Panning Stereo.

[Orchestrator1]

What is the correct way to pan stereo.
I use Cubase SX as my editor so I have both sides of the stereo signal to pan.
If I pan them both hard right or left I would loose the stereo effect between the two mics. I have converted a stereo track to a mono track and the mono track appears to retain the stereo effect so is this the correct way to do it.
Rex.

 

[leddy]

You truly have a dizzying intellect.

It is not really possible for a mono track to retain "stereo effect". Stereo is two separate tracks. Your DAW may combine them onto one (stereo) track, but they are separate. You may pan tracks anyway you like and still be "stereo", as long as the left and right are not identical - that would be mono. What constitutes accurate, pleasing, tasteful, balanced, etc. stereo is up to you.

What have you recorded, and how did you do it? Are you trying to capture an accurate stereo image of something (like a piano or guitar) or are you building a stereo image by panning a bunch of overdubbed parts?

 

[aitikin]

Pan it left and right? Is that what you're looking for? I'm not entirely sure what you're asking about.

 

[rayc]

Don't pan stereo. Stereo's cool. I like mono but I wouldn't pan stereo.

 

[Orchestrator1]

I have recorded a musette accordion in stereo, if I record it in mono it sounds crap and has no life.
I have duplicated this stereo track to fatten it and panned one track hard left and the other hard right to avoid conlict. If you mute the left track all together and as the right track is panned hard right you only hear one side of the stereo signal comming out of the right monitor, the left monitor has no signal at all which is fine and understanable but to me there is no stereo effect comming out of the right monitor now. True or false.

 

[mattr]

EDIT: ok, I just reread that post and interpreted it differently this time. I'm confused.

Yes or no, have you recorded it in stereo (using two mics)?

 

[Orchestrator1]

Yep, two Rode K2 Valve mics.

 

[gecko zzed]

What is the correct way to pan stereo.
I use Cubase SX as my editor so I have both sides of the stereo signal to pan.
If I pan them both hard right or left I would loose the stereo effect between the two mics. I have converted a stereo track to a mono track and the mono track appears to retain the stereo effect so is this the correct way to do it.
Rex.

If you record a source using a pair of mikes into stereo track, that source's position in the stereo landscape will be determined by its position relative to the two mikes, and the input levels of the two mikes. This position may need adjustment if you are mixing down and it interferes with something else (or something else interferes with it). On the other hand, on playback, you may discover that recording levels or positioning of the mikes wasn't ideal, and you need to adjust this position.

You adjust the position using a single pan control if you have recorded a single stereo track, or by adjusting two pan controls if you have recorded the stereo on two separate tracks (which, I would argue, is not really stereo, but two mono tracks).

If your intention is to pan a source hard left or hard right, then you are quite right; any stereo image you have recorded will be negated by doing this. In this case, there is no point in recording it in stereo. You might as well save yourself time and trouble by recording in mono, and using the pan to place this mono track anywhere you like on the stereo landscape.

Recording in stereo is worthwhile when you have a source that already occupies a large area (e.g. drums, choral ensemble, grand piano, room ambience), as opposed to sources that could easily be regarded as coming from a single point (e.g. a vocal track).

 

[mixsit]

...If your intention is to pan a source hard left or hard right, then you are quite right; any stereo image you have recorded will be negated by doing this. In this case, there is no point in recording it in stereo. You might as well save yourself time and trouble by recording in mono, and using the pan to place this mono track anywhere you like on the stereo landscape..

To add.. in most apps as you hard pan a stereo track it is turning one side down, not mixing it towards the side and panning it over. If 'duplicated the track' means 'copied then panned' you'd have the same as the one panned center -left got left info, right gets right. If it's double tracked stereo you still get a L mono and R mono of each version.

Split stereo tracks (or record) to dual mono for complete control -level, pan position and width.

 

[Elton Bear]

Thank god somebody pointed that out, I was almost losing faith in the good people of the board! Nice thread.

 

[Orchestrator1]

Hi geco zzed & mixsit.
Your bloody genius's, at last someone understands where i'm comming from, not so much in this forum but in another.
OK, what I did was convert the stereo track to mono, the mono track retained the quality of recording the instrument in stereo which is very important, but now it is mono, if we pan it hard right and duplicate it and pan that track hard left we have stereo again.
Now having said that, when you convert a stereo instrument track down to mono there is an audible conflict. So my latest theory is to duplicate the normal stereo track, pan one hard right and the other hard left, you loose one side of the signal from each track but it is stereo and there is no conflict.
Hope i'm right on this.
Rex.

 

[gecko zzed]

Hi geco zzed & mixsit.
Your bloody genius's, at last someone understands where i'm comming from, not so much in this forum but in another.
OK, what I did was convert the stereo track to mono, the mono track retained the quality of recording the instrument in stereo which is very important, but now it is mono, if we pan it hard right and duplicate it and pan that track hard left we have stereo again.
Now having said that, when you convert a stereo instrument track down to mono there is an audible conflict. So my latest theory is to duplicate the normal stereo track, pan one hard right and the other hard left, you loose one side of the signal from each track but it is stereo and there is no conflict.
Hope i'm right on this.
Rex.

Converting a stereo track to mono will preserve soom of the room ambience associated with the original stereo track. The 'audible conflict' you refer to is most likely to do with phase issues arising from mike positioning. These may not be audible in the stereo, but become evident once you convert to mono.

If you duplicate the track, pan the original hard left and the new one hard right, you don't restore your original stereo field. Instead you get a mono signal in the centre of the field. However, were you to delay one track a slight amount, you would get an apparent stereo effect.

