Phase invert audio files does not cancel to zero

This post follows on from an earlier post in waveburner discussions.

I have come across a rather strange result, which if someone can shed some light on would be a help.
Logic 8.02
place an audio file on track 1 ( stereo)
place the same audio file on track 2 ( stereo)
put a phase invert plugin on track 2.

bounce through the mixer these 2 files. normalise file. no dither.
Result is not an empty audio file but a very strange and glitchy audio track.
This initially came about through me trying to compare a cdr burn with a bounced cd layout from waveburner ( all the bit rates etc matched).
I get this glitchy audio file with that, so thinking I might have a burner problem, i imported an audio file from a commercial cd in twice, then did the above procedure. That removes the cd burn from being a factor, It then could only be a read issue, i.e randomness between both imports. To rule that out i used just one of the files placed on 2 tracks hence result above, meaning the error is being caused in the bounce process.

Anybody else had this or can tell me what is going on?

quad g5 ppc, Mac OS X (10.4.11)

Posted on Sep 17, 2010 4:54 PM

Reply
22 replies

Sep 18, 2010 5:36 AM in response to seeren

Was that a serious answer, if so please explain your thinking, also can you explain why having normalise on would cause this? Or is that glitchy noise there just at a very low level, if that is the case, why is it there, i theoretically have bounced a phase cancelled file, which should result in file with zero data.
Methinks this is discontinuity territory which the software cannot handle.

Sep 18, 2010 7:32 AM in response to Eriksimon

PDC set to all.
Yes I was trying to compare a bounced waveburner file with the imported audio from a burnt cdr. The resultant bounced file when normalised gives you a glitchy noise file.
As a test to rule out/or not the logic bouncing process, i put an audio file on track 1, the same file on track 2 and inverted it's phase,if you bounce this file and normalise, or if you put about 7 gain plugins in on the master out ( +24dB on each), you end up with this glitchy noise file, or in the case of listening with gain plugins glitchy noise output.

As a double check if you silence an audio file in sample editor, then try and normalise it, it tells you that there is silence in the file therefore it cannot normalise, this is what I would expect to happen if you put a phase invert plugin and bounce as above, surely that should produce a file with zero sample data in, so it should not normalise. I am going to try phase inverting the file in the sample editor to see if it is the same as using a gain plugin.

Sep 18, 2010 7:57 AM in response to Matthew Devenish

Just found an interesting thing. If you use the phase invert plugin, and normalise, you end up with a glitchy difference file. If you phase invert one of the audio files using the sample editor, you get total cancellation, and a bounced audio file that has zero data in it, you cannot normalise it.
Interesting about the phase invert plugin, it cannot be precise, or it is adding some sort of dither data in the process.

Sep 18, 2010 2:55 PM in response to Matthew Devenish

Well, three things are significantly different in our setups to begin with: LP8 vs LP9, Tiger vs Snow Leopard and PPC vs Intel. I know for a fact that the audio engine has changed from Tiger to Leopard and Snow Leopard.
...and there could be something going on in your setup that no-one has mentioned/thought of yet - but I can't think of anything right now.

Sep 19, 2010 1:23 PM in response to Eriksimon

Hi, Have you tried the same test with 16 bit files? I did the same set of bounces using Flux's stereo tool on phase invert. As long as pan law set to 0dB total cancellation. with other pan law settings no full cancellation. Also if you invert a copy of the file in sample editor, it will cancel only if pan law set to 0dB.
It would appear that logic's gain plugin on invert is adding something into the signal, I wonder in relation to 16bit, whether it is truncating a word length, and what I am boosting is an error file?

Sep 19, 2010 2:09 PM in response to Eriksimon

Eriksimon wrote:
Well, three things are significantly different in our setups to begin with: LP8 vs LP9, Tiger vs Snow Leopard and PPC vs Intel. I know for a fact that the audio engine has changed from Tiger to Leopard and Snow Leopard.


It has, substantially.

I have no clue whether those changes are relevant in this case, but for some rather stunning comparisons, there's the classic sample-rate-conversion test, here:

http://src.infinitewave.ca/

Compare "CoreAudio (Tiger)" and "CoreAudio (Leopard)".

Also, compare "Logic 8 (Tiger)" and "Logic 8 (Leopard)". Now compare the latter to "Logic 9 (Leopard)".
It seems that Logic 9 has again changed certain algorithms over Logic 8.

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Phase invert audio files does not cancel to zero

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