Is it possible to unphase something

Question

Okay, I have a show where the 4 super hero characters are all doing press ups. Making me tired just watching them. Anyway it was a boom setup and from the way they're moving up and down it's creating a phase sound on the dialogue.

Now, I fix things I didn't know I could a few months ago like distortion and reverb but I can't help thinking that this is unfixable. I suppose one could spend weeks adding a phaser plugin and try to inversely match the phase depth and frequency (okay, I've been watching far too much Star Trek recently).

Sadly there's no money for ADR on this show so I'm stuck with the producion dialogue 100%. My current plan of attack is to simply push the music to cover the problem.

Answer 1

Indeed phasing is a very complex problem to fix. While it can probably be improved (albeit with an enormous amount of work), I don't know if it's worth it? Your time is probably much better spent making the overall project sound better. If they can't afford ADR, they almost definitely can't afford to pay you to sit around and tinker with comb filtering for an entire day...

I agree with georgi. Will people actually notice it? I was talking to Marc Fishman yesterday who was saying that he tends to get caught up in small things that really bother him, and often times it is stuff that other people will never notice. He said that his test is to bring someone in that doesn't know anything is wrong with the project and have them listen to it. If they point out the problem (or anything else for that matter), then you need to figure out a way to address the problem. If they don't, you're probably fine.

Answer 2

it is complex comb filtering, no? how many people will genuinely notice it? i know it's the eternal quest for perfection but am still trying to find out how people know where to stop.

Answer 3

2 mics are enough to create phasing so I can´t imagine if you have to deal with 5. Sometimes I prefer taking boom mic as main and adding lappels when needed. Boom track may need to be nudged some samples to be in phase with lavs, but once it´s done a little EQ at lavs to add presence can do it.

Indeed when mixing only 2 lavs that are moving aroung critical distances I use to add a phase invert plug-in to one of them and then edit bypass automation; it is on and off but I can do it quite fast in ProTools and usually improves the mix.

My advice is to first reduce the number of mics present in the mix at each moment, add them to the mix just when they are necessary with volume automation. It will become much easier to deal with phase issues when you have only 2 mics involved.