Relation between panning and volume level

[dobro]

Hi. I've got a question about mixing in software.

I take a track, and duplicate it so that I can pan and get a stereo field with it. Now I've got two tracks. With two tracks, the volume's louder. Fair enough.

But if the stereo field I create with those two tracks is really narrow, like if I pan it 10% left and 20% right, the volume's way louder, and sometimes distortion crops up. But if I create a really wide stereo field, say 50% left and 75% right, the volume's much lower, and no distortion. It's as if the available sonic energy is spread out over a greater width and so the volume's lower overall. Have I got that right? Is that what's happening?

[John Sayers]

Dobro you are just mixing mono tracks together. Stereo requires that the tracks are different. If you were to delay or pitch change one of the tracks you will then have a difference that will make a stereo pair. With regard to panning if you pan a mono signal from left to right you will find that the signal increases in the center (called center lift) so some console manufacturers have a pan that dips the level in the center so the level stays the same. I'm not sure what the DAW do about it but I would suspect that they dip as well. I think it's 6 db.
Cheers

[Kelly Holdridge]

Mackie is really big on cancelling center lift. I remember reading a good deal about it in their manual, but I lost it and that's that. Perhaps more about center lift is on their website.

You mention duplicating a wave in stereo. Is that not the same as taking a mono wave a panning it? You may wish to take one "side" and FX it one way, and do the other in the same way. Otherwise, I can see little point in duplicating the same identical wave to two tracks.

p.s. that's what helps alot of two guitar songs. Place them dry on different sides, and then take the FX and put them on the opposite side from the original signal. Really fattens up the sound, as I understand (haven't really done this).

[John Sayers]

I have kelly and it works great The center lift is only for panning - it doesn't effect the balancing problem when you mono a stereo mix. In a stereo mix your center panned instr go up 3 db relative to the l/r panned instruments - unfortunatley that's the stereo biz but if you are panning say - a gtr for effect - you don't want it to rise as you go thru center therefore consoles like the mackie dip as you pass thru center.
cheers

[dobro]

Yeah, I suppose I used the wrong terms. I'm duplicating a mono track so I can pan one track left, one right, and the result *sounds* like it was stereo miked. I'm not adding any FX (yet).

Near as I can tell, the software isn't doing anything about it, because of what I described in my first post in this thread - narrow panning produces a big boost in level. I could be wrong about this, because if I pan a single mono track from hard left to hard right over the length of the track, the level stays constant.

Plus, I think you're right (John) about the 6 dB cut - I had to reduce the levels by about 4-5 dB to get rid of the distortion caused by the track duplication and narrow panning.