Sonar 4: Configurable Panning Law

[Qwerty]

Whenever we get down and dirty and have one of "those" discussions about sound quality of various sequencers, the topic of 'Panning Law' always raises its head. Ron Kuper, one of the lead tech. guys at Cakewalk, explained that all sequencers will pump out identical information whilst summing and that differences come into account due to differing standards and application of 'Panning Law' between sequencers.

So, Sonar 4 P.E. has just been announced with six configurable options for Panning Law.

Does anyone have a handle on what laws are applied with other sequencers? Does anyone have any idea as to how the application of these different panning laws would impact themselves upon a mix?

Q.

[dachay2tnr]

I don't know all six versions, but the general theory is that when something is panned directly center it will be about 3 db louder than when it is panned full left or full right. I assume this has to do with the same signal being pumped out of two speakers rather than just one.

Cakewalk's panning algorithm has always compensated for this. IOW, when you pan something center the volume is attenuated by 3db (and, I assume by relative amounts inbetween center and 100%). Therefore, if you were to slowly pan a signal from full left to full right you would not encounter any changes in volume.

Obviously, if you were to take a mix and play it back in a multi-track program that did not use the same panning algorithms, many of the instruments/voices would be louder or softer in the mix than they would be in Cakewalk - depending on where in the mix they were panned.

Personally I am comfortable with the way Cakewalk has approached this in the past, and I think this new feature is simply a knee-jerk reaction to people saying the "mix sounds better in Nuendo (or, whatever your favorite multi-track software is)." Now Cakwalk can say, change the panning algorithm to match Nuendo's, and the mix will sound the same.

I like the fact that I can move an instrument in a mix and not have to worry about readjusting the volume setting for that instrument.