Phase nudging / rotation / all-pass filters

[dubdub]

Is this something anyone here regularily uses? Kind of a new technique for me because it always seemed like technique for more traditional engineers working with multi-mic setups that have to deal with tons of phase cancellation and I don't layer very much. But I've noticed that even just slightly offsetting the phase on your kick / bass or drums can really open up the groove and punch of a track by avoiding transient buildup. You can also achieve some very effective tone & transient shaping by changing the phase towards or away from the click of a kick, for example.

Melda MFreeFormPhase does this for free and also offers frequency-dependent phase shifting, which opens up some really interesting sound design capabilities (this also part of the sound of EQs, since they always cause frequency-dependent phase shift but here you can achieve the same thing without EQ boosts / cuts).

https://www.meldaproduction.com/MFreeformPhase

[SpecificObjects]

Is this something anyone here regularily uses? Kind of a new technique for me because it always seemed like technique for more traditional engineers working with multi-mic setups that have to deal with tons of phase cancellation and I don't layer very much. But I've noticed that even just slightly offsetting the phase on your kick / bass or drums can really open up the groove and punch of a track by avoiding transient buildup. You can also achieve some very effective tone & transient shaping by changing the phase towards or away from the click of a kick, for example.

Gotta admit I'm a bit of a noob when it comes to phase corrections but what I like to do to avoid obvious phase issues is using Ableton's "Track Delay" function to achieve what you're describing here. Just a few ms on the kick can definitely bring out those transients and it's less tedious than moving the waveforms around in Arrangement View.

[dubdub]

Yeah, track delays are definitely also useful for this purpose but using a phase adjustment control gives you more control over the actual phase, which is hard to do when you're doing with changes in the miliseconds. I will often adjust the phase first and then shift the track forwards or backwards a few ms for groove purposes.

[Lost to the Void]

Track delays sure, but I never fuck with the phase on low end as I like my stuff to work on vinyl.

[dubdub]

Track delays sure, but I never fuck with the phase on low end as I like my stuff to work on vinyl.

I don't mean putting stuff out of stereo phase, just phase as in moving the starting point of the wave (so essentially just a micro-delay).

[Lost to the Void]

Ah gotcha. Yeah I do this a lot, either moving the sample start point or adding a micro delay, also using compression or clipping to round the transients of some sounds has the effect of tightening others perceptually.
And pulling stuff off grid too.

[Planar]

https://www.meldaproduction.com/MFreeformPhase

That looks like a great tool for drum layering and I've had installed all this time