cowboydan
...I think the pan pot on a stereo track is more of a balance pot and cannot work as a pan pot. The channel tools plugin is a great work around, but I would rather see a stereo track with 2 pan pots that I can use to put left and right where I want them without using extra plugins.

This is exactly correct; the pan slider is a balance control like the "balance" knob on your stereo. It simply changes the volume of each channel inversely and will not effect the perception of position in quite the same way that you hear with mono tracks.
 
That's not a design defect, it's just that panning in the traditional sense has no meaning on a stereo track where the two channels are fixed at hard left and right. What the Channel Tools plugin does is to treat each channel as if it was a mono track, bleeding some of the left into the right and vice versa the same way a mono track is panned.
 
Some DAWs do indeed offer dual-pan controls for stereo tracks. If you have Superior Drummer, take a look at its mixer for an example. This gives more precise control, at the expense of some convenience. What it will not do is make the left sound "more left" and the right "more right", since your starting point in a stereo track is already hard-left and hard-right.
 
The advantage of split-mono over using Channel Tools is that the left and right signals are now completely independent of one another and may be effected and routed separately. This can open up some interesting possibilities with delays and reverbs such as panning a reverb send to the opposite side or delaying one side of a reverb effect but not the other. You can also EQ left and right separately even if you don't have an EQ that can do that to a stereo signal, which is useful for adding width.
 
I use Channel Tools on almost every stereo track. Say you have a luscious pad coming out of a synth that makes good use of internal panning to give movement and texture (Omnisphere's famous for that). But you don't want it to occupy the whole panorama, or need to balance it against a similar texture that's also in the mix. Channel Tools lets you move the pad(s) to one side while preserving the effect of the moving modulation within the patch.
 
This technique is essential for any true stereo source, such as a Leslie effect. A Leslie ain't a Leslie without stereo, but the physical speaker is still usually set to one side of the stage. You normally want a Hammond to be similarly situated in the mix, off to one side but definitely in stereo.

Bristol_Jonesey
It need not result in a stereo track Ron, just point your mics/interface inputs to 2 mono tracks yes?

Of course. (doh!)
 
I keep forgetting about those little behind-the-scenes thingies. If it's not in plain sight... Well... you know.

cowboydan
This was a design choice by cakewalk to use a "balance pot"on stereo tracks instead of 2 pan pots.

Not really. They're just following the protocol for stereo track mixing that's been in existence since the early '60s.

bitflipper

cowboydan
...I think the pan pot on a stereo track is more of a balance pot and cannot work as a pan pot. The channel tools plugin is a great work around, but I would rather see a stereo track with 2 pan pots that I can use to put left and right where I want them without using extra plugins.

This is exactly correct; the pan slider is a balance control like the "balance" knob on your stereo. It simply changes the volume of each channel inversely and will not effect the perception of position in quite the same way that you hear with mono tracks.
 
That's not a design defect, it's just that panning in the traditional sense has no meaning on a stereo track where the two channels are fixed at hard left and right. What the Channel Tools plugin does is to treat each channel as if it was a mono track, bleeding some of the left into the right and vice versa the same way a mono track is panned.
 
Some DAWs do indeed offer dual-pan controls for stereo tracks. If you have Superior Drummer, take a look at its mixer for an example. This gives more precise control, at the expense of some convenience. What it will not do is make the left sound "more left" and the right "more right", since your starting point in a stereo track is already hard-left and hard-right.
 
The advantage of split-mono over using Channel Tools is that the left and right signals are now completely independent of one another and may be effected and routed separately. This can open up some interesting possibilities with delays and reverbs such as panning a reverb send to the opposite side or delaying one side of a reverb effect but not the other. You can also EQ left and right separately even if you don't have an EQ that can do that to a stereo signal, which is useful for adding width.
 
