Panning entire signal without volume drop (equal panning law?)

G

guitarnerdswe

Fractal Fanatic
Does anybody know a way to pan your entire stereo signal (with effects and everything), without loosing volume on the effects? Basically, I want to pan everything slightly to the right, without having all the effects that are panned to left internally in their blocks (like delay), lose volume, which is what happens now if I try to use a volume block or a filter block to do it. So basically, following the "equal power panning law".

"Equal power panning law" is when a signal retains its volume no matter where it's panned in the stereo spectrum. Right now, as you pan the effect signal to the center (using a filter/volume block), it loses more and more volume. Basically, if you pan a hard panned effect to center, it will be a couple dB down compared to the "correct" volume according to the "equal power panning law" (and this is without any phase issues or simular). So it loses volume in the center, but gains volume as you pan it towards hard left/right.

The funny thing is, the filter/volume panning system loses volume when you go towards center, but the time based effects (pitch, delay etc) add volume when you pan towards center.
 
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brokenvail said:
Are the fx currently stereo and you don't want the land to be hard L/R?
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Exactly. I use IEM live, and pan all the keys in the backing track slightly to the left, and I want to pan the guitar slightly to right. I can't do this at the mixer, it has to be panned from the source.
 
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"Lose", not "loose".

Go back to the example of delay panned fully left, -100. I'll assume the dry sound is centered, 0. Where do you want these two sounds panned in the IEMs? I don't know if you mean collapsing everything to mono then panning that to something like +30, or narrowing a stereo image slightly e.g. -100 delay moves to -60, dry moves to +20.

If you can post a preset showing what you've tried so far it will be easier to advise on what adjustments to make. The solution might turn out to be fairly simple like a level and/or balance adjustment.
 
simonp54 said:
you sure you can't pan it in the aux for your IEM feed?
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No, I can only control levels, no panning. I have to pan the audio at the source (the Axe-Fx in this case), if I want the guitar to be panned in my IEM.

Bakerman said:
"Lose", not "loose".

Go back to the example of delay panned fully left, -100. I'll assume the dry sound is centered, 0. Where do you want these two sounds panned in the IEMs? I don't know if you mean collapsing everything to mono then panning that to something like +30, or narrowing a stereo image slightly e.g. -100 delay moves to -60, dry moves to +20.

If you can post a preset showing what you've tried so far it will be easier to advise on what adjustments to make. The solution might turn out to be fairly simple like a level and/or balance adjustment.
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I want to pan the left signal slightly towards the right, so that the left effects are -50, and the dry +25. This is how I tried to set it up in a preset. The panning itself works, the dry is +25, the left effects -50, but the levels of the left effects are lower than they should be.

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I think you'd need separate paths for dry tone & stereo effects to make the ideal adjustment, but this improves relative levels somewhat:

Set the balance of the block preceding Vol/pan to around -35. Then set the Vol/pan's Pan L parameter to -35 or so. You end up with left delay/whatever panned to -35 and dry somewhere around 15-20 (guessing by ear).

Do you plan on having the sound through the PA panned differently from your IEMs?
 
Bakerman said:
I think you'd need separate paths for dry tone & stereo effects to make the ideal adjustment, but this improves relative levels somewhat:

Set the balance of the block preceding Vol/pan to around -35. Then set the Vol/pan's Pan L parameter to -35 or so. You end up with left delay/whatever panned to -35 and dry somewhere around 15-20 (guessing by ear).

Do you plan on having the sound through the PA panned differently from your IEMs?
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I tried it. The volume of the left and right delays didn't match up.

I will not pan the guitar signal anymore at the mixing desk for the FOH. It will be the same sound through my IEM as the PA when it comes to panning. I think I might have to contact support, because I really can't figure this out. Why can the panning laws just follow the normal panning laws that you see in every DAW etc? Sorry, getting a bit frustrated here...
 
guitarnerdswe said:
I tried it. The volume of the left and right delays didn't match up.

I will not pan the guitar signal anymore at the mixing desk for the FOH. It will be the same sound through my IEM as the PA when it comes to panning. I think I might have to contact support, because I really can't figure this out. Why can the panning laws just follow the normal panning laws that you see in every DAW etc? Sorry, getting a bit frustrated here...
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The pan law isn't the reason this happens. It will also occur with a DAW if you only have a stereo mix to work with.

