Phase Inversion
If you are working with phase-coherent track pairs, or tracks recorded with multiple microphones, you can invert the phase to negate the delay. If you don’t hear any audio when you invert a signal’s phase, you have precisely adjusted and compensated for the delay. This is because when you monitor duplicate signals and invert the polarity (phase) of one of them, the signals will be of opposite polarity and cancel each other out. This technique is convenient for finding the exact delay setting for any plug-in.
To determine the delay of a plug-in by inverting its signal phase:
1. Place duplicate audio clips on two different audio tracks and pan them to the center (mono).
2. Apply the plug-in whose delay you want to calculate to the first track, and a Time Adjuster plug-in to the second track.
3. With TimeAdjuster, invert the phase.
4. Control-drag (Windows) or Command-drag (Mac) to fine-tune delay in one sample increments, or use the up/down arrow keys to change the delay one sample at a time until the audio signal disappears.
5. Change the polarity back to normal.
6. Save the TimeAdjuster setting for later use.