Understanding phase

The phase of 2 waveforms is a very important aspect within the realms of audio engineering. I am writing this because I occasionally hear out of phase (or nearly out of phase) signals in the 2 track mix downs that I receive for mastering. It can be quite a serious problem as it has the potential to render the out of phase source silent if the mix is ever summed to mono. (and this might happen more often that one might think) The phase relationship of 2 signals can directly dictate the sonic quality of a 2 microphone recording or synthetic waveform. Initially I will explain phase by explaining the definition of mono and stereo recording in the traditional sense using microphones.

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