Ask god why the ground is wet.
your asking why the color black is the color black. Cause its black. Why, because it doesn't reflect any colors of the color spectrum. Why does a guitar make a sound when i play it, Because thats what it does.
You have Google.., Google why pan laws do what they do. I'M not your google.

Fitz seems to have been the only one who truly understood what I was saying

Really, he just made an example of how pan laws change a signal. why, Because thats what it does. why cant you change pan laws after recording audio? Because it changes the signal. Hello is this ON???

LOL

Now its comical. I was getting frustrated before. But now im laughing and crying.. Well mostly crying....Im glad im already bald. Mike, go check your head, see if you lost any hairs. I just noticed some greys on my goat...

Nope.. I don't care too :-)

Lol

This thread is just a complete mystery to me. I don't even know what happened.

I tried doing some more experiments and now I'm even more confused.

Melodeath I know your getting frustrated with this. I also used a piece of music to do the test after all that's what we are mixing not test tones. I got the same results.

I have now set my panning rule to default and I couldn't care less why it was created the way it was or why it works this way. Maybe if I was a professional audio engineer I would take it more seriously and try and understand it better.

Its one of the main topics that keep popping up all the time, do a search and read all you can about it if you really want to get to know the ins and outs of how all this works.

Thanks anyway for sticking with it, and if you don't understand something don't be afraid to ask as many on here don't know everything either and some are afraid to ask in case they are made to look stupid.

Hope you get to grips with it.

"I have now set my panning rule to default and I couldn't care less why it was created the way it was or why it works this way. Maybe if I was a professional audio engineer I would take it more seriously and try and understand it better."

Why not use the 0 dB Center, Balance Control setting, which is the setting that most of us who do understand the Pan law charts use as a "default".

You'll benefit from knowing that SONAR does not have a default... it's just the first one in the list.

The last one on the list is the one that acts most like every other piece of gear in your studio... and that is why we suggest considering it the "normal" or default setting... all the other settings are for matching other arcane systems should you need to move a project from one DAW brand to another.

The whole mess is the result of the fact that DAWs have switchable mono/stereo tracks.

There are no hardware mixers that have tracks that can be switched back and forth from mono to stereo.

With hardware mixers it's one or the other.

The virtual choice is what makes the results complicated and non intuitive. STOP TRYING TO INTUIT THAT WHICH IS NON INTUITIVE. It will give you a big headache. :-)



fitzj,

You've missed a great point here. One should never be afraid to answer a question.... but one only gets an answer if THEY CHOOSE TO LISTEN TO THE ANSWER.

I took the liberty to assume that you still had a question about pan laws... and so for the third time in this thread I will provide the best answer I know of. I hope someone is listening :-)

I recommend that you use 0 dB Center, Balance Control for most of your work.

best regards,
mike

"0 dB Center, Balance Control. as its the one that is automatically selected when you install the software."

I do not believe this to be correct... but if it is... I'd like to know about it.

It is my impression that SONAR simply leaves the pan law selection at the first one on the list... not as a default.

So, unless something changed one has to select the 0 dB Center, Balance Control choice.

Maybe in a recent version, 0 dB Center, Balance Control, finally got nominated to a default?


And finally, can we agree that Export and Playback are functionally the same experience?

As far as the "engineering behind this; It's simple summing. In other words its simple arithmetic

where XvAC = 1 mono stream.

XvAC = ZdB(vAC)

XvAC + XvAC = 2XvAC

2XvAC = YdB(vAC)

best,
mike

edit for clarity

In an round about way, my reference to the fact that modern DAW tracks are combo mono/stereo tracks (unlike hardware mixers) is the key to understanding the difference in *should* result and what does result.

The point is that you do not have a true mono signal all the way though the mix engine so at some point the basic summing math occurs whether it is hidden from view or not.

best,
mike

ORIGINAL: RTGraham

ORIGINAL: CJaysMusic
why cant you change pan laws after recording audio? Because it changes the signal. Hello is this ON???

Sorry, CJ, but I have to disagree with this one. I've been kind of lurking in this thread, and while I understand most of the points you're making, I have to counter this particular argument.

You CAN change pan laws after recording audio. The pan law DOES NOT affect recording. It has absolutely nothing to do with the input signal. Hence, changing the pan law will have no bearing on the way the audio was recorded.

What you SHOULD NOT do is to change the pan law AFTER MIXING, or even while partway into a mix. Changing the pan law WILL affect the perceived volume of any tracks that are not panned directly center.

