Hi Matt,
Hopefully you just twiddled the azimuth adjustment screw.
If you did mess with the other adjustment screws, you'll need more than just the Lissajous to get the other adjustments correct.
In fact, when I do my adjustments, I keep a stereo level meter open at the same time (zoomed into the area of interest). If I see the levels dropping I know I'm going in the wrong direction.
So, the following is
just for azimuth adjustments.
Just leave the input level to default (0dB) and if the scope has autozoom while using the Lissajous function (most do) the figure should be big enough to use.
Here's the wiki page for Lissajous and while the animation is kind of cool looking, the b&w chart below it is what you'll see when you get things hooked up right.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lissajous_curveSo, just like that chart, you need to compare phase between channels 1&2. Make "X" the left channel and "Y" your right channel.
On most programs your screen should look like the view through a rifle scope.
Regarding the timebase, just leave it set to channel 1. I'm guessing that's where you would set any delay between channels but you don't need any delay for this measurement.
The display type should be stereo in most programs but you may have to try the different settings in Audiotest.
The choice between sine and dual sine for output sounds like settings for a generator function so you shouldn't have to worry about those.
Regarding the program I use, I'm a Mac guy and it looks like these are PC meters.
If you run into questions which are program specific, you should contact the guys who sell the software and tell them what you're trying to do and they'll be able to tell you exactly what settings to use.
Overall, think about what's happening when you make these adjustments. If you think of the test tone more like a click track and you're trying to line up the clicks between channels. In the center of the head face is the "gap" which runs across the width of the head in a fine line. The "click" runs across the width of the tape. If the click arrives at the gap of one channel ahead of the other, the phase between channels is skewed. The higher the frequency of the tone equals the more "clicks" per inch so the finer the adjustment has to be made. Eventually you get to a high enough frequency (15k clicks per second) that the precision of the gap, minute tape irregularities and even environmental issues come into play so some smearing between channels is unavoidable.
Well before that, most home measurement gear and the signal path between the heads and that gear will start to effect the measurements.
And remember how much the view on the "scope" is being zoomed.
It kind of reminds me of when I was fooling around with astronomy.
I could take a nice pair of binoculars and look at the moon or star fields with no problem. But once I wanted to get a good look at the planets it took a lot more "zoom" and I had to have a stable tripod and the images would jump around when a truck drove by.
It's the same thing with these signals you're looking at to do your adjustments. Don't assume that every irregularity is the fault of the head adjustment with tones above 1kHz. At those zoom levels, just about anything could be effecting what you're seeing. So just get it as close as you can while you still get a nice stable line at 1KHz.
If you have trouble getting the settings of the 'scope' on your 1/2 track head, try the 1/4 track head just to get the meter settings right. The MRL test tapes are all full track mono so the configuration of the 1/4" head won't matter.