I use Channel Tools on almost every stereo track. Say you have a luscious pad coming out of a synth that makes good use of internal panning to give movement and texture (Omnisphere's famous for that). But you don't want it to occupy the whole panorama, or need to balance it against a similar texture that's also in the mix. Channel Tools lets you move the pad(s) to one side while preserving the effect of the moving modulation within the patch.
 
This technique is essential for any true stereo source, such as a Leslie effect. A Leslie ain't a Leslie without stereo, but the physical speaker is still usually set to one side of the stage. You normally want a Hammond to be similarly situated in the mix, off to one side but definitely in stereo.

Thanks for the explanation Bit.
The only thing I was trying to get across was by adding that extra pan pot to the stereo track was that I wouldnt have to add all the channel tools plugins on every track and save possibly some cpu room.
That way I still can decide for myself how I want the information in a stereo track. I can also see that two knobs might clutter up the skyline in a way that it would not look good. I can live with it. Even with this thread Ive learned a little more about the daw and channel tools so its not a bad day for me.
 

Anderton

cowboydan
This was a design choice by cakewalk to use a "balance pot"on stereo tracks instead of 2 pan pots.

Not really. They're just following the protocol for stereo track mixing that's been in existence since the early '60s.

That is probably right except for the fact that I called Cake Support all the way from Holland and that is what I was told from them. Straight from the horses mouth so to speak.

They're just following the protocol for stereo track mixing that's been in existence since the early '60s.

Actually, Craig, if you think back to consoles you saw in the 60's, how many of them even had stereo channels? I'm guessing none. The first time I ever saw a stereo channel on a mixer was in the late-80's, and that was on a compact Yamaha 8-channel mixer. I assumed they did it to save space.
 
Stereo tracks are a relatively new phenomenon. At the time Cakewalk first added audio to their MIDI sequencer, I'm sure they looked at the balance controls on stereos and figured that would be most familiar to amateur recordists. 

bitflipper
Actually, Craig, if you think back to consoles you saw in the 60's, how many of them even had stereo channels? I'm guessing none. The first time I ever saw a stereo channel on a mixer was in the late-80's, and that was on a compact Yamaha 8-channel mixer. I assumed they did it to save space.

Well I'm not sure whether to say "I stand corrected" or not, because I seem to remember there were stereo channels at least for returns on some of the consoles, but I could be wrong (hey, it was half a century ago!). I built stuff in those days with stereo ins and dual-ganged pots to do the "panning" (balance), so I assume I stole the idea from somewhere...but maybe I stole it from home stereos.
 
Technically, balance controls aren't really panpots anyway however they do vary the amount of signal at a given position in the stereo soundstage, which is one of a panpot's functions.
 
But to get back to the main topic, Channel Tools does what I would often split two channels into mono to do - pan one channel full left or right, and the other to center so the spread for complementary instruments could be center-to-left and center-to-right, at which point I could then plop vocals etc. right up the middle. As to CPU concerns, I think it's very unlikely that Channel Tools draw much as they're not doing any kind of complex modeling or DSP.

bitflipper
Stereo tracks are a relatively new phenomenon. At the time Cakewalk first added audio to their MIDI sequencer, I'm sure they looked at the balance controls on stereos and figured that would be most familiar to amateur recordists. 

Actually, Cakewalk only recorded audio as mono tracks (even if one's audio interface or soundcard presented its input channels as a stereo pair(s)) until stereo support was implemented in Pro Audio 9 (along with introducing bouncing to mono/stereo). And it's a bit more complicated than just balance/pan - stereo tracks interleave the 2 tracks' data.
 
Btw, some time back Craig wrote a great article in SOS on using Channel Tools (including how to convert (in a fashion) a stereo input track into M-S audio):
 
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jul09/articles/sonarworkshop_0709.htm

Thinking back to 1979-80 when I was mixing live sound, all I can remember for sure is that the boards were stereo. I can only assume each channel had a pan pot, but I have no memory of actually reaching up and spinning one.