Enhancement character shifts mid high and high frequencies phase?

Elektron Gear Analog Heat
#1

I just realise that the Enhancement character is shifting the mid high and high frequencies’s phase, so when you set the Dry/Wet to have equal energy from both, the overall highs get reduced. It is most noticeable over 8Khz.

Procedure to reproduce:

Use a full mix, if possible some with high frequencies, any full mix with high hats or some high noises will work.

Set the character to Enhancement.
Turn off filter and set EQ to 0
Deactivate any LFO or ENV modulation if apply
Set Drive to Min
Set Wet to Max
Set Drive level so the perceived Level is the same for Wet and Dry, one way to achieve this is to start rising Drive while going back and forth with the Dry/Wet knob till you get the same level from both.

Now if you set Dry/Wet to 50% the perceived highs level is lower than if you choose either full Dry or full Wet. This undoubtedly indicates that there is some phase cancellation for those high frequencies. I double checked on my spectral analyser and it checks.

Any one noticing this?

Anyway, this doesn’t bothers me at all, so far I’m incredibly happy with my AH, it really added new dimensions to my current live tracks and I bet it will perform amazing on the upcoming tracks, I just wanted to check if this is a default response or it is just my unit.

Thanks in advanced for taking the time to check. :wink:

1 Like
#2

I bet it is a byproduct of that particular distortion circuit. Lots of “mojo” circuits wreak havoc on freq, transient and phase response of a signal. Sometimes this is an unwanted side-effect of a circuit, sometimes it is 100% intentional in order to reach the desired end result.

fwiw the first three distoriton modes are my faves on the AH. Enhancement is maybe the one I dig the most, possibly even because of this phase shift coloration (?)

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#3

Also my 3 faves for master bus!
Btw if you break the level balance between wet and dry the cancelation is not noticeable.

#4

fascinating. Capturing some sinewaves at the appropriate frequency through 0%wet and 100% wet should give some idea of the degree of phase shift.

#5

Yeah, or you can use a program like S.M.A.R.T. and perform a Transfer function.
The transfer function will show you in realtime the subtle differences between dry and wet in energy and phase coherence. :slight_smile:

#6

I dont have that software. Is it free?

#7

nope :frowning:
it is indeed pretty expensive, but you may find some unofficial “try before buy” version out there. :wink:

rational acoustics: smaart

do read the manual before using it, there are some very sensitive details to get proper measures, the most important one is to find the delay between the wet and dry signals, if you forget this step, all the measuring will be wrong.

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#8

i was already wondering if something was wrong with the unit. but it seems to be really a cancellation. weird but somehow logical.