DualPanner - Free Stereo Panning VST

[lightsfadelow]

Width mode simply locks the two panners in opposite motion. Move one to the left 20% and the other moves right 20%.

[lightsfadelow]

Actually, narrowing the stereo field of a bass synth patch can be very useful especially when you want it to feel dead center.

[Tricky-Loops]

Actually, narrowing the stereo field of a bass synth patch can be very useful especially when you want it to feel dead center.

In REAPER I can do this without an additional plugin, in Cubase you cannot?

[Compyfox]

So I record them in a stereo track but never intend for them to be stereo. I use the Ozone 5 component EQ to blend the best of each together and then Dustin's dual panner to center both channels before hitting Nectar. I used this technique first on Hurricane (http://lightsfadelow.com/track/hurricane) and the vocals came out great. Still refining the process to make it even better.

So you are basically recording two mics on one channel each, but you record on to a stereo channel and then "monorize" the signal.

I know this is more routing, but why not record each mic on their dedicated channel (mic 1 on channel 1, panned center - mic 2 on channel 2, panned center), then apply the EQ/compression/deessing and mix to taste with the volume slider? If you still want a global control - send it over to a group channel.


@Tricky-Loops:
Cubase has three panning modes:
Normal, Dual Pan (L+R independent) and Combined (basically a width control)

I'm mostly using the normal mode with a pan law of 4,5dB (which is closest to analog consoles from yesteryear).

[lightsfadelow]

There's a really good reason to record them on a stereo channel: it adds zero time to my workflow. I'm a total perfectionist and I edit every audio track I record until its perfect. I typically do one pass to silence any weird sounding stuff like ugly breaths, etc. and I do things like fade in/out harsh starts/ends. I use RX2 to take out any really problematic sounds. And then I pitch and time correct using variaudio. All of this works as if I'm only working with one microphone if it is a stereo track. If it had been 2 mono tracks it would take twice the work.

Also all the rest of the workflow is simplified by keeping the track stereo. The Ozone EQ let's me choose the level of left and right independently. I can very easily deal with a vocal that's one track rather than 2 tracks and a buss to combine them. With dual panner the track is mono-ized at the right place in the signal chain so I can use compression as if it were one mic and apply things like doubling (a stereo effect) on the track itself rather than having to send a mono mic track to a stereo buss. In fact, it's easier to work with a stereo vocal track than it is to work with a mono one for this reason. Now I'm not using busses and sends for effects that really are only going to be used for a single vocal track.

[lightsfadelow]

I should also point out that Dustin added a great additional feature to solo left and right channels independently too. Allowing me to hear the track with just one channel or the other. The solo toggles. So you don't need to deal with muting and un-muting, which you'd have to do with 2 separate trac if you wanted to hear a channel on the context of the rest of the music.

I think this would also be really useful for synth sounds that are 'too stereo' that you want to reign in BEFORE you hit the inserts and sends (without having to use additional busses or deal with the hassle of post-fader inserts and sends which typically new to be adjusted every time you change tha track's volume.

[A.M. Gold]

It's true, right-clicking on the pan knobs in Reaper brings up dual panning and other options. I've never used dual panning for anything so this is something I'll have to explore.

Dustin, can you elaborate on what the "width mode" does?

I love Dual Panning... It's great for mid to high freq content, for example for some oriental percussion or triangles, or delayed arps, or even some background choir or vocals etc. I wouldn't use it for bass (except if you make an UFO song), but it has some great areas of application.

I did some research and I get it now. It's for dealing with stereo tracks, if you want to change the stereo spread while also panning. This might be great on a lot of live stereo recordings, like piano, drums, etc.

[Tricky-Loops]

It's true, right-clicking on the pan knobs in Reaper brings up dual panning and other options. I've never used dual panning for anything so this is something I'll have to explore.

Dustin, can you elaborate on what the "width mode" does?

I love Dual Panning... It's great for mid to high freq content, for example for some oriental percussion or triangles, or delayed arps, or even some background choir or vocals etc. I wouldn't use it for bass (except if you make an UFO song), but it has some great areas of application.

I did some research and I get it now. It's for dealing with stereo tracks, if you want to change the stereo spread while also panning. This might be great on a lot of live stereo recordings, like piano, drums, etc.

Nope. For adjusting the stereo spread or stereo width I choose the pan mode "Stereo Pan" in REAPER and define the stereo width with the "width" knob.

Dual Pan just makes one copy of the track on the left side, and one copy on the right side...

[lightsfadelow]

It's true, right-clicking on the pan knobs in Reaper brings up dual panning and other options. I've never used dual panning for anything so this is something I'll have to explore.

Dustin, can you elaborate on what the "width mode" does?

I love Dual Panning... It's great for mid to high freq content, for example for some oriental percussion or triangles, or delayed arps, or even some background choir or vocals etc. I wouldn't use it for bass (except if you make an UFO song), but it has some great areas of application.

