Mic polarity and vocal recordings

[Subsonic]

I've found that when recording vocals myself, that flipping the polarity on my mic pre nearly always results in a much fuller sound in my phones while singing. Now, I understand that this is likely due to phase anomolies due to hearing my voice through the cans and through my head at slightly different times, but it makes me a bit nervous to lay down ALL my vocal tracks with the phase flipped.

On the other hand, I would imagine that flipping the polarity on vocal takes would help to cancel out any potential headphone bleed into the vocal track, since all the bleed would be reversed 180 degrees out of phase to the actual tracks.

So is this a normal thing, and can laying down all my vocal tracks 180 degrees out of phase cause any issues down the road? Maybe my ears are wired backwards, who knows??

thumbsup

[Subsonic]

[qbert1]

Originally Posted by Subsonic

I've found that when recording vocals myself, that flipping the polarity on my mic pre nearly always results in a much fuller sound in my phones while singing. Now, I understand that this is likely due to phase anomolies due to hearing my voice through the cans and through my head at slightly different times, but it makes me a bit nervous to lay down ALL my vocal tracks with the phase flipped.

On the other hand, I would imagine that flipping the polarity on vocal takes would help to cancel out any potential headphone bleed into the vocal track, since all the bleed would be reversed 180 degrees out of phase to the actual tracks.

So is this a normal thing, and can laying down all my vocal tracks 180 degrees out of phase cause any issues down the road? Maybe my ears are wired backwards, who knows??

thumbsup

I understand it to be a very common technique for tracking vocals with headphones. I can't say I've used it much as I do mostly location recording, but I can't imagine why it would be a problem. Flip the phase back when mixing. Or, if your tracking to a DAW like Protools, inserting a EQ and flipping the phase in a EQ insert will allow the track to be recorded in phase while playing back inverted.

As to the bleed, I have a feeling that the phase canceling won't be quite what your hoping for.
Good luck