y-Axis shifted Waveforms

[ululalal]

Hi everybody. I'm DJaying with Traktor2 and it's pretty nice, you can see the waveforms very well.
When i mixed "Game Over" by Datsik&FluxP I saw that the speech sample is shifted up on the Y-axis.
That's crazy. I like that. On top I see that at more other songs, where really fat Sawtooth Synths only have their amplitude up or down. Not in both directions.

I Would like to know how I can archieve that

Thx guys!

[nowaysj]

Following this thread, have a similar question.

[MexicanKangaroo]

Aren't they just left and right channels? If a waveform only has on 'up' amplitude isn't just a left channel (or right) channel output only?

I've bounce out panning basses from time to time and the same effect happens (waveform shape). I think the y-azis shift you're talking about is just the a little bit of panning on one channel.

[gen_]

They could be DC offset, thats when the wave appears off-center, either shifted up or down. Thats generally bad and most DAW's automatically cancel it. (Its an unnecessary waste of energy as the wave can't possible be as loud as it would be if its ceter was at the center of the waveform.)

[thefrim]

just looked at that track in traktor 2, wow i wonder if that was an accident or not? sometimes I look at the waveforms of my tunes and bits get dc offset sometimes and its not intentional, maybe the game over sample itself is just dc offset for some reason and they dropped it in without knowing

and like the poster above said I dunno if this is really something you should be shooting for ESPECIALLY with synth bass because it can't ever be as loud as if it was centered around 0

[ululalal]

A DC offset could be possible. At least I dont think its about Left/Right.
Just have a look at that. Thats obvious: http://www.imagebanana.com/view/qo2zp8vv/waves.png

But I'm still interested how to achieve that.

[nowaysj]

I don't believe that that is dc offset. I think that is a result of the phase of the two oscillators used to produce that sound. Maybe one osc is sync'ed to the other.

[staticcast]

A DC offset could be possible. At least I dont think its about Left/Right.
Just have a look at that. Thats obvious: http://www.imagebanana.com/view/qo2zp8vv/waves.png

But I'm still interested how to achieve that.

this, uh, might be a bug. i'll ask the guy who made it. (it could be a feature i don't know about...)

does it look the same in a WAV editor (or traktor 1)?

EDIT: "how can i achieve that".... assuming this isn't a bug and it's actually part of the file, why would you want to? it would basically sound like the original audio, with a pop before the sample and a pop afterwards.

[nowaysj]

btw, was referring to the top track waveform in my post right there ^, didn't see that bottom waveform. That thing is madness.

[samkablaam]

what does it sound like? and does it do the same in other waveform viewers?

i guess it depends how traktor makes its waveforms, it could be something to do with imaging, but theres definitely some dc there, the 0 point has risen too. MAD

[staticcast]

btw, was referring to the top track waveform in my post right there ^, didn't see that bottom waveform. That thing is madness.

oh right. that's just how waveforms work sometimes. here's an example. think of a normal saw wave with a descending slope: the DC (zero) point is halfway up, right?

now run that saw wave through a high pass filter and look at it on an oscilloscope. by definition there's no DC offset, because you've put a highpass on it. but, the higher the cutoff frequency, the more curved that diagonal becomes, until it starts to look like an impulse train. and now where's the zero point? no longer in the "middle", because the zero point is determined by *area* above and below it. so if you zoom out on this waveform, it looks like it's all shifted in one direction, giving it the illusion of a DC offset, but in fact it's precisely the *absence* of DC or low frequency content that makes it appear shifted like that.

does that make sense?

unfiltered saw:

Code: Select all

|\     |\     |
| \    | \    |
|__\___|__\___|______ 0
|   \  |   \  |
|    \ |    \ |
|     \|     \|

highpass-filtered saw:

Code: Select all

|     |     |
||    ||    ||    
||    ||    ||    
| \   | \   | \   
|--\--|--\--|---0
|   \_|   \_|

[nowaysj]

Yeah it does. And it is causing me trouble.... I have a snare that I built, and the initial quarter of the snare veers heavily below the 0. When this wave was limited this quarter hit the limiter hard, and the rest of the sample is quiet. I really don't know how to fix this, save going back and rebuilding the sample, something I don't have a lot of time for.

[staticcast]

Yeah it does. And it is causing me trouble.... I have a snare that I built, and the initial quarter of the snare veers heavily below the 0. When this wave was limited this quarter hit the limiter hard, and the rest of the sample is quiet. I really don't know how to fix this, save going back and rebuilding the sample, something I don't have a lot of time for.

not sure i follow. the actual sample was bounced post-limiter?

[Aphile]

Yeah it does. And it is causing me trouble.... I have a snare that I built, and the initial quarter of the snare veers heavily below the 0. When this wave was limited this quarter hit the limiter hard, and the rest of the sample is quiet. I really don't know how to fix this, save going back and rebuilding the sample, something I don't have a lot of time for.

not sure i follow. the actual sample was bounced post-limiter?

No he Hi passed (or some other action) his snare before bouncing to audio and thus has a severly y shifted waveform. now his channel left/right hits hard than the other.

as for fixes, this has happened to me and i dont know!

[nowaysj]

not sure i follow. the actual sample was bounced post-limiter?

Was unfortunately working very fast, and I think a few successive passes through devices shifted the wave, and I didn't notice until it was limited, but the shift was already baked into the sample. I added around 10db of gain in the limiter, and that is where the shift became apparent.

[nowaysj]

Just happen to be working with a pulse width modulated sample...

[Rubik]

Kinda skimmed thread but to remove a dc offset (if your daw doesn't have an option to do this itself) try taking out any traces of very low sub or high passing the sample and bouncing (though it looks like you may have done this and it didn't fix it? I swear that should fix it as the most common source of a dc offset - for me at least - is sub bass low enough not to complete a cycle during the duration of the sample...)