...

The ATR 700 has balanced inputs, since you use the MIC input as a Line input, switching the att. ON, at least that's what I understood from reading the manual. By the way... As some of you guys know I have an ATR 700. It had a simple issue. I tried to fix it following the hints suggested here somewhere. The screwdriver slipped somewhere on the board while doing that. It became worse. All the logic is messed up. :mad:
 
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