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Tips for fixing the phasing problem in Massive between 2 osc
Posted: Wed Jan 04, 2012 11:41 am
by Cyaneyed
Hello. im sure alot of you know this. but for those who does not here it is. massive is known for having some phasing problems caused when 2 oscilators or more play at the same time. this is because of the comb filter effect. since the phasing on the oscilators are free in massive they will start gliding up and down the frequency spectrum and phase eachother out at a certain point (not completly) to prevent this massive has an button in the OSC window under oscilator phases. if you turn the restart via gate button on. the phase of the oscilators will reset to the given start point set by the sliders under the restart via gate button.remember to keep the sliders at the exact same start position.(ofc if you want to lock the comb effect at a certain point you can set the sliders diffrent from eachother to get another effect.)
hope this helps =)
Re: Tips for fixing the phasing problem in Massive between 2
Posted: Wed Jan 04, 2012 12:24 pm
by mecanek
It's a good tip, but it does make you lose any stereo spreading you've done. Which is worthless anyway, because sometimes I lose my complete left or right channel due to phasing
This seems to be especially common in bass sounds, which probably makes sense because it'll have a more audible effect when longer waveforms cancel eachother out. But it's annoying as hell, because i'd like to make some wide (mid)bass sounds. Has anyone got a solution for this?
Re: Tips for fixing the phasing problem in Massive between 2
Posted: Wed Jan 04, 2012 1:31 pm
by benjam
^ Frequency split
Re: Tips for fixing the phasing problem in Massive between 2
Posted: Wed Jan 04, 2012 1:49 pm
by mecanek
Forgot to mention that I'm looking for a solution inside Massive. I like to keep my external processing down to a bare minimum, and prefer to solve problems at the core

Re: Tips for fixing the phasing problem in Massive between 2
Posted: Wed Jan 04, 2012 2:07 pm
by Today
lol then it ain't happening
good luck
i've never experienced the phase issue and i've been caining massive the past couple days.
maybe i will encounter it soon
Re: Tips for fixing the phasing problem in Massive between 2
Posted: Wed Jan 04, 2012 3:23 pm
by Cyaneyed
mecanek wrote:It's a good tip, but it does make you lose any stereo spreading you've done. Which is worthless anyway, because sometimes I lose my complete left or right channel due to phasing
This seems to be especially common in bass sounds, which probably makes sense because it'll have a more audible effect when longer waveforms cancel eachother out. But it's annoying as hell, because i'd like to make some wide (mid)bass sounds. Has anyone got a solution for this?
you shouldent make basses wide. basses are supposed to be mono. the human ear has troubles with hearing stereo in such low frequencies. and it will cause troubles with a subwoofer. tho what u can do like whats been said is keep ur sub in mono then the rest of the "bass" on top spread all the way to hell:P and the phasing is not such a big problem when you spread since the spreading is time based just like the phasing. so spread creates phasing on its own. its just more covered up when theres alot of sounds at once
Re: Tips for fixing the phasing problem in Massive between 2
Posted: Wed Jan 04, 2012 3:28 pm
by Cyaneyed
Today wrote:lol then it ain't happening
good luck
i've never experienced the phase issue and i've been caining massive the past couple days.
maybe i will encounter it soon
try and play a chord with 2 saw waves withouth detuning. then ul know what it is =)
Re: Tips for fixing the phasing problem in Massive between 2
Posted: Wed Jan 04, 2012 3:33 pm
by Cyaneyed
mecanek wrote:It's a good tip, but it does make you lose any stereo spreading you've done. Which is worthless anyway, because sometimes I lose my complete left or right channel due to phasing
This seems to be especially common in bass sounds, which probably makes sense because it'll have a more audible effect when longer waveforms cancel eachother out. But it's annoying as hell, because i'd like to make some wide (mid)bass sounds. Has anyone got a solution for this?
but what i dont get is that u said about sometimes u loose ur left or right channel due to phasing? are one of ur speakers phase inverted? i dont get it. that shouldent happen when u spread
Re: Tips for fixing the phasing problem in Massive between 2
Posted: Wed Jan 04, 2012 4:36 pm
by mecanek
Maybe phasing isn't the right term, but there's definitely something wrong with the stereo image. Check out the waveform on this file:
http://synthforum.nl/forums/attachment. ... 1307385800 rendered directly from Ableton Live, full stereo spread, 4 voices...Notice the difference in amplitude between the left and the right channel. This is a mild version of the problem, at home I've got sounds that literally lose one channel.
Btw I know bass sounds should be mono, I use pure sines for subs, but it should be possible to spread the midbass and at least have a stable stereo image.
Re: Tips for fixing the phasing problem in Massive between 2
Posted: Wed Jan 04, 2012 11:13 pm
by mecanek
Another example, just a one osc sound with 3 voices unison, stereo spread and dimension expander.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/23959389/Weird2.wav
Unusable in this way
For anyone wanting to check out the patch, see if I've done something wrong:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/23959389/weirdstereo.nmsv
All help is very very very much appreciated

