Finds the copy inside the track
Headphone bleed, a layered sample, an 808 layered from the beat’s own low end: PhaseDoctor measures how late it is, to a hundredth of a millisecond, and shifts the track by it — up to ±15 ms.
Products
FrozenArt · Phase alignment Coming soon
PhaseDoctor
Keeps your tracks in phase with the beat.
Coming soonGet FrozenArt Access
- Formats
- AU
- Platform
- macOS
- Licence
- 3 Macs, offline activation
PhaseDoctor is an Audio Unit effect for Logic Pro. Insert it on the track, and in the plug-in window’s Side Chain menu choose the beat: the drum track, a drum bus or the instrumental.
For the first five seconds where both play, it analyses them and leaves the track untouched. Then it shows what it found: a copy of the beat inside the track — headphone bleed, a layered sample, a printed stem — with its offset to a hundredth of a millisecond, or no copy, when the track only meets the beat note by note.
Press MAGIC. PhaseDoctor shifts the track by the copy’s offset and turns only the frequencies where the two still clash, by the least that fixes each one. The turn changes phase, never level or tone.
What MAGIC does
Phase trouble happens where two tracks play the same frequencies at the same time: a vocal note on the pitch of the bass, a bass under the kick, layers of one sound. PhaseDoctor finds those overlaps and turns only them.
Turns only what clashes
Frequency by frequency, only where the track and the beat cancel, by the least that fixes each clash — steadily where their relation holds, note by note where it changes.
Fix or Lock
FIX turns the track only as far as it takes to stop the two cancelling. LOCK aligns them fully wherever they keep a phase, so they add up with the most weight.
Clarity for vocals
Where the beat covers the vocal, MAGIC lifts it there — only at those frequencies, only while they are covered, by at most 2, 4 or 6 dB. It is the one part of PhaseDoctor that changes level.
Hear it against the beat
A phase turn can’t be heard on a soloed track. SUM plays the track together with the beat; DELTA plays only what PhaseDoctor changes.
Or turn it by hand
PHASE turns the whole track from −180° to +180°. With MAGIC off, ALIGN sets the turn the analysis measured as in phase.
What the panel shows
See where the two cancel, and where they add up
The phase field draws every frequency where the track and the beat overlap as a dot at its average phase over the last second: at the top they add up, at the bottom they cancel. Where PhaseDoctor turns a band, an amber ring marks where it was.
The phase scope shows the beat and the track as two waves at the frequency where they clash most, and the correlation meter reads before and after. Here, a vocal that holds a copy of the beat 3 ms late: found, shifted and turned, from −0.24 to +0.81.
Stopped, MAGIC off
Turn it by hand and see where every band lands
After an analysis the displays keep what was measured, so you can turn PHASE and watch where each band would land before you play again.
This track held the beat printed upside down. The analysis measured it 180° out, ALIGN set PHASE to +180°, and the correlation went from −0.81 to +0.81.
Specifications
- Format
- Audio Unit effect (AUv3) with a side chain, for Logic Pro
- Analysis
- Five seconds of track and beat; the solution is kept through stops and saved with the project
- Time alignment
- A copy up to ±15 ms late, found to 0.01 ms
- Amount
- Off · Fix (50 %) · Lock (100 %)
- Track and response
- Vocal, Bass or Full · Smooth, Normal or Fast
- Clarity
- Off, Low, Med or High — a lift of at most 2, 4 or 6 dB
- Listen
- Track · Sum · Delta
- Latency
- About 143 ms, compensated by Logic
Questions
Will I hear the difference on a soloed track?
No — a phase turn only shows against the beat. Set Listen to SUM to hear the track with the beat, and switch MAGIC on and off to compare. Set it back to TRACK when you are done.
Does it help a rap vocal?
Less than you might think, and PhaseDoctor says so. Measured on real songs, a rap vocal and its beat keep a steady phase in only a few per cent of their overlap, so it mostly leaves them alone and shows NO STEADY CLASH. What makes such a vocal fight the beat is usually masking — that is what Clarity is for.
Why is the latency so high?
PhaseDoctor looks 85 ms ahead so it can turn a note from its start; with its analysis frame and the ±15 ms alignment reach that makes about 143 ms. Logic compensates it. It is made for mixing, not for recording through.
Wasn’t it called Phaselator?
Yes, until version 0.9.2. Projects that used Phaselator open with PhaseDoctor.
Before and after MAGIC
System requirements
- macOS 14 or later
- A Mac with Apple silicon
- Logic Pro, with the beat on the plug-in’s side chain
