Why are most samples out of phase?

[RexRed]

I found a loop for a song, it is gorgeous sounding and I looked at it under a correlation trace and it was deep in the red hugging the bottom of the meter.

I tried to  raise it up into the proper area above the mid line and it suddenly lost all presence and practically disappeared, it became so distant and tinny.

I could not figure out how to reverse polarity.

Then I remembered the polarity toggle on the track, when I switched it, it did not work, the line was still solidly in the red.

So, I duplicated the track and panned one track to the right and the other track I panned to the left .

Then I toggled the Cakewalk track polarity on only one track.

I sent both tracks out to a master bus and put my stereo correlation trace on that.

This fixed the wave it was above the line and retained some semblance of quality.

My question is, do loop makers do this to sell loops? Are they aware that this is happening and that a loop like this will completely disappear from a song in mono?

On the surface it sounds great but it is unusable in such a state.

Do they do this to make creating music harder for novices? lol

Another question, would you use a loop like this as is a in a song if it simply sounded great?

Is there any kind of benefit using a loop like this?

The tutorials I have seen say NEVER to use a loop or track that is out of phase.  I have to agree, out of phase loops or samples seem to throw the mix off in ways that over time my ears have been trained to dislike.

I might go further and say that a song with out of phase samples is unmixable.

Any thought on this topic?

Your opinions are greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

 

Edited December 31, 2020 by RexRed
wording

[bitflipper]

2 hours ago, RexRed said:

...My question is, do loop makers do this to sell loops? Are they aware that this is happening and that a loop like this will completely disappear from a song in mono?

Yes and yes. They do it because it sounds good through earbuds, and they have a low opinion of their customers' technical acumen. 

Go ahead and name names, RR. We always like to hear about products to avoid.

 

[RexRed]

Haha BitFlipper! I would never name names, lol, one day I may end up panhandling samples as well...  

It would be nice if samples were ready to go though and didn't need to be unwrapped from all the fluff.

[Maestro]

It's because a lot of samples are being produced by people who are not [decent] audio engineers, and they do not look for these things when they are creating their Sample Packs or Construction Kits.  It's that simple.

They simply chop things up, release them, and profit.

Good Audio Engineers will check phasing when producing this type of content, for example:

Audiopsy | Behind the scenes of the making of the ACID Loop Collection, ft. Garry King - YouTube

Edited January 1, 2021 by Maestro

[Bruno de Souza Lino]

That would also boil with the fact that people make music with their ears and not eyes so if it sounds good, in phase or not, it's what matters.

[RexRed]

I find that my ears tell me it sounds great then when I fix the correlation trace phase it sounds better. Then when when I A/B it, the unfixed part usually sounds boxy and artificially expanded and way too wide. I never trust my ears, I only trust the correlation trace. Once I know it is within the bounds then I use my ears.

Just like I never use EQs that don't have spectrum analysis.

I need to see it too, so I can verify for sure. That is like saying well, it looks like about a foot long, no, I get a tape measure and check it for sure...

Also now I check my effects busses to see that they are traced. My effects are more often then not out of phase.

I used to just put reverb and delay in the track bin, Now I use sends to buses and only use parallel effects so I can correct the trace on them too.

Then my master mix bus does not go into the red at various odd points.

Edited January 7, 2021 by RexRed

[Bruno de Souza Lino]

4 hours ago, RexRed said:

I find that my ears tell me it sounds great then when I fix the correlation trace phase it sounds better. Then when when I A/B it, the unfixed part usually sounds boxy and artificially expanded and way too wide. I never trust my ears, I only trust the correlation trace. Once I know it is within the bounds then I use my ears.

Just like I never use EQs that don't have spectrum analysis.

I need to see it too, so I can verify for sure. That is like saying well, it looks like about a foot long, no, I get a tape measure and check it for sure...

Also now I check my effects busses to see that they are traced. My effects are more often then not out of phase.

I used to just put reverb and delay in the track bin, Now I use sends to buses and only use parallel effects so I can correct the trace on them too.

Then my master mix bus does not go into the red at various odd points.

Didn't your ears tell that it sounded gorgeous before you spotted the phase issue in the meter?