What I was really curious to see - and haven't seen in this thread yet, unless I missed it - was a discussion of whether the different pan laws *should* result in a different volume for mono bounces.

I must admit this post is a breath of fresh air.

I am, and have been (long before I created this thread), aware that changing the pan law will change things IN A MIX. I know what pan laws are and do, and their purpose, so of course I realize that if you change the pan law in the middle of a mix or at the end of a mix, the mix is going to sound different (provided you actually have some tracks panned, etc...).

The fact is, my question was not about a "mix" per se. My question was regarding a single, mono clip, on one mono track in a project, panned Center. Such a situation is not really a "mix," and regardless, will not have the same remixing requirements as a project with lots of tracks panned all over the place. Again, all I was doing was playing back a single track, containing a mono clip, routed to a master bus. Then, changing the pan law. I fully expected the pan law to change the signal. The question arrose when the pan law changed the signal DIFFERENTLY/MORE than I expected.

It never really even occured to me that CJ was talking about changing a pan law in the middle of a mix because 1) changing the pan law in the middle of a mix causing the need to remix is fairly obvious, and 2) it's pretty irrelevant to my question, which doesn't regard a mix of tracks, but instead, a single track. He kept saying "in the middle of a project," which is more inclusive than "during a mix."

Anyway, I now have multiple Sonar test projects which I can't explain.

1) I have one project where I took a clip and normalized it to 0.0dB. When I reopened the track, the clip is clipping, peaking at 3.0dB. The fader is at 0, there's no automation, and no plugins are active. This boggles my mind, but I assume it has something to do with a pan law getting changed. Regardless, I have been unable to recreate such a project. The pan law that seems to be "saved to" the project is 0dB center sin/cos taper, and when I change the pan law to -3dB center sin/cos taper, the clip peaks at -3dB (6dB quieter than the previous pan law). What I thought happened was maybe I first recorded the clip when the pan law was -3dB center, then I normalized and saved. Then when I opened the project again, I think the pan law somehow got switched to 0dB center, raising the volume of the track, causing clipping. This makes some sense to me (except that the dB difference is 6, instead of 3) but again, I have been unable to recreate the situation with new projects as a test.

2) I also have a project where the master and mono track peak at the same level on the 0dB center sin/cos pan law, but when I change to the -3dB center sin/cos pan law, the mono track drops 3dB (yes! makes perfect sense), but the master has dropped 6dB (making it 3dB less than the track that is routing to it). Normally when I change pannin g laws for testing purposes, the master and track peak at the same level. That's why this is another seemingly bizarre case.

EDIT: I just partially solved situation 1. The problem is I had a mono plugin ont he master bus. Even if you disable/bypass the mono plugin, and change the master bus interleave to stereo, the bus still acts like it's in mono. Now the question is, why is the actual track/clip 3dB less, when all I changed is the master bus? I thought meters on a track were for THAT track, not the track as it passes on to busses.

I must admit this post is a breath of fresh air.

Im dying over here.

-3 + -3 = -6

Bravo Mike

It never really even occured to me that CJ was talking about changing a pan law in the middle of a mix because 1) changing the pan law in the middle of a mix causing the need to remix is fairly obvious, and 2) it's pretty irrelevant to my question, which doesn't regard a mix of tracks, but instead, a single track. He kept saying "in the middle of a project," which is more inclusive than "during a mix."

Dude,with respect of course.. Your not getting it. Pan laws effect one track or 10000 tracks. A mix can be one track or 1000000 tracks. Your still not getting it
Pan Laws dont care if its 1 track or 10000 tracks in a mix. Do You get it now??? Im talking about one track or 1000 ytacks. Pan laws do not care how many tracks you have. This is a mute point and you keep obsessing over it. God sakes man...
Cj

But nothing was ever stereo. I have a mono clip that I want to route to a mono master bus. Why would changing the interleave to mono on the master cause a 3dB increase when bouncing?

Any stereo FX between the track and the output bus?

Hi RT,
You have made the issue seem clear. Good Job! If that's the question... how's this for an answer?:


quote from Noel Borthwick 10/9/2007 8:23:15 AM:

"In fact in SONAR's mix engine, internally everything routes through a bus, including output from track's and synths, although these buses are not user visible."


very best,
mike

Honestly, this thread has made my head spin.... the more I think about it the more I see there are things that require assumptions to draw any conclusions.

I pretty much figured altima boy took this stuff serious when he did it and I've never stumbled on an typo etc.

I'm so comfortable with the choice I use that I never really go looking at the others.

best regards,
mike

dont use the 0 constant and use the -3db as your pan law
Cj