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Originally Posted by philip  yes of course! if there was a standard about polarity* it would be the first thing to check. I'm not reasoning if it's wrong or not, I just say it does not have any practical meaning today. |
Of course there is a standard. Imagine a studio where all the mics and preamps etc are wired up correctly. A positive wave front causes a positive voltage. All the other gear in the studio is also wired up correctly and all the way through the mix those original positive wave fronts cause positive voltages etc. Then the last piece of equipment in the chain used to bounce the mix has the wiring mixed up. Hey! Suddenly the polarity of the mix has been inverted.
No one notices this until it gets to the mastering session. The ME finds the mix a bit lackluster and lacking punch, tries flipping the polarity and presto!, the punch is there. There was a polarity issue and the ME resolved it.
Of course gear can introduce phase shifts but AFAIK it is unusual for a piece of equipment to cause the positive wavefront of say a kick drum to become negative (assuming the wiring is correct).
Lagerfeldt, what do you use to check and correct the polarity of mixes? Are you doing this in the analogue or digital domain?
Alistair