2015-01-29 11:49:20

Hello.
At the moment I don't have a stereo microphone but I happened to have 2 plextalk ptr2 recorders.
One is my own and the other one is from my job.
So last Spring I had the idea of recording ambient sounds from my backyard with both recorders at the same time and then mixing the 2 sounds with adobe audition to create a stereo effect.
So I put the recording from the first plextalk on the left channel and the other on the right.
With the multi track view of adobe audition it is possible to aline the tracks correctly so we don't have one channel ahead of the other.
The recording can be found here.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/198 … %20mix.mp3
At first everything sound nice but then very gradually the 2 channels get out of sync so the sounds don't pann correctly. Most sounds seam to come out from the left towards the end so I assume that the left channel is a bit ahead of the right.

Now my question is why this happens?
Since both recorders are digital why they are not synchronised all the time?
I can understand this behaviour if I was using tape recorders where we could have different speeds but with digital equipment I thought that we wouldn't have to worry about these things any more.
Also my other question is if there is a way to correct this recording to sound stereo all the time.
At the moment I created 2 mixings of this.
For the first one which is the link above I alined the channels at the beginning of the recording.
For the second mix I did the same but i went to the end of the recording instead.
Now I need to combine these 2 mixes.
Perhaps for the first 45 minutes to have the first mix and then for the other 45 minutes to go to the second one.
The problem is that I don't know exactly when the 2 tracks start to go out of sync.
Anyway I know this is an unusual question.
I hope somebody can help me.
I like this recording and I think with some modification it could become a very good soundscape.
Thanks
Nikos

Visit www.freesound.org/people/NikosDemetriou/sounds/ to hear some of my recordings.

2015-01-29 17:42:27

That's a goo way of doing it. I don't use Adobe Audition with JAWS. I think Audacity would work nicely for this purpose. The only problem I found when mixing two identical recordings on each channel, they turn into moo, instead of being panned out like they'e supposed to.

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2015-01-29 17:48:56

The first thing that comes to mind is the timers in the digital recorders are probably off by a couple nanoseconds or less.  This is common.  When you build a timer there is some error; the trick is to make that error less than needed for your application.  You can think of it as the peaks of a sine wave; one recorder's sine wave is at 44100 hz, and the other is at 44099.0000000000001 hz.  Unless these are very, very, very high-end recorders that may be your issue.  That's my best theory, anyway.  Fixing it is probably not possible as the amount of pitch bend you need is astronomically tiny, and I'm not sure anything can handle it because of floating point accuracy.  You may be able to fix it by strategically removing individual samples.
The proper solution is to buy a stereo microphone, even if I'm wrong about this.  You can probably pick one up for $50 or so.

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2015-01-30 02:29:39

Thanks Green Gables Fan and camlorn for replying.
Your explanation camlorn seams very logical and it makes sence.
Yes I am thinking to get a stereo microphone but I don't know which one.
Nikos

Visit www.freesound.org/people/NikosDemetriou/sounds/ to hear some of my recordings.

2015-01-30 02:39:44

I don't think it matters too much as long as the recording quality is good.  Stereo microphones shouldn't be susceptible to that drift.
Also, my example should be 44100 hz and 44099.9999999 hz, and I know not what I was thinking at the time.

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2016-09-09 04:53:33 (edited by musicalman 2016-09-09 04:59:17)

Hi,
Sorry for bumping an old topic, but was browsing audio stuff on here and couldn't resist.
I checked out the posted clip and did some rough work on it to try and keep the channels in sync. I went to the end of the file and saw the left channel was ahead of the right. By deleting approx. 800 samples or 0.018 seconds from a spot very close to the end on the right channel, the stereo image was much more cohesive. The 800 samples isn't an exact figure of how far out of alignment the channels are, it was just something I tried that worked. I don't know if it is even possible to scientifically measure, down to the sample level, how far off alignment channels are, especially when the two sources are far apart. It's easier to do with more closely based mics but these were wide apart it seems. Or at least the stereo image suggests width. Anyway, let's do some math:
If it takes the left channel approx 70 minutes to get 800 samples ahead...
800/70 = 11.43 samples per minute
11.43/60 = just shy of 0.2. That is a very rough sample rate difference between the two.
Just as an experiment I told Gold Wave to pitch the audio on the right channnel in such a way as to make it 0.018 secs shorter than the left. In theory this would at least minimize the drift, even though I had not the means or patience to try to scientifically measure it. I wasn't expecting much. But to my surprise it actually did preserve a nice stereo image throughout, without any audible artifacts that I could hear. This is exactly why interpolation exists... to allow a guestimation of the waveform between the sample points.
I suspect there are automated solutions that can do this, though whether they can cope with gradual drift and to what extent I don't know. I do know azimuth correction is available to fix some channel alignment issues particularly with tape, but I don't think that's the same as what we are seeing here where the channels drift gradually because of very slightly differently timed clocks.
I was actually going to try this kind of recording with two IPhones to see how the mics would sound in stereo, just for the fun of it. Thanks for trying this first so I know what I'll potentially be in for if I get bored enough to do it myself. Lol

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2016-09-10 23:19:01

Hi raygrote
I am very glad somebody actually downloaded the sound and tried to find out what's going on with it.
If you still have got the file with the deleted samples and the other work you have done on it is it possible to send it to me please?
I am very curious to see how it sounds like.
Thanks for bringing this up again.
Nikos

Visit www.freesound.org/people/NikosDemetriou/sounds/ to hear some of my recordings.

2016-09-10 23:52:59

I did not save it, but now that I know what I did I can do it again fairly quickly. How shall I send it? If you don't respond or don't have a preference I will most likely try to share a Google Drive public link.

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If you like what you're reading, please give a thumbs-up.

2016-09-11 00:28:18

Thanks a lot.
Any way it is easier for you dropbox link, google drive I don't mind.
Nikos

Visit www.freesound.org/people/NikosDemetriou/sounds/ to hear some of my recordings.