Re: Tips for fixing the phasing problem in Massive between 2
Posted: Thu Jan 05, 2012 4:49 am
by subfect
Cyaneyed wrote:mecanek wrote:It's a good tip, but it does make you lose any stereo spreading you've done. Which is worthless anyway, because sometimes I lose my complete left or right channel due to phasing
This seems to be especially common in bass sounds, which probably makes sense because it'll have a more audible effect when longer waveforms cancel eachother out. But it's annoying as hell, because i'd like to make some wide (mid)bass sounds. Has anyone got a solution for this?
you shouldent make basses wide. basses are supposed to be mono. the human ear has troubles with hearing stereo in such low frequencies. and it will cause troubles with a subwoofer. tho what u can do like whats been said is keep ur sub in mono then the rest of the "bass" on top spread all the way to hell:P and the phasing is not such a big problem when you spread since the spreading is time based just like the phasing. so spread creates phasing on its own. its just more covered up when theres alot of sounds at once
Wrong. Subs are meant to be mono, not basses. Basses you can do whatever you want with, most of it can't even be played by a subwoofer.
Re: Tips for fixing the phasing problem in Massive between 2
Posted: Thu Jan 05, 2012 4:53 am
by subfect
mecanek, sorry dude I have no idea - never seen that issue before with that kind of thing. Have you tried lowering the detuning or anything?
Re: Tips for fixing the phasing problem in Massive between 2
Posted: Thu Jan 05, 2012 7:32 am
by 2mb1o
mecanek wrote:It's a good tip, but it does make you lose any stereo spreading you've done. Which is worthless anyway, because sometimes I lose my complete left or right channel due to phasing
This seems to be especially common in bass sounds, which probably makes sense because it'll have a more audible effect when longer waveforms cancel eachother out. But it's annoying as hell, because i'd like to make some wide (mid)bass sounds. Has anyone got a solution for this?
Maybe you can reduce stereo width on the bass/low-mid part.
It's easy to do with ozone and the stéréo expander, for instance : from 0 to 60Hz : Mono, 60 to 400 a little bit, 400 -> ... normal
Re: Tips for fixing the phasing problem in Massive between 2
Posted: Fri Jan 06, 2012 12:15 am
by mecanek
Okay, I think I've actually had a bit of a breakthrough with this. I don't know if I truly understand it, but here we go...
I didn't want to use the restart via gate, because then I'd lose the stereo effect. The stereo-effect itself was in fact all the voices (depending how much voices unison you'd select) being spread all over the stereo image, including all the phasing problems that caused. When you turn on the restart via gate, every voice starts up sounding exactly the same, therefore left and right sound the same, therefore you lose your stereo-sound.
But, having your oscillators in different phases spread all over the fucking place isn't the only way to achieve a stereo-effect. When you've got a few voices unisono, have your oscillator phases synced, but you detune them a little bit...tadaaaa...Your stereo-effect is back
And detune isn't the only way to create stereo. You can also use the wavetable-position (each voice has a different position), or even the vibrato or lfo (each voice is affected a little bit different, that's what the little mono-button is for, if you select that they're all affected the same

) And then you can use all your stereo width plugins, because you've got stuff to spread
So, I think that's what my problem was, I was too focussed on the oscillators spread over the stereo image to imagine that there would be another way to achieve stereo.
Still don't really see the point in having all them phasing problems though...It probably sounds very analogue, to behave like an unpredictable little fucker, but it annoys me a bit
Hooray for the restart via gate-button
And tnx TS for making me rethink this thing

Re: Tips for fixing the phasing problem in Massive between 2
Posted: Fri Jan 06, 2012 5:13 am
by Cyaneyed
subfect wrote:Cyaneyed wrote:mecanek wrote:It's a good tip, but it does make you lose any stereo spreading you've done. Which is worthless anyway, because sometimes I lose my complete left or right channel due to phasing
This seems to be especially common in bass sounds, which probably makes sense because it'll have a more audible effect when longer waveforms cancel eachother out. But it's annoying as hell, because i'd like to make some wide (mid)bass sounds. Has anyone got a solution for this?
you shouldent make basses wide. basses are supposed to be mono. the human ear has troubles with hearing stereo in such low frequencies. and it will cause troubles with a subwoofer. tho what u can do like whats been said is keep ur sub in mono then the rest of the "bass" on top spread all the way to hell:P and the phasing is not such a big problem when you spread since the spreading is time based just like the phasing. so spread creates phasing on its own. its just more covered up when theres alot of sounds at once
Wrong. Subs are meant to be mono, not basses. Basses you can do whatever you want with, most of it can't even be played by a subwoofer.
ofc i ment subs. just me reading a bit fast
Re: Tips for fixing the phasing problem in Massive between 2
Posted: Fri Jan 06, 2012 5:55 am
by subfect
After I posted before about never experiencing the issue - I had the exact same problem last night - but it had to do with the amplitude envelope and a specific waveform. Basically, if I set the attack and it's level all the way to the top, it would cancel out the right channel, almost entirely. If i lowered the level slightly (so it wasn't 100%), it was fine. Appears to be a massive vst bug more than anything else. Got it while playing with the Groan waveforms, no detuning/stereo widening at all. Quite odd.
Re: Tips for fixing the phasing problem in Massive between 2
Posted: Fri Jan 13, 2012 7:26 am
by Cyaneyed
havent had that problem. try updating massive if its not the latest version. if its cracked it will never work properly anyways.
Re: Tips for fixing the phasing problem in Massive between 2
Posted: Fri Jan 13, 2012 6:27 pm
by blinx
this is only going to be an issue if your playing more that one freq/note at the same time. Which if your making basslines really should never be a problem.
Re: Tips for fixing the phasing problem in Massive between 2
Posted: Sun Jan 15, 2012 9:59 pm
by Lectric
Thank you for this tip. I had a bassline that would basically sound completely different everytime it played because of the phasing. cheers.
Re: Tips for fixing the phasing problem in Massive between 2
Posted: Sun Jan 15, 2012 11:45 pm
by JoeOsoDopke
Sometimes, I feel like I almost like the phasing in it. Even though it's unintentional, for some of my sounds, it kind of gives it a morphing quality which I like. Anyways, If I ever have that problem, sometimes I might try spreading the sounds into different tracks, and if that doesn't work, maybe sampling the part you like from it.