Me and my OCD - left channel favoritism

[greiswig]

I've had strange panning issues for awhile now, but recently I set up a preset that uses an enhancer block late in the chain, and it made it worse. It actually does shift the stereo image from center, too. Here's the scenario:

Kitchen sink presets, often using two IR's panned left and right respectively. Add a reverb. All centered.

Almost invariably, the output meters on Output 1 show a higher level on the left channel. Then if you engage the enhancer, that distinction is made much worse...by about 3dB according to my metering. Here's the other thing: it doesn't matter whether you have the IR's panned hard L-R or centered. In fact, you can pan them the other way (R-L) and the Left channel will still be metering higher. Same thing even if you bypass the reverb, the only stereo effect present.

I've attached a preset that demonstrates it.

Any idea what's going on here?

 

[mr_fender]

Not seeing any noticeable bias here. Stereo image seems pretty balanced in the preset, even with the enhancer block on. If I pan both cabs to center, the balance is pretty much dead even.

 

[greiswig]

Is there anything in the hardware that could cause this? Here's mine with a 630Hz sine wave going through it.

 

[unix-guy]

Is there anything in the hardware that could cause this? Here's mine with a 630Hz sine wave going through it.
View attachment 79696

Try the Meters view and see if you can identify the source. You'll be able to see L/R levels on each block.

 

[skunc]

the enhancer delay is on the left side and causes the perception of a level/panning difference.

 

[unix-guy]

the enhancer delay is on the left side and causes the perception of a level/panning difference.

Based on the meter screenshot it appears not than perception

 

[∞Fractals]

Try the Meters view and see if you can identify the source. You'll be able to see L/R levels on each block.

I have had to do this more than once! Great suggestion.

 

[chris]

The right has to be different than the left to create a difference between the right and the left. The enhancer is probably causing this difference.

 

[greiswig]

OK, a bit more investigation. FYI, I'm using my UAD meters, which have a LOT more resolution (full screen height) than either the stock AxeEdit meters or the "meters" tab on the hardware UI offer.
I'm pretty sure the Reverb and the Enhancer block BOTH introduce this bias. Try this with the preset I attached:

1. Go down to only a single IR
2. Replace the Reverb with a shunt, and bypass the Enhancer. Everything is equal. Turn the reverb back on, and the left channel is hotter. Not by much, but a little.
3. Now turn on the enhancer with the defaults of 50% width, 50% depth, modern mode. Left channel is considerably hotter even when the reverb block is bypassed.
4. Take the width in the enhancer block down to about 47%, and the L/R balance is back to about equal, even though it fluctuates. Image is properly centered again, too.
5. You can also use a chorus block instead of a reverb, and that also seems to make the left channel a little hotter.

Makes no difference how the input of any of the blocks (speaker, reverb, chorusetc.) are set: L+R, L or R.

So I think the Reverb block and chorus (maybe other stereo-izing blocks?) is slightly (.5-1dB) hotter on the left side, and the Enhancer block makes that more pronounced unless you change the width control away from the 50% default.

 

[javajunkie]

I believe this has to do with way the modern enhancer operates. The modern enhancer uses frequency based psychoacoustics to increase the perceived stereo field. Processing the signal this way lessen the chance of phase issues that the classic enhancer can lead to. If you send a sine wave from a synth block with freq at 500hz, tracking off, turn down the level a bit, and shift it down an octave; you will notice the left signal becomes weaker than right. turn the shift to 0, the left shows about a 10db difference, up and octave is ~ 8, up 2 octaves is ~4db, at up 2 octaves w/ a freq set at 1000hz. the signal is about equal.

Now mess w/ the low and high cut in the enhancer, and every thing changes. Change the synth type to white noise, everything changes. With white noise no matter what you set the low and high cut to in the enhancer the signal stays about equal.

 

[javajunkie]

It looks like, depending on content and the tone objective, you can use the low and high cut to help even out the level difference.

 

[yek]

I've had strange panning issues for awhile now

I always use a very simple Ping Pong delay preset to check out the stereo field. Also when soundchecking at gigs, to make sure the soundguy has my two channels hard-panned (when playing stereo).

[IN] [AMP] [CAB] [DELAY] [OUT]

The first repeat should come from the left.

 

[greiswig]

Helpful explanations, as always. I gather then that the enhancer isn’t the only block that uses frequency to separate stereo signals? Reverb and chorus, at least, must do the same?

On the enhancer, though, it feels like a bug that a 3% change in the width would bring things back into balance from nearly 3dB off.