FR: Mono Tracks & True Pan Pots

[goatgirl]

edit. nope i got confused.

Its gone....nooooooo!

You had a good case there and was very interesting

[Cyoon]

yea, i asked at support but no reply yet.

Its probaply also not that easy to implement afterwards, no clue and inserting a plugin on every track just for this task is pretty tedious. I hope a solution can be found.

[Ogopogo]

edit. nope i got confused.

Its gone....nooooooo!

You had a good case there and was very interesting

I suppose I explained some of the basics well enough but I was wrong about what happens to each side of a stereo signal when it's panned with Bitwig's pan mode so it was pretty misleading.

[goatgirl]

inserting a plugin on every track just for this task is pretty tedious.

Putting a plugin on every track, that needs it, has got to be easier than splitting stereo parts and manipulating separately?

Besides, the Bitwig team have impressed me in the manner that they implement things, so I would not assume that's' how they would implement it anyway. It may well be a toggle mode button on the mixer or some other wonderful idea.

[Cyoon]

It may well be a toggle mode button on the mixer or some other wonderful idea.

yea, hopefully..would be interesting to hear what they think about this.

[Jamesoow]

Thanks Suloo, great explanation!

This is something I've come across as well, with a stereo snare. If I want to pan it to the right, I lose the information from the left .. I just assumed that this was how it was meant to work, but apparently there is a simple solution for this

[dom@bitwig]

In general you record stereo tracks because you want to get a true stereo representation of the instrument you record.

In most cases, if you want to pan this in your mix more to the left now, for example, you only want to emphasize the content of the left channel and not also bring over the content of the right channel - because if you do, you loose the stereo imaging of the signal.
Panning the left channel of a stereo track to the left as well as the right channel to the left is the same as converting your stereo signal into a mono signal and panning that to the left. If you wish to do so, you can also directly record in mono.

But sure, then there are special cases sometimes where you want to move over just some amount of the right channel of your recording to the left - to fix a bad recording or whatever - and in this case there's the tool, where you can narrow down the width of a stereo signal from completely stereo to completely mono, and everything in between. Just decide how "wide" the signal should be and then pan, done. You end up with exactly the same as with two pan knobs for a stereo channel, just the other way round.

It is just about what the philosophy behind the different DAWs is. Bitwig Studio follows a kind of semi-modular approach already in version 1.0, even with the modular system being still closed until 2.0. Keeping it simple to grasp on first sight, but giving you all the options really quick if you know what you want to do. Therefore i think the current implementation is pretty good: in most of the cases the pan does what you want it to do, and if you want to do more sophisticated things: the tool is one click away and narrowing down the stereo field to pan it all together is one drag on the tool's width knob. If you compare that to a more complicated pan section that clutters up just any track, even if you don't need it, it is a matter of taste what is better.
I think a DAW focussed more on tracking and studio work, like Cubase, is fine with such a pan section. In a DAW aiming more at creation and sound design, like Bitwig Studio, i like the tool approach more.

Cheers,
Dom

[Cyoon]

Hey Dom,

many thanks for your reply!
However, i actualy do not agree fully to your explanation.

In general you record stereo tracks because you want to get a true stereo representation of the instrument you record.

In most cases, if you want to pan this in your mix more to the left now, for example, you only want to emphasize the content of the left channel and not also bring over the content of the right channel - because if you do, you loose the stereo imaging of the signal.

Well, you do loose the full stereo image, but it is still quite normal to narrow the whole image and place it a little bit left or right, with drums for example. Or with two synths that are quite similar in the frequency range.
As explained in this video here:



So, just being able to narrow the stereo width doesn`t allow you place the whole narrowed image in a different spot in the stereo field, wich is often requiered for clean mix, or to solve phasing issues.

Panning the left channel of a stereo track to the left as well as the right channel to the left is the same as converting your stereo signal into a mono signal and panning that to the left. If you wish to do so, you can also directly record in mono.

yes

But sure, then there are special cases sometimes where you want to move over just some amount of the right channel of your recording to the left - to fix a bad recording or whatever - and in this case there's the tool, where you can narrow down the width of a stereo signal from completely stereo to completely mono, and everything in between. Just decide how "wide" the signal should be and then pan, done. You end up with exactly the same as with two pan knobs for a stereo channel, just the other way round.

yes but this is limiting you to equal amounts of left and right channel.

It is just about what the philosophy behind the different DAWs is. Bitwig Studio follows a kind of semi-modular approach already in version 1.0, even with the modular system being still closed until 2.0. Keeping it simple to grasp on first sight, but giving you all the options really quick if you know what you want to do. Therefore i think the current implementation is pretty good: in most of the cases the pan does what you want it to do, and if you want to do more sophisticated things: the tool is one click away and narrowing down the stereo field to pan it all together is one drag on the tool's width knob. If you compare that to a more complicated pan section that clutters up just any track, even if you don't need it, it is a matter of taste what is better.
I think a DAW focussed more on tracking and studio work, like Cubase, is fine with such a pan section. In a DAW aiming more at creation and sound design, like Bitwig Studio, i like the tool approach more.