If you pan a stereo track hard left, duplicate it and pan the duplicate hard right, you get the same effect as if you were to have your single stereo track panned centre. So you don't gain anything. But, again, you might get an interesting sense of space if you delay one a fraction.

I'm not sure what your intention is, but you might be better off simply recording two versions of the same thing, and panning one hard left and the other hard right.

 

[Farview]

OK, what I did was convert the stereo track to mono, the mono track retained the quality of recording the instrument in stereo which is very important, but now it is mono, if we pan it hard right and duplicate it and pan that track hard left we have stereo again.

Umm, no. If you actually converted the stereo track to mono, there is no way to make it stereo again. You have combined the left and right channels, you can't get them apart. It's like trying to turn a cake back into four, eggs, milk sugar, etc... Once it's mixed, you can't do it.

Now having said that, when you convert a stereo instrument track down to mono there is an audible conflict. So my latest theory is to duplicate the normal stereo track, pan one hard right and the other hard left, you loose one side of the signal from each track but it is stereo and there is no conflict.
Hope i'm right on this.
Rex.

OK, mono is when you have one signal. If you have one signal coming out of both speakers, it's still mono. Stereo is when there is a difference between the signals going to the left speaker and the right speaker.

You are really trying very hard to outsmart yourself, none of this is as difficult as you have made it.

here are some questions:
1. If you have it recorded in stereo (one mic on the left and one mic on the right), why are you mixing it to mono?

2. If you want to listen to it in stereo, why don't you listen to what you already have recorded?

3. Are you sure you are starting out in stereo? Just because you recorded to a stereo file, doesn't mean you recorded in stereo. There are a number of ways you can buss two mics together to make a mono signal and then record it to a stereo file format.

 

[Elton Bear]

OK, what I did was convert the stereo track to mono, the mono track retained the quality of recording the instrument in stereo which is very important, but now it is mono, if we pan it hard right and duplicate it and pan that track hard left we have stereo again.
Now having said that, when you convert a stereo instrument track down to mono there is an audible conflict. So my latest theory is to duplicate the normal stereo track, pan one hard right and the other hard left, you loose one side of the signal from each track but it is stereo and there is no conflict.
Hope i'm right on this.
Rex.

Apologies if my last post was a little over-sarcastic, having read this post I understand a little better what you're getting at, but as Farview says I still don't get your intentions.

If you want a stereo sound from a stereo recording (that is, two mics on separate channels), pan one left and one right, as wide as you want for the sound you're seeking.

If you want the instrument to be panned, pan both to the same place.

If you have two of the same recording (which would be a mono recording on a stereo track), you ain't gonna be getting stereo separation, whatever you do. If you pan your 'left' and 'right' mono channels to the centre, solo one, then solo the other, they should sound different. If they sound the same, that's not a stereo recording.

I don't mean to patronise if you know this, I'm just finding it hard to understand your problem to help out...

 

[Orchestrator1]

OK. I am using Cubase SX3.
I have now solved my problem.
What I was doing was using 'Stereo Dual Panner' in the Cubase mixer to pan one instrument Stereo track to extreme right and the another duplicate stereo track to the left. What was happening was the space between the two mics was completly lost in each track.
If I use the 'Combined Dual Panner' mode In the Cubase mixer I can now have two seperate stereo tracks each panned to either side with no problems.
As i said, before, i was using the 'Stereo Dual Panner' mode and panning just one stereo track hard right or left was giving me a conflict in other words an in phase problem.
It was like recording into two seperate mics touching each other and after recording into a stereo track panning it to the far right. It wasn't sounding nice.

Rex.

 

[mixsit]

If I use the 'Combined Dual Panner' mode In the Cubase mixer I can now have two seperate stereo tracks each panned to either side with no problems.

Can someone describe what 'Combined Dual Panner does? Does it give dual-mono like flexibility?- that would be a pretty cool feature for stereo tracks.

 

[mattr]

Just to add, remember that there is not one single way that a program pans. In Vegas I have the option on each track to change the pan mode between...

Add channels (0 dB centre)
Balance (0 dB centre)
Balance (-3 dB centre)
Balance (-6 dB centre)
Constant Power
Film

These all behave slightly differently, although I tend to go for constant power as it mimicks what I'm used to on analogue desks.

And you get different behaviors with stereo tracks too. For example, when panning a stereo track (I would assume) some DAWs will combine the two tracks (imagine a mixer with two channels, one panned hard left and one panned hard right, both at 0... as you pan the mix hard left the left channel remains as it is, while the right channel has its pan pot turned to the left), whereas it sounds like Cubase is muting one of the tracks and leaving the other track up (imagine the same mixer scenario however this time the stereo is 'panned' simply by pulling down one of the faders). Either way leaves you with audio on one side and not on the other.

 

[mixsit]

Just to add, remember that there is not one single way that a program pans. In Vegas I have the option on each track to change the pan mode between...

Add channels (0 dB centre)
Balance (0 dB centre)
Balance (-3 dB centre)
Balance (-6 dB centre)
Constant Power
Film

This looks like the typical pan law options for mono tracks on the stereo buses. You have these in Logic as options per track, or global for tracks? (Per track would seem to be even more dicy keeping track of than 'global.

And you get different behaviors with stereo tracks too. For example, when panning a stereo track (I would assume) some DAWs will combine the two tracks (imagine a mixer with two channels, one panned hard left and one panned hard right, both at 0... as you pan the mix hard left the left channel remains as it is, while the right channel has its pan pot turned to the left),

Presumably pan on stereo tracks was the question. I'm wondering if what you describe here (and me earlier and asking about the OP's Cubase SX3) is that control option.