Phase in bleed during Live Recordings

[Musa HendersonParticipant]

Hello PLAP people,

I have begun recording Live Demo's for artists in my flat and i have an issue with phase in the vocal. As we are videoing these (3 shot) I am limited to mic placement. Yesterday I had 2 guitars (close mic'd) and a mic (large diaphragm off to the side) picking up as much of the vocal as possible. The raws generally sound great and I/artist were happy with the basic sound and recorded the session.

Now mixing i can hear the vocal bleed from the two guitar mics is out of phase with the main vocal, any suggestions on how to improve this. I wasn't able to get to careful with the mic placement as I had to not get in the way of the singers face and we had 40 mins to do the whole session so in future I will be very careful with the phase (advice on that is welcome).

Current problem any idea how to deal with out of phase bleed?

Thanks guys and gals

[Nick D.Participant]

if both guitar mics are out of phase with the vocal flip the polarity on both guitars tracks, it will keep those in phase and should put it closer in phase to the vocal mic. How are the guitars panned? are they hard left/right? Was this a dual acoustic with live vocal scenario? Is there any acoustic treatment in the room? Did you want vocal bleed in the guitar mics?

The general thought is if the mics are more than 1 meter or so apart then the possibility of phase issues are less likely.

[Musa HendersonParticipant]

So there is no acoustic treatment it's just a lounge, two guitars playing different lines with the singing happening at the same time. Roughly a meter apart. Normally I would have had more time to set the Mics up and not have to deal with keeping out of the way of three cameras that's why I have the issue, I tried flipping the phase but it is still out. Maybe I need to nudge it but then I'm worried about the timing........

[Nick D.Participant]

can you confirm that vocals are out of phase with both guitars individually? maybe its just one of the guitar mics? If you are 90 degrees out of phase there isn't much you can do, as nudging it will create either more phase issues or timing issues. you can try scooping some of the offending frequency out of the guitars but this is one of those get it right at the source things. I cant imagine that there is that much vocal bleed in a guitar close mic unless the guitar is very quiet and the vocal is very loud... Without eq, compression etc. is there still a phase issue, because you said you were happy with it when you hit record.

[Musa HendersonParticipant]

So the main vocal mic (which was in a strange position because of the cameras) is out of phase with the others. The main guitar (singers) has a lot of bleed as she is singing towards the microphone but the guitar is loud enough to make the vocal seem quiet (it's like 60% guitar 40% vocal) which is why we put another mic up behind and to the side which is like 70-30 in favour of vocal. I didn't have time for critical listening and my ear isn't experienced enough to pick up phase quickly. It was a weird situation, the washyness of the vocal is annoying but I will find a solution I'm sure.

[Musa HendersonParticipant]

Ok in the end I used time adjuster to move the guitar mic by 4 samples. Sounds much better

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