Manual contents

Groups and stereo pairs

Groups keep unrelated microphone setups separate, and a stereo instance’s MODE keeps true stereo pairs intact. This page covers both, plus the details that matter in larger sessions.

Separate microphone groups

Use a separate group when tracks do not represent the same acoustic event. Drum mics and guitar-cabinet mics should not share a reference merely because they appear in the same song.

Analysis failures are scoped by group. If a track stops receiving audio, its group may fail while another valid group completes.

Changing a track’s group

Use the Group selector in its lane row. A group change alters the available Phase and Time References. Analyze again after arranging the groups, so every lane is measured in the intended context. If the destination group is locked, unlock it first, or the moved lane sits out that run.

Locking a group

Once PhaseLock has aligned a group, it locks that group. Run Analyze again and PhaseLock leaves every locked group exactly as it is: its offsets, polarity decisions, references, and analyzed audio stay put, and its tracks do not have to be playing during the run. Lock the groups you have finished so that analyzing tracks you add later cannot change them. Aligning guitar microphones in a session whose drums are already done is the common case.

Locking does not restrict editing. Every control in a locked group still works, and a change recalculates from that group’s existing analysis.

PhaseLock locks groups for you, without a message:

  • A successful Analyze locks every group in which it aligned two or more lanes.
  • Editing a lane — a manual offset, a polarity override, Improve Coherence, a Time Reference, or the group’s Phase Reference — locks that lane’s group once the group holds results for two or more lanes.

A group holding results for a single lane never locks on its own, so adding the second microphone of a pair is never blocked.

Each lane row carries a padlock beside its Group value: an outline when the group is unlocked, a solid padlock when it is locked. Click it to lock or unlock the whole group, and hover it to highlight every row in that group. The same padlock sits beside Phase Reference / Group n in the controls area and toggles the groups of the selected lanes.

The global Coherence and Time Align controls reach unlocked groups only. A locked group keeps the states it was measured under.

To re-measure a locked group, click its solid padlock to unlock it. Nothing changes at that moment; the next Analyze includes the group, measures it again, and locks it once more if that run aligns two or more of its lanes. Analyze needs at least two lanes outside locked groups. With every group locked, it declines the same way it does for a session with too few channels.

Linked stereo pairs

Set a stereo instance’s MODE to LINKED when independent corrections would disturb the stereo image. Common examples include stereo overheads, a stereo room pair, and a stereo field recorder. Use the MODE chip in the lane row or the CHANNELS control in the inspector.

When linked, PhaseLock uses the stronger-evidence side and applies one correction to both channels. The left channel leads when settings need to be mirrored at the moment linking is enabled.

Leave the MODE UNLINKED when the two channels are independent sources packaged on a stereo track and need separate correction. Set it to MONO when the track is a single mono source that a host has opened as stereo; the instance then contributes one lane. See Mono tracks in REAPER.

Pro Tools multi-mono tracks

When Pro Tools supplies matching mono instances with the same track name, PhaseLock labels a pair with L and R where possible. Larger same-name sets are numbered. Check the lane list before analyzing to confirm that the expected channels are connected. Double-click a lane’s name to rename it when a host supplies no name or an unclear one; the custom name replaces the host name in the lane list.

Larger sessions

PhaseLock supports up to 64 simultaneous plugin instances. Each group can analyze up to 64 effective lanes: 64 mono instances, 32 stereo instances, or a mixture. A stereo instance uses two lanes and an instance in MONO mode uses one. The lane limit is per group, so separate groups can each use their own 64-lane capacity.

For a large session:

  1. Assign groups before analysis.
  2. Choose one Phase Reference per group.
  3. Set the MODE to LINKED on pairs that must preserve their image.
  4. Analyze all connected tracks.
  5. Work through one group at a time when comparing settings.

Selecting several lanes at once makes the setup steps faster: see Selecting multiple lanes.