Production masterclass

Ashley Thorpe shows you how to recognise, and most importantly fix your phasing issues

with Ashley Thorpe

If you’re just starting out in music production or learning sound recording, the chances are that ‘phasing’ isn’t a term you’ll come across until you’re actually faced with this issue. As long as it’s tackled at the earliest opportunity, you’ll have nothing to worry about. But to be able to fix it first you have to recognise it in the first place.

To understand phasing, first you need to understand that sound waves move in a cycle – a repetitive waveform. Each unique sound in your production has its own waveform. Two waveforms of the same frequency in perfect sync are in phase. The result will be an additive effect. However, if two waveforms of the same frequency are not aligned then they will be out of phase. This is essentially what is meant when you have phasing issues.

For example, you might have two vocal takes that you want to merge together for a thicker sound; or you might have used two microphones to record an acoustic guitar at the fretboard and the hollow. These two unique recordings will have waveforms at the same frequency. But if they aren’t properly aligned, being out of phase by a half-cycle, they will cancel each other out. You will hear this in your recording as the two waveforms will sound thin, or part of the sound will seem to be lost.