If you change the default PAN LAW...

[Mr Coffeehouse]

I was wondering - I have my pan law default setting at -linear-.

What happens to my recalled mixes I made with the linear setting if I change the pan law setting in settings to, say -3db center setting? Will those recalled mixes be all out of wack?

I'm on Waveform Pro 13 on a PC...

Thanks in advance Waveform Gurus -!
Michael at The Coffeehouse

[pough]

Worried that if you try it yourself things might go wrong?

Well, none of my mixes are any good anyways, so I gave it a try. It doesn't seem to do much, especially not in a permanent way. Each volume/pan plugin has its own setting and even when I changed the system default to "-6.0 dB Center" a newly-created Edit included plugins with the pan law set to "Linear". I noted, though, that one of the pan law options for the plugins was to use the system default.

So in order to have the system default affect any plugin in any Edit, I think you would need that plugin to be set to use the system default. Otherwise it continues to use the pan law that it was already set to.

I hope that helps. This is not something that I have ever even considered before, so my guru-y-ishness should not be totally respected. I'm more guinea pig.

[Mr Coffeehouse]

In my case, I’m only talking about Waveform’s standard volume/pan filters. My real concern is that I often have to recall projects on Waveform for my clients, even from projects done a long time ago. I’d hate to shoot myself in the foot by changing my default pan law in settings - and then down the road, when I recall a mix from the past, having those old mixes come up even slightly different then they once were.

You’re right about making the point that I should experiment myself instead of just asking the question about this. I’ll take that as some motivation to set up a couple tests!

[pough]

In my case, I’m only talking about Waveform’s standard volume/pan filters.

Does Waveform also have non-standard volume/pan things? Are we talking about the same things? Your use of the word "filter" makes me wonder if you're using the older term* or if there is actually something else other than the volume and pan plugin on every track being discussed...

WF13 volume and Pan plugin.png

* In the very early days, plugins in Waveform (then called Tracktion) were called filters for no other reason I could figure out other than to be confusing. As though a plugin instrument "filters" MIDI data... The first time I tried Reaper, it took a long time for me to figure out how to add an instrument because apparently instruments are "FX".

[Mr Coffeehouse]

Well, I guess I’m showing my age. I’ve been on Waveform and before that Tracktion since 2004.

Anyway, if anyone else has some insights on the pans, I’d love to hear them. Thanks.

[dysjoint]

It seems harder to mess things up than not, as far as your original worry. Changing Pan Law in the settings doesn't seem to do anything apart from act as 'Default' which has a use, but isn't actually a global default. Change the Pan Law in settings to whatever. This seems to have no effect on opening existing projects. No effect on creating new projects. No effect on adding a new Volume and Pan plugin. No effect on adding a new track. I think you would have to create a mix template with all the Volume and Pan plugins that you want set to your new default and save as a template for any practical use.

Anyway, you can set pan law for each Volume and Pan plugin individually (in the properties panel) or you can select the Master Volume and Pan plugin and in the properties for that one specifically there is an option to 'Set all to the Default Pan Law' which will do just that. Doing this retrospectively seems to be stupid as any signal that passes through more than one Volume and Pan plugin will be changed by more than a signal that passes through only one.

Disclaimer: I don't use anything other than linear, and don't fully understand the use case for the other settings. Surely if you start with a certain pan law you would just end up making different gain decisions and end up with the (practically) same result anyway???? I'm probably not understanding something quite right

[Mr Coffeehouse]

Just wanted to thank you for researching this and for your clear observations.
Very helpful for me and others moving forward.

Good lookin' out ~ Michael at The Coffeehouse

[talby]

I don't remember where I read this information, and even worse, I might remember it wrong. Most likely I understood it like this from the manual or the pop up help text? So, take my following comment with skepticism!

Isn't the default pan law option something different than the Vol/Pan plugin parameter as applied by the user? Isn't it a global setting refering to the pan law which is in use when the Waveform app internally mixes the various tracks to submixes and eventually to the master track?
If it would be like this, then I would assume that your old projects are replayed differently in WF after having changed that setting, although individual Vol/Pan plugin settings might not have changed and are used as individually configured for the project.

[Mr Coffeehouse]

This is my exact concern – and I thought that my worries had been eradicated! (via dysjoint’s explanation).

[dysjoint]

Easily testable. I'll have a look at the weekend, as I'm also curious about this setting. I only loaded one project and listened but didn't export so I'll double check by exporting the same project at different Defaults.