pan routing
- Thread starter oment
- Start date
bennychico11
...
i'm not familiar with that exact term...but perhaps you mean odd/even panning.
this has to do with pan laws. With most gear, when you take a mono signal that's panned center and pan it left or right the signal actually increases in volume by about +3dB. In other words, if you take a signal that's playing back at 0dB on your stereo meters, and you pan it to the left...it will slowly disappear in the right meter and start to increase in volume in the left meter by as much as 3dB.
This has to do with the way we hear. When you double the amount of speakers, the signal increases 3dB. So when you take a single mono source (from a microphone) and play it back through two speakers (panned in the middle...and played back in stereo) at the original volume it was recorded...because you've doubled the amount of speakers it actually takes to reproduce the original mono track, you're getting +3dB extra. We want to avoid this...because we don't want to hear a change in volume as we pan our signal from left to middle to right. And it WOULD change in volume because you would be moving from one speaker to TWO speakers (double the volume) to one speaker again. So in order to do this, the panning laws bring down the volume of our signal -3dB when it's panned in the middle.
So to sum it up...two speakers, will play back the original signal at -3dB. But it sounds normal to us because we have TWO speaker playing the same signal. This will in turn equal the same SPL level when we pan our signal hard left. But inside the mixer, the volume is actually changing....we see this with our meters (if the manufacturer lets you)
Anyway....hope that makes sense, because you're probably wondering what that has to do with "pan routing." Let's take this for example;
Let's say you are wanting to record a microphone that will pass through a mixer, and go out the main outputs (or buss output, or tape outputs...whatever) and to a recording device of some sort. If you panned the signal on the mic channel in the middle, it would be coming out of both L/R outputs at the same volume. But as I mentioned above...this is actually -3dB less than what your signal actually is coming in at. It's no problem when you're listening to it in stereo, however you are going to probably want to record this microphone on it's own MONO track (remember, mono=one). Typically you could take the Left channel and just send it to your recorder...but remember it's now -3dB less than what it came in at. So to solve this problem, you just pan the mic channel all the way to the left so that it rises back up to its original volume!!
That's the easy explanation. Back in the analog mixer days this was done very frequently when sending multiple tracks out the mixer. We'd have to use stereo bus outputs or tape outputs. Let's say, for example, that the mixer you're using has 4 stereo buss outputs. So that's a total of 8 mono outputs we can use to send to a recorder (analog or digital). And of course we don't want to lose 3dB by panning or signal in the middle...PLUS we don't want to send a mono signal to a stereo track, because it's just a waste of space. And since most mixers had a single button to send a mono channel to a stereo buss (1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 7-8, or Main Mix)...odd/even panning was important.
All you had to keep in mind is "odd channels you pan to the left and even channels you pan to the right"...this helped keep things organized.
So for example...on channel one, you'd press the 1-2 button so that it got sent to stereo buss 1-2 (which had only one fader to control it). And since you don't want it to go to both outputs 1-2 AND be -3dB less....you pan channel one hard left. Now it's ONLY going to stereo buss 1. Then channel two you pan hard right and press the 1-2 button to send it to stereo buss 2. Now on that buss output you have channel 1 going out buss 1 and channel 2 going out channel 2! Everything is now neat and organized...and at the original volume.
Okay, that is probably the most confusing explanation...but maybe you understood it somehow. Let me know if that's even what you were asking.
Also take a look here.
-B
this has to do with pan laws. With most gear, when you take a mono signal that's panned center and pan it left or right the signal actually increases in volume by about +3dB. In other words, if you take a signal that's playing back at 0dB on your stereo meters, and you pan it to the left...it will slowly disappear in the right meter and start to increase in volume in the left meter by as much as 3dB.
This has to do with the way we hear. When you double the amount of speakers, the signal increases 3dB. So when you take a single mono source (from a microphone) and play it back through two speakers (panned in the middle...and played back in stereo) at the original volume it was recorded...because you've doubled the amount of speakers it actually takes to reproduce the original mono track, you're getting +3dB extra. We want to avoid this...because we don't want to hear a change in volume as we pan our signal from left to middle to right. And it WOULD change in volume because you would be moving from one speaker to TWO speakers (double the volume) to one speaker again. So in order to do this, the panning laws bring down the volume of our signal -3dB when it's panned in the middle.
So to sum it up...two speakers, will play back the original signal at -3dB. But it sounds normal to us because we have TWO speaker playing the same signal. This will in turn equal the same SPL level when we pan our signal hard left. But inside the mixer, the volume is actually changing....we see this with our meters (if the manufacturer lets you)
Anyway....hope that makes sense, because you're probably wondering what that has to do with "pan routing." Let's take this for example;
Let's say you are wanting to record a microphone that will pass through a mixer, and go out the main outputs (or buss output, or tape outputs...whatever) and to a recording device of some sort. If you panned the signal on the mic channel in the middle, it would be coming out of both L/R outputs at the same volume. But as I mentioned above...this is actually -3dB less than what your signal actually is coming in at. It's no problem when you're listening to it in stereo, however you are going to probably want to record this microphone on it's own MONO track (remember, mono=one). Typically you could take the Left channel and just send it to your recorder...but remember it's now -3dB less than what it came in at. So to solve this problem, you just pan the mic channel all the way to the left so that it rises back up to its original volume!!
That's the easy explanation. Back in the analog mixer days this was done very frequently when sending multiple tracks out the mixer. We'd have to use stereo bus outputs or tape outputs. Let's say, for example, that the mixer you're using has 4 stereo buss outputs. So that's a total of 8 mono outputs we can use to send to a recorder (analog or digital). And of course we don't want to lose 3dB by panning or signal in the middle...PLUS we don't want to send a mono signal to a stereo track, because it's just a waste of space. And since most mixers had a single button to send a mono channel to a stereo buss (1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 7-8, or Main Mix)...odd/even panning was important.
All you had to keep in mind is "odd channels you pan to the left and even channels you pan to the right"...this helped keep things organized.
So for example...on channel one, you'd press the 1-2 button so that it got sent to stereo buss 1-2 (which had only one fader to control it). And since you don't want it to go to both outputs 1-2 AND be -3dB less....you pan channel one hard left. Now it's ONLY going to stereo buss 1. Then channel two you pan hard right and press the 1-2 button to send it to stereo buss 2. Now on that buss output you have channel 1 going out buss 1 and channel 2 going out channel 2! Everything is now neat and organized...and at the original volume.
Okay, that is probably the most confusing explanation...but maybe you understood it somehow. Let me know if that's even what you were asking.
Also take a look here.
-B