Recording - October 2011 - 45

Radial’s X-Amp Reamper (which we will look at in our upcoming February 2012 guitar issue) you can track each section separately along with a miked amp cabinet, allowing for huge flexibility during mixdown. With EXTC you can add stomp-box distortion to a vocal, a vintage phaser pedal to a drum fill, your favorite chorus pedal to an acoustic guitar track, and the list goes on. If you use a lot of guitar effects and are always on the lookout for the cleanest and most flexible way to add them to your tracks, the EXTC will leave you in... oh, you know.

with a sound akin to moving mics purposely in and out of phase on a source. Even handier is that this can be accomplished not only during tracking, but also after the fact during mixdown. As reviewer Fernando Curiel mentioned in his review of the original, “this is one of those [Radial] devices that will solve problems you did not even know existed.” Whether used to tighten up your tracks or as an effect, this is another one of those utility pieces that it never hurts to have in your arsenal.

Prices (street): Workhorse, $1399; Workhorse without mixer, $749.99; JDV-Pre, $399.99; Shuttle, $139.99; EXTC, $249.99; PhazeQ, $299.99 More from: Radial Engineering, www.radialeng.com Paul Vnuk Jr. (vnuk@recordingmag.com) is a recording engineer, sound designer, and musician living and working in Milwaukee. Learn more about what’s going on in his studio at www.majale.com.

PhazeQ
The PhazeQ is another adaptation of a previous Radial favorite, the Radial Phazer that we reviewed in our November 2009 issue. This is not a 500-Series phaser effect, but a continuously variable phase alignment and adjustment tool. Similar to the phase button on a traditional mixer, it is used to adjust the phase between two sounds, most typically a pair of mics or a combination of a mic and a direct-injected signal. Examples include drum overheads, top and bottom snare mics, inner and outer kick drum mics, dualmiked guitar cabinets, and simultaneous direct and miked bass guitar. But unlike most phase switches that offer a single 180degree phase flip (actually a polarity inversion, to be technically correct), this unit allows you to precisely dial in the correct phase amount with complete accuracy. Controls and connections The PhazeQ, like the Phazer, is comprised of two sections. The first is made up of a single knob that smoothly adjusts the phase from 0 to 180 degrees and inbetween. There is also a traditional 180degree flip button and a bypass button. Using the knob and flip button in tandem actually allows you to adjust the signal up to a full 360 degrees. The second section is a variable lowpass filter section with switchable frequency ranges of 3 to 38 kHz or 300 Hz to 3.8 kHz. This gets you only apply phase correction to the lows; to my ears this helps get rid of unnatural high-end brittleness and helps define the low end. Unlike the original Phazer box, the PhazeQ also has a master wet/dry knob; you can therefore create your own phase cancellation effects right in one box. Finally, the PhazeQ’s Omniport function is a simple dry output signal. Correct and effect Not just handy for adjusting and fixing phase coherence, the PhazeQ also makes a unique and extreme equalizer
RECORDING OCTOBER 2011

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Recording - October 2011

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