I did some research and I get it now. It's for dealing with stereo tracks, if you want to change the stereo spread while also panning. This might be great on a lot of live stereo recordings, like piano, drums, etc.

Nope. For adjusting the stereo spread or stereo width I choose the pan mode "Stereo Pan" in REAPER and define the stereo width with the "width" knob.

Dual Pan just makes one copy of the track on the left side, and one copy on the right side...

The dual pan nomenclature may be different in Reaper, but in this plugin and in Cubase dual pan allows you to pan the left and right channels independently. Neither make 2 copies of the stereo channel and allow you to pan each, so that statement is incorrect as far as this plugin and Cubase are concerned.

I'd be surprised if that's really what Reaper does. That sounds really odd.

The dual pan function is a great way to correct for bad mic placement that would result in an unbalanced stereo recording.

[A.M. Gold]

It's true, right-clicking on the pan knobs in Reaper brings up dual panning and other options. I've never used dual panning for anything so this is something I'll have to explore.

Dustin, can you elaborate on what the "width mode" does?

I love Dual Panning... It's great for mid to high freq content, for example for some oriental percussion or triangles, or delayed arps, or even some background choir or vocals etc. I wouldn't use it for bass (except if you make an UFO song), but it has some great areas of application.

I did some research and I get it now. It's for dealing with stereo tracks, if you want to change the stereo spread while also panning. This might be great on a lot of live stereo recordings, like piano, drums, etc.

Nope. For adjusting the stereo spread or stereo width I choose the pan mode "Stereo Pan" in REAPER and define the stereo width with the "width" knob.

Dual Pan just makes one copy of the track on the left side, and one copy on the right side...

Nope what? I'm telling you what dual panning is used for.

This is from the Reaper forum:

"The idea is basically to have an option on the panner to switch to a "dual pan" mode for stereo tracks, that allows one, in a single motion, to collapse the stereo field as one wishes. Asymetrically, if one likes. Essentially, an independent panner for each side, but linked so mouse motion up or down closes or opens them, while side-to-side motion moves them...er...side to side.

This is an extremely useful feature when dealing with drum overs, drum rooms, stereo reverbs or any sort of stereo effect."

http://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=6190

[Tricky-Loops]

It's true, right-clicking on the pan knobs in Reaper brings up dual panning and other options. I've never used dual panning for anything so this is something I'll have to explore.

Dustin, can you elaborate on what the "width mode" does?

I love Dual Panning... It's great for mid to high freq content, for example for some oriental percussion or triangles, or delayed arps, or even some background choir or vocals etc. I wouldn't use it for bass (except if you make an UFO song), but it has some great areas of application.

I did some research and I get it now. It's for dealing with stereo tracks, if you want to change the stereo spread while also panning. This might be great on a lot of live stereo recordings, like piano, drums, etc.

Nope. For adjusting the stereo spread or stereo width I choose the pan mode "Stereo Pan" in REAPER and define the stereo width with the "width" knob.

Dual Pan just makes one copy of the track on the left side, and one copy on the right side...

The dual pan nomenclature may be different in Reaper, but in this plugin and in Cubase dual pan allows you to pan the left and right channels independently. Neither make 2 copies of the stereo channel and allow you to pan each, so that statement is incorrect as far as this plugin and Cubase are concerned.

I'd be surprised if that's really what Reaper does. That sounds really odd.

The dual pan function is a great way to correct for bad mic placement that would result in an unbalanced stereo recording.

Sorry, you're right. Dual Pan in REAPER splits the left and the right channel, so you can pan them independently. But nevertheless there is no "width" control, this is only available at the pan mode "Stereo Pan"...

[A.M. Gold]

Still can be achieved using the same set of controls, it's inherent in the separated Pan L, Pan R design. Reaper just hasn't set it up yet to turn them both at once.

You are still turning two knobs if you use stereo pan and width knobs, dual pan allows you to see and/or calculate it in a different way.

[Tricky-Loops]

Still can be achieved using the same set of controls, it's inherent in the separated Pan L, Pan R design. Reaper just hasn't set it up yet to turn them both at once.

You are still turning two knobs if you use stereo pan and width knobs, dual pan allows you to see and/or calculate it in a different way.

Agreed. However, Stereo Pan should be more subtle than the Dual Pan, and if I use Dual Pan to narrow the stereo field, I get some distortion...

[lightsfadelow]

You shouldn't get any distortion. Are your levels so high when they hit the panner that you're clipping? Even if the track is clipping, if your project is 32bit float depth, you won't actually clip unless you send that track to the master fader at clipping levels.

[Tricky-Loops]

You shouldn't get any distortion. Are your levels so high when they hit the panner that you're clipping? Even if the track is clipping, if your project is 32bit float depth, you won't actually clip unless you send that track to the master fader at clipping levels.

Mea culpa. I really forgot to reduce the volume of my master fader...