Our very own Julian Rodgers is back with another great video, explaining what Sound Radix plug-ins do.  In this free video tutorial, made with the support of Sound Radix, this time Julian explains the deeper workings of Sound Radix Pi, a plug-in designed to help deal with the complex phase relationships that happen in a mix.

Although Pi is a very clever plug-in, it is extremely hard to explain how it works and what it is doing. Our own Julian sets out to explain and demonstrate what Pi can do and within 5 minutes you'll not only understand why Sound Radix made it but also what Pi can do for you in your mixes.

What Is Pi?

PI is a multi-channel phase interactions mixer plug-in engine for Mac and PC. But you might be asking why we would need Pi? Good phase relationships are key to a great sounding mix.

When tracks are summed into a stereo mix bus, instruments tend to overlap and interact with each other across the frequency range and phase position. A bass track could be temporarily out of phase with the kick or rhythm guitar tracks, and when summed together the two instruments would cancel each other out over the overlapping frequency range, causing a temporary "hole" in the low end. Similarly, a snare track could end up sounding thin in a mix when the toms' resonance is out of phase with the snare.

This is where Pi can help....

PI dynamically rotates the phase of the individual tracks to achieve maximum phase correlation within the mix. PI minimises negative interaction and significantly improves the overall sound of the mix.

Once you have watched Julian's video, why don't you download the demo of Pi, drop an instance of Pi into the last insert slot of each of your Pro Tools tracks and take a listen and see. for yourself.