Phase-Coherent AudioWarp: great workflow, bad sound

Cubase
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Hello everybody,

I have this neat multi track drum recording, which need some quantization. I have always used the “old school” method (automatically cut, move and crossfade the audio events to keep the phase between the channels locked) but today, I’ve tried the new approach with the phase-coherent AudioWarp feature.

First, the editing workflow is flawless, it took me only minutes to quantize the whole drum recording to the grit. But then I noticed a significant drop in audio quality. I’ve tried different algorithms for this (elastique pro - time / standard - drums), and they both have their pros/cons when it comes to audio quality, but overall, the quality is significantly reduced in my opinion in comparison to the original recording. I noticed this in the sound of the cymbals or open hihat e.g., there is an overall “digital grittyness” on the sound. The impression of the “roominess” is also reduced, even if the phase is coherent, which is odd in my oppinion. I first thought that I did something wrong, but even after a restarting Cubase, my impression persist.

I’ve redone the timing correction the “old school” method, with a significant improvement to the overall sound and the above-described problems are gone.

My question would be: Is it just me? Or is it time to think about an update of the used algorithms in Cubase? Or is this something that is unavoidable, when working with time stretching algorithms? I also thought about the possibility to have a higher quality, offline process for these kinds of tasks, but at the end, I do not know how these time stretch algorithms work in the background and can’t really say if it would be an improvement.

What’s your impression when using this phase-coherent TimeWarp feature? For me, the “old school” method is still the better one from a sound quality perspective.

Best Regards, Tomess

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I also found that the drums, time corrected with phase alignment on, sounded weird.

The old way of cutting and moving is phase aligned too. It’s just a more tedious way of operating. But the drums are way more punchy and clear.

Logically, stretching audio to re-time it, is just overkill and bound to create artifacts with some kind of smearing.

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I also experienced this problem after recording an album of multimic’d drum tracks. It definitely does something weird to the attack transients. Sometimes it sounded to me as if the snare had a reverse ‘suck’ preceding the actual hit. This is a shame because the workflow is great.
However, it should not be sold as “phase-chorent” because clearly it is not.

However, I’ve found that simpler recordings (2-4 close mics) on piano, guitar etc. do work with this method. It seems that the distant overhead and room mics on a drum kit are not properly processed.

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Funny, I was also wondering if it was me doing something wrong as I’m having a lot of phase issue too! This is absolutely not “phase coherent”! Worst is on Stereo mic, like OH Room mic…And yes, phase incoherence is the worst for drums…Please change the name or the algorithm!