Help with recorded audio

[wwam]

I recently captured a wedding where I plugged my zoom h1 into the line out of one of the DJ's speakers. After the night was over, I tried playback on the h1 and the level was extremely low and somewhat distorted. But when I plug a headphone into the h1 the audio sounds great...

I uploaded the audio file on fcpx. The playback on the library viewer sounds great. My stress level was relieved! So I took a portion of the clip and dragged it to my timeline played it back and for some reason it sounds like the speaker playback on the h1! low and distorted.

Anyone have an idea what is causing this? TIA

[mike20021969]

I tried playback on the h1 and the level was extremely low and somewhat distorted.

Regarding the Zoom H1 settings:

What format did you record it in? What sample rate? Does the software support the file format settings?
That might be where to start looking...

Maybe upload a sample of the audio file also.

[smrpix]

Try listening to one channel at a time. You may be getting phase cancellation when playing through speakers. If this is so you need to reverse the phase on one of the channels. I bet FCPX has this as a built-in function.

[wwam]

Try listening to one channel at a time. You may be getting phase cancellation when playing through speakers. If this is so you need to reverse the phase on one of the channels. I bet FCPX has this as a built-in function.

That was the problem! Thanks so much smrpix . I selected the reverse stereo option under channel configuration in fcpx and it sounds like it should now.

also thanks mike for the reply.

[wwam]

just curious, why does it sound normal when I plug in headphones into the h1.

[JVRaines]

The Zoom probably sends a mono mix to its built-in loudspeaker. Mixing out-of-phase channels to mono makes the error very obvious. It's harder to detect in stereo if you haven't learned to recognize it.

[Cornucopia]

Because then you are listening to each channel independently. In stereo, as it were. The problem arises when the channels are combined into one.

Scott

[JVRaines]

I wouldn't put it that way. Your brain assembles information from both channels into an aural panorama. If one channel is out of phase, it won't sound right even in stereo. Center images become fuzzy and hard to place.

[Cornucopia]

Fuzzy & hard to place, yes, but it's a far cry from near- or total-destructive interference that one gets from summing, both purely mathematically and perceptually. Our brains are very good at psycho-aurally compensating for dual-channel anomalies. The ear cannot do ANYTHING with material to has already been removed.

Scott