Review: Waves InPhase Plugin

Phase problems are the bane of any engineer’s existence. A typical tracking setup in a recording studio will almost always include sound sources being captured by multiple inputs or microphones. When recording drums, bass, guitar cabs, room mics, and anything in stereo, for example, phase-related issues will come up.

On nearly every album I mix, I spend a great deal of time checking the phase relationship between instruments on each song before I get started. So, when Waves announced their new InPhase tool, I was excited to see such an elegant solution to an everyday problem.

TECH SPECS: Waves InPhase is available in TDM, RTAS, Audio Suite, VST and AU format for PC or MAC. Mono and stereo components and support for up to 24bit/96khz resolution are standard. The plug-in comes standard in Waves flagship Mercury bundle and is also available in TDM for $300 MSRP and Native for $200 MSRP, $150 on special.

WHAT IT DOES: InPhase is a dedicated plug-in tool for correcting phase shift and alignment problems between audio tracks in the recording, mixing or mastering stage of audio production.

InPhase GUI

THE INTERFACE: The InPhase panel is smartly designed to mimic an oscilloscope.  The plug-in is broken up into two main sections: “a” or Alpha and “SC” or sidechain.  Each section has controls for Gain, Delay and phase shift controls as well as a dedicated screen to view the corresponding waveform. At the bottom are additional global controls for monitor output, input capture and a phase correlation meter.

IN USE:  Most recently I used InPhase while mixing new studio recordings for Andrew Rose Gregory and his band.

Among the challenges I tackled with InPhase were: double bass DI and mic alignment, checking and aligning phase between left and right overhead mics over a drum kit and working with acoustic guitar and vocals on a take recorded live together in the studio. InPhase performs beautifully. I was able to align my tracks very quickly, A/B the difference in sound and move on to other mixing tasks in less than five minutes.

The manual for InPhase provides easy to understand quick-start instructions for using the plug-in in situations such as correcting the phase relation between two mono tracks, between left and right channels of a stereo track, or aligning a stereo track to a sidechain reference. Waves’ website also provides step-by-step video tutorials which were a huge help, especially my first time using the plug-in. Let’s take a look at a typical setup for aligning two mono tracks together:

Setting up to align a Bass DI and Bass Mic is a relatively simple process:

1) InPhase is opened on the first insert point of the bass mic track. Pre fader is a good idea so the user can then mute the Bass DI track during alignment.
2) Use a bus send to feed the bass DI track to a bus, say Bus 1.
3) Assign the InPhase sidechain key input to receive from Bus 1.
4) Click “Capture” on the InPhase panel and play a short sample of a note with a clear start point.
5) Once capture is complete you will see waveforms in the alpha and sidechain sections for the Bass DI (sc) and Bass Mic (a).

At this point, the idea is to zoom in on the waveform, pick a cursor spot close to the beginning of the start point of the note and align either the alpha or sidechain signal using the Delay tool until the phase correlation meter reads positively.

Because monitoring the final signal is a crucial aspect of the phase alignment process, Waves has included a dedicated monitoring section of InPhase that allows you to select between the alpha and sidechain sections independently as well as a mono mix of both summed together.

Users will get sharp results with InPhase when using selections with lots of dynamic range and obvious transients. When setting up a new alignment, capture an isolated snare hit, or a crisp note played on a guitar or bass.

The most obvious and ear catching example of the power of InPhase for me happened while aligning the close and distant mic of a distorted guitar amp for Americana band The Lexington Express. The tracks I was working with had a close dynamic mic and a more distant condenser mic on one guitar amp. Anyone who’s ever attempted this will hear very obvious phase problems when blending the two mics together. InPhase is magical for solving this problem!

Going through the steps I was able to perfectly align the two signals together, return the InPhase monitor to only the alpha channel and return to my mix, confident that my guitars were perfectly phase aligned.

TO BE CRITICAL:  Not so much a criticism as a comment:  I was a little surprised to find that InPhase is a completely manual use plug-in. Part of me was assuming or expecting there to be some sort of auto-align feature that would take some of the guesswork and trial and error out of the equation once the user has captured the sound sources.

I did run into one potential issue with the setup example in the InPhase manual for aligning two mono tracks together.  A crucial step was left out in my opinion. Waves recommends selecting the “Mono Mix” playback option while working with the InPhase plug-in in order to accurately hear the differences.  However, there is no step included for reverting back to monitoring the alpha channel once the alignment is complete.  If left in “Mono Mix” mode – which is easily inferred from their steps in the manual – the user would be double bussing their Bass DI or sidechain track. This would occur once from the Bass DI channel into the DAW mix bus and also from within the InPhase plug-in if still in “Mono Mix” mode.

Although the phase shift tools are a unique and a commendable addition to InPhase, there is very little information in the user manual about how these tools would be used in real-world situations and I found it difficult to understand precisely what to listen for when adjusting.

IN CONCLUSION: Waves has created a fantastic tool for addressing everyday phase issues for engineers at a very reasonable price. For the most part, the controls are easy to use and understand, and the results are noticeable immediately. To my knowledge, InPhase is the first plug-in to effectively address this basic and ever-present problem in the audio world.

Zach McNees is a Brooklyn-based producer/engineer/mixer and live recordist who’s worked with Björk, Rob Thomas, Julia Nunes, The Gregory Brothers, Pixies, Liars and Alice Cooper. Get in touch with Zach via http://www.zachmcnees.com.

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