Specifications

Chapter 33: Surround Panning and Mixing 535
Center % (Percentage)
Center Percentage controls whether there is a
discrete center channel for the track or a phan-
tom center channel.
Center Percentage Example
In film and video production, the center chan-
nel often contains dialog. To enhance the clarity
of dialog, it is often beneficial to keep elements
such as music out of the center speaker. By re-
ducing the Center Percentage on music tracks,
music panned to the front of the soundfield can
be panned to only the left and right speakers,
forcing them to have a variable phantom center
image.
To adjust Center Percentage:
■ Adjust the Center Percentage knob as appro-
priate.
As you reduce the Center Percentage value, the
center speaker icon at the top of the Grid be-
comes less visible. At 0, the center speaker icon
is completely invisible, reflecting the setting for
fully phantom center.
Pan Playlists and Automation
Multichannel panners have an automation
playlist for each position and divergence con-
trol.
Panning Does Not Follow Groups
Unlike mute and volume breakpoint editing,
pan automation does not follow Edit Groups by
default. To force pan automation editing to fol-
low groups, you can hold down the Start key
(Windows) or Control (Macintosh) while edit-
ing automation breakpoints on a member track.
This feature applies to all seven types of pan
controls (front, rear, and front/rear pan posi-
tion, front divergence, rear divergence,
front/rear divergence, and center percentage).
Discrete center (Center Percentage at 100)
Phantom center (Center Percentage at 0)
Pan position
meters
Center %
Pan position
meters
Center %
Center speaker less visible