Re: Pro Channel Panning
2018/05/05 18:14:51
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☄ Helpfulby Zargg 2018/05/05 21:19:49
I did do an FX Chain, but I think the following approach is more convenient. It's on page 16 in "The Big Book of SONAR Tips," here's the text.
Add Pro Tools-Style Dual Panpots to SONAR
From time to time, some people wish that like Pro Tools, SONAR had separate panpots for the left and right channels. The reason why Pro Tools has two panpots is because it traditionally treated stereo as two mono sources, very much like the hardware mixing consoles that were common in the mid- to late-20th century. Like most DAWs, SONAR does understand the difference between stereo and mono signals. This is why for mono tracks the panpot acts like a traditional panpot, but for stereo signals, it acts like a balance control.
However there are advantages to the dual panpot approach, as it allows “weighting” the stereo image more to the left, right, or center. The ultimate solution is the Channel Tools plug-in, which not only allows each channel to pan anywhere in the stereo field, but also has a Width control so that each channel can spread across part of the stereo field, or all of it.
While flexible, you might not want to have to open up Channel Tools to do this kind of advanced panning. However, it’s possible to integrate Channel Tools’ functionality right into the Console View’s channel strips by using the Channel Strip’s “Show Assignable Controls” option.
1. Insert Channel Tools into the track’s FX Rack.
2. In the Console View, choose Options > FX > Show Assignable Controls.
3. Four sliders appear below Channel Tools.
4. Right-click on a slider, choose Re-Assign Control, and assign it to the appropriate Channel Tools control. I assigned Width to the top two sliders, and Angle (pan) to the lower two sliders, but assign the sliders in whatever way makes sense to you.
5. With Channel Tools visible, adjust the sliders and observe the effect on the Channel Tools controls so you get a feel of how they work. 6. Now close the Channel Tools GUI to get it out of the way, and use the Assignable Controls.
If you want all your channels to have these kinds of panpots, Ctrl+Drag the Channel Tools label from one channel’s FX Rack into another channel’s FX Rack. The same slider assignments will now appear in the copy—Ctrl+Drag into as many channels as you want. (You may want to create a track template around this if you’re fond of the dual pan pots approach.)
If you put another plug-in in the FX Rack, then you can assign sliders to four parameters in that plug-in as well. To see the Channel Tools assignable controls, just click on the Channel Tools label in the FX Rack. The Assignable Controls will follow whichever plug-in has the focus. And of course, if you want to see the results of your tweaking in a more visual fashion, just double-click on the Channel Tools plug-in to open the GUI and see the changes your tweaks are making.
So…not only do you have all the functionality of dual panpots, but an additional Width control that does more than the Pro Tools dual panpots can do.