Is inverting the polarity (reversing) the same as reversing the phase?

[tubedude]

Will the phase reversal switch do the same thing as a polarity inverter? I'm thinking no. I'm not really sure to be honest. I want to make all my top miced tom and snare hits have postive transients, and I dont think phase reversal does that. Does it?

[max cooper]

You want to flip the polarity. "Phase inverter" is kind of a misnomer. Unless it's referring to a single frequency sinewave or something.


Anyway, that switch you're talking about is a polarity inverter and it's what you need to use.

[Kiwiburger]

A "phase switch" is always a polarity inverter. With a balanced circuit, the two signals that are opposite in polarity are known as the two "phases". The switch swaps these two phase around, achieving a reversal in polarity.

I think of phases such as phases of the moon. It's about the timing of a cycle, and you can change phase relationships by delaying one of the signals. A polarity switch never introduces a delay - it just flips negative for positive.

[max cooper]

You can't "switch" the phase of just one track because it doesn't have anything to be 'out of phase' with.

You can reverse the phase of one track with respect to another track .

If you only have one track and you reverse the polarity, what is it out of phase with?

[Kiwiburger]

Being strictly pedantic, I have to disagree ...

You can't "switch" the phase of just one track because it doesn't have anything to be 'out of phase' with.

I think you can. Because a microphone signal is balanced - two signals, one of opposite polarity already. So all the remains to be done is switch them around with a dpdt switch, and you have reversed the phases, and effectively reversed polarity all at the same time. In the digital domain, negative numbers can be swapped for positive numbers, which is a true polarity reversal. But the switch is typically called Phase, because it effectively does the same thing as the analog balanced phase swapping switches.

With a single track, you can always compare the phase or polarity with the original signal. E.g. - if the kick head was approaching the mic, you want the signal to be positive, so the speaker cone approaches your ears.

You can reverse the phase of one track with respect to another track .

I tend to disagree, unless the tracks in question are clones, or pure sinewaves. For anything else, the phase relationships will be shifted by arbitrary amounts for different frequencies, and not a true reversal in the boolean sense.

[max cooper]

Actually the only point I was making was about the use of the word "phase" in place of the word "polarity".

Phase infers time among other things. The word "phase" is misused a lot.

Here's an article by Bob McCarthy

PHASE AND POLARITY

Before we move to the next section, time for a pop quiz. How many milliseconds of delay results from 180° of phase shift?

Is that your final answer?

The correct answer is, “That's a trick question.” Why? Because a frequency must be specified. So how many milliseconds of delay are equivalent to 180° of phase shift at 250 Hz? The answer is 2 ms.

Now, how much time delay do we get when we put a phase reverser in-line? It reverses all frequencies by 180°, so it must delay each one by a slightly different amount. That is quite a fancy delay circuit there! And I thought it was just swapping two wires!
In reality, there is no such thing as a “phase reverser.” It is a polarity reverser.
Polarity reversers do not delay the signal. They invert the voltage or pressure component of the signal. While this does shift the phase, it does not change the phase delay time. That is not to say that a polarity reverse is unimportant. Anything that affects the phase will dramatically affect the way that different signals combine."

http://mixonline.com/mag/audio_understanding_phase/