Workaround for Phaseyness / Swishing
It seems that my aural chicanery worked. As mentioned in earlier posts, I had upmixed a few tracks where "phaseyness" (or swishing) was an audible problem. I employed the following machinations and I'm very pleased with the results. It adds some work to the process, but remember that we are making something great out of essentially nothing.
Pendulums by Sarah Harmer
Problem:
Swishing in the drum track gives the upmix a somewhat phasey or metallic sound. Not bad, but sounds like something is not quite right or there is background garbage.
Solution:
1. Extracted the drums stem [mvsep.com or lalal.ai].
2. Inverted the drums stem in a DAW.
3. Mixed the inverted drum stem with the main track in a DAW to remove the drums.
4. Reduced the amplification of the resultant stereo track by 6 dB; otherwise clipping occurred.
5. Processed the resultant stereo track in SpecScript (SpecScript chose Wide Rear as the preferred method for this song.)
6. In the DAW, reduced the volume of the drum stem by 6dB (to match levels.)
7. Mixed the drum stem into the front channels.
8. Mixed some variation of the drum stem into the rear channels. My preference is to "Remove Center" in a DAW and then mix the result into the rears.
Result:
A cleaner and more pleasing sounding track, with no perception of something not being quite right.
Alone Again Or by Calexico
Problem:
Swishing in the drums, horns, vocals...essentially everything. Much worse than on
Pendulums. Brutally obvious. Horns are particularly bad...almost sound like comb filtering.
Complications:
1. Using another upmixing selection instead of Phantom Side reduced the problem to an extent, but also reduced the separation and excitement of the resulting 5.1 mix.
2. Extracting the drum stem, inverting it and then mixing back the inverted stem into the song like I did on
Pendulums did not work. Some drums were left remaining, and a slight timing difference actually resulted; further proof that there are serious phase issues to be dealt with in this song.
3. Mixing together the remaining stems (bass, other instruments, vocals) and upmixing with SpecScript also yielded unsatisfactory results...continued phasey / swishing sound.
Solution:
1. Split the song into four stems (bass, drums, other instruments, vocals) and reduced volume of each by 6dB in a DAW.
2. Upmixed each stem separately in SpecScript using Phantom
Center Side as the upmixing method for all stems.
3. Listened to each upmixed stem track. No significant swishing was evident on the upmixed bass, other instrument and vocal tracks. Drums were awful.
4. Mixed the upmixed multichannel bass, other instruments and vocal tracks together into a 5.1 mix using a DAW. Did not use upmixed drum track.
5. Mixed the original stereo drum stem into the front channels.
6. Mixed some variation of the original drum stem into the rear channels. As noted above, my preference is "Remove Center" and then mix the result into the rears.
Result:
Like night and day. No noticeable phase / swishing issues in the final mix. The horns sound lovely.
That Calexico version is excellent.
