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bishopdante wrote:bassdriver wrote:recording forums suggest to simply record both mid and side mic as mono files and then copy the side mic to a 3rd track. then panning the side tracks hard left and right and invert the polarity of the copied wav file. if it's really as simple as that, I'll do so.The problem with doing this is that you can't monitor what''s happening live, to listen back you have to do a bunch of post-production work.Tbh if you are using a computer it's advisable to use a DAW software which supports realtime monitoring of inserts and channel strips, with proper routing, a phase invert button on a channel strip doesn't seem lkle too much to consider. Having to manually invert the phase of a wave file as a hard write edit seems perverse - the best idea even if using rudimentary analogue preamp/mixer equipment is to build the monitoring/playback routing of the signals with the DAW, and record the source signals raw as they come in from the mics with little to no processing - that should be done as realtime processing in post (either analogue or digital, or both.)while I mostly record myself or my band mates, this is a good point. I think I should be able to route the signal accordingly in either RME's totalmix or on my mixer which has polarity switches on every channel.

One thing I've noticed with flipping the polarity in some plugins is that it introduces a tiny delay (even with "delay compensation" on, during playback). If you do this, just double check that the side signals (pos and neg) completely cancel out when they are summed in mono.

Once again, I'm struck that FM bishopdante seems to live in bizarro-world where every day is opposite day.No. An advantage to doing M-S is that it allows you to make decisions about stereo width after the recording is complete. That's not an option for x/y, ORTF or other coincident stereo methods that fix the apparent stereo angle at the time of recording. It is absolutely as easy as recording two mono files, duplicating/flipping the polarity of the fig-8 side file, and hard panning the resulting files. It's nice to do this real-time with three channels on a board if you have the capability to do so (or even though an ms matrix like FM greg makes). But you can do it after the fact and I've done it a zillion times and it's no big deal. Given the sophistication of current DAW tech, it's probably even more accurate than relying on a board or digital monitoring. Both of those methods are likely to introduce some small artifact of difference (circuitry or latency) so that the opposite channels have some eensy difference between them.= Justin

thanks for the help. I m no longer confused. got it to work properly today. total signal cancellation when listening back to the side channels directly from the interface in mono mode, but had to adjust the gain of one channel on my Trident mixer to get the same result when listening back over it. love how you can blend in the side channels to taste!the Reaper polarity switch doesn t seem to cause any problems.