Try deleting the last vol/pan and setting cab block L/R pans to -50 and +100. Same result. Then engage each delay and adjust level (assuming 100% mix based on routing) and balance to get the desired mix with L & R repeats at equal volume. Check other effect mixes too.

As with delays before adjustment, other stereo effects like chorus will have the left channel quieter than right, but this probably matters less than with delays. A wet balance or L/R level controls for wet signal only could be useful. There are ways to work around this but the routing and engage/bypass method (if using "thru" currently w/ dry level unequal between engaged/bypass) gets more complex.
 
Bakerman said:
The pan law isn't the reason this happens. It will also occur with a DAW if you only have a stereo mix to work with.

Try deleting the last vol/pan and setting cab block L/R pans to -50 and +100. Same result. Then engage each delay and adjust level (assuming 100% mix based on routing) and balance to get the desired mix with L & R repeats at equal volume. Check other effect mixes too.

As with delays before adjustment, other stereo effects like chorus will have the left channel quieter than right, but this probably matters less than with delays. A wet balance or L/R level controls for wet signal only could be useful. There are ways to work around this but the routing and engage/bypass method (if using "thru" currently w/ dry level unequal between engaged/bypass) gets more complex.
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I tried the same thing in my DAW. The dual panner that doesn't do what the Axe vol/pan block does. It retains the volume across the stereo spectrum. I emailed support, I think that's the best thing to do at this point o_O
 
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I'm going to bump this, since I couldn't find a solution with support. I really can't figure out what the panning function in the vol/pan block is for like it's configured now. Having effect levels vs dry level change is not really good for anything IMHO.
 
You can emulate any pan law with a balance/level adjustment before panning. Try this with the cab block.

Set the volume block's pan L & R to -50 & 100, then move cab balance toward the left until the panned delay volumes sound equal. Increase cab level to maintain overall level. That's the same thing any DAW pan law is doing.

These values would only approximate a certain pan law near the volume block's current pan settings. This still might make the delay and any other stereo effect mixes seem too low. So would your DAW and its pan law. Adjust those blocks' mix parameters as needed.
 
Bakerman said:
You can emulate any pan law with a balance/level adjustment before panning. Try this with the cab block.

Set the volume block's pan L & R to -50 & 100, then move cab balance toward the left until the panned delay volumes sound equal. Increase cab level to maintain overall level. That's the same thing any DAW pan law is doing.

These values would only approximate a certain pan law near the volume block's current pan settings. This still might make the delay and any other stereo effect mixes seem too low. So would your DAW and its pan law. Adjust those blocks' mix parameters as needed.
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That works for effects running 100% and that have individual levels for left and right. It won't work for stuff like chorus, pitch, reverb and rotary :-/
 
It would be exactly like your DAW's pan law once the correct balance setting is found.

Can you describe what you mean by "won't work" in more detail? What would be wrong about the sound of those effects?
 
Bakerman said:
It would be exactly like your DAW's pan law once the correct balance setting is found.

Can you describe what you mean by "won't work" in more detail? What would be wrong about the sound of those effects?
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The level of any effect gets lower in volume compared to the dry signa,l when you pan it to towards center using the vol/pan block, basically. Try a stereo delay the maximum spread, then put a vol/pan block after and pan both sides to center. Notice how the volume of the delays drop in compared to the dry. And this is even using you're running delay times that work in mono, like 300/500.
 
guitarnerdswe said:
The level of any effect gets lower in volume compared to the dry signa,l when you pan it to towards center using the vol/pan block, basically. Try a stereo delay the maximum spread, then put a vol/pan block after and pan both sides to center. Notice how the volume of the delays drop in compared to the dry. And this is even using you're running delay times that work in mono, like 300/500.
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The same thing happens with any pan law if you're just panning the L and R signals of a stereo mix. That's why I mentioned you may need to adjust effect mix in post #13. Adjust cab balance so the two delay lines become equal volume again, then adjust mix of effects.
 
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