Weird... maybe phasing issue?? I need help

[djshott]

I'm in Logic Pro 8

I've got this song completely tracked, and mixed. When I play the song back in the control room or even on ANY stereo system, it sounds just lovely. So I plugged it up to my home theatre surround sound as the final test... and something very strange is happening. A synth track is causing the electric guitar track to sound like it's volume is going up and down.

The synth is a bell sound, and at the attack of the bell, the guitar's volume, and tone seems to get very dull. But as the bell sound resonates out, the guitar gets very bright, crisp, and louder. Once each hit of the bell sound is completely resolved, and you can no longer hear any resonance of the bell, the guitar then returns to it's normal tone, and volume.

I'm not sure if this is some weird phasing issue, or if the two occupying the same frequency range has anything to do with this. But no stereo panning of any kind completely eliminated this issue.

Again, this ONLY happens on a surround sound system. It sounds lovely through stereo systems.

[paul999]

This may be a surround issue but it could be an "invisable compression issue". Okay I made that term up. What I mean is that sometimes we can't hear our compressors working until they get on the right system. Try putting this to an MP3 and listening in headphones from your computer. You may be surprised what you hear. Can you post the song?

[audiomike242]

maybe the compressor is starting to kinda "pump". like the guy said in the previous post. I know i use to get a lot of this kinda stuff when i started doing 'bass drops' in metal songs. These dudes would want this 808 sign signal wave at the beginning of their breakdowns or whatever and the compressor/limiter would go crazy when it hit.

I don't do any more of that style anymore but i'd just try to maybe eq some of the bell part or maybe put a limiter on that channel to keep it in check...

I don't know though, lets wait and see what some other people say.
:]

[Electriclight]

Try the mix in mono and see if some of the same issues arise. Sounds like comb filtering and phase stuff.

[frshtrx]

hi... would someone be so kind as to confirm or clear this post /song for the same issue?
here's to love - bash away
it just seems a little too close to home...

[mindundermatter]

Interesting. I'm reading this book called "This is Your Brain on Music" by Daniel J. Levitin. Wonderful book. Anyway, in it, he talks about an experiment where the attack of instruments was removed from a recording and replaced with the attack of a different instrument (in your case, the bell's attack and the guitar's sustain). The result was not being able to tell what the original instrument was. I'm not sure that this is exactly your problem, but it seems relevant.

Apart from the psychological issue mentioned above, I would guess that you have some issues with compression and comb filtering, as has been mentioned.