Cheers,
Dom

Ok, maybe it doesn`t need to be directly on the channel, but it would be a great addition to the tool plugin to be able to seperate the left and right channel and not just working with the stereo width. For the same reason as written above. To be able to place the whole image in a certain point of the mix.

Also i think the Bitwig way would be to provide a nested FX slot for each channel in the tool plugin, for creative purpose.

cheers

[dom@bitwig]

Hey Dom,

Ok, maybe it doesn`t need to be directly on the channel, but it would be a great addition to the tool plugin to be able to seperate the left and right channel and not just working with the stereo width. For the same reason as written above. To be able to place the whole image in a certain point of the mix.

Also i think the Bitwig way would be to provide a nested FX slot for each channel in the tool plugin, for creative purpose.

cheers

See? That's what i meant You gotta get the hang of the modular approach to see through the matrix:



There's a pan knob above the width knob in the tool.
And there's the FX layer. Build your own left and right separator, put pans on it, do whatever you want, save as a preset. Done.

All that even without using the internals of our modular system.
This is why i call it semi-modular already in the moment, we think a lot about the devices we include and what you can build already with it. If you think like that for some time, you can see how frighteningly powerful it is even in version 1. You can totally make it your own, according to your workflow instead of following the paradigms of software where things like that are set in stone.

Cheers,
Dom

[Cyoon]

There's a pan knob above the width knob in the tool.

its a balance knob and i would loose information again.

And there's the FX layer. Build your own left and right separator, put pans on it, do whatever you want, save as a preset. Done.

Cheers,
Dom

Then i get into problems without a panning law.
So right now i do not see a solution to this. Maybe in 2.0 it can be done and so long i need to use other tools.

thanks for your time thinking about this.

cheers

[dom@bitwig]

its a balance knob and i would loose information again.

Yes, if you use it alone, not if you build a stereo separator FX layer.

Then i get into problems without a panning law.

Not if you set up a stereo separator.
As you have complete control about pan and volume for the separate stereo channels,
you can even emulate different pan laws this way.

Cheers,
Dom

[Cyoon]

Ok, just to get this done for all of us, i created such a stereo seperator.

Seperation for the left channel:



Seperation for the right channel:



here is the preset: https://www.dropbox.com/s/4yzxlwjqd2ik2 ... reset?dl=0

here is the testfile from that YT link: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/06vzh0tif0lo ... AFdja?dl=0

Macro One and Macro Two are supposed to be our pan knobs.

Macro One for the left channel
Macro Two for the right channel

Problems that occur and where i would need some help please:

1. when switching on the FX layer, the sound changes but shouldn`t.
Both channels are then equal in volume but they are not in the original file.

2. when turning the pan macros to center position, the sound cancels out, but should just be mono.

3. How to emulate a panning law here? Afaik panning law is an automated process wich comes in as soon as the channels overlap and in the center position, where the maximum overlap is, it gets reduced by the maximum amount that one has set. -3db or -6db for example.
Would i need to create an extra macro for the volume and manually adjust it then every time?


Maybe my mistake in the settings is obvious to others, but i fail to see how it can be done.

Would be great if you could show us how you would set this up Dom.


thanks!

[dom@bitwig]

Great, Suloo, that's the spirit!
Using it, creating stuff and improving it all, that's what we do here, too!

I also thought about throwing something together, but there's this day job at this sequencer company that keeps me busy with other stuff currently on this friday evening...
Let's see what others come up with over the weekend!

Nevertheless, some quick thoughts after seeing the screenshots that might help:

I suppose there's a little thinking flaw in your separation chain: Your two chains are essentially the same, those L- and R- buttons don't remove that side (i guess that was your idea behind it), but are phase inversion buttons.

What you want to do is creating two chains, where chain one is hard panned left, chain two is hard panned right and then turning the width down to make those side signals mono. Currently you create two identical mono chains of the left and right signal, only with the phase reversed for one of the side signals.
This would explain your questions 1 and 2.

Regarding question 3, another quick idea: if you want to create automatic pan law (i think being completely able to control both sides signal individually is better, as you can emulate just any pan law) it might be interesting to play with the m/s split container, only attenuating the mid signal.
Have not thought it through, just came to my mind...


Explore!
Dom

[qtheerearranger]

Dom your appreciation of Suloos preset is awesome. We respect your day job dont worry, lol! Anyways, I think this brings up an incredible power to the idea that there needs to be an online user exchange for presets, templates, sounds, and scripts thats is run by you, imo. This could be one thing bitwig does very well. With the modular approach, especially in v2.0 people will be collabing on presets and patches and all that alone for a while id imagine.

[goatgirl]

Being one for a challange, here is my first attempt:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bz8QI2 ... view?pli=1

Things are labeled A and B because I'm too lazy to work out left and right