User manual

157
The Mixer
• To select the (default) center pan position, hold down
[Ctrl]/[Command] and click on the pan control.
• To view the pan settings in a separate window, where
you can change the settings using sliders, double-click on
the pan control.
About the three stereo pan modes (Cubase only)
By default, stereo pan controls the balance between the
left and right channels. However, if you want to set pan in-
dependently for the left and right channel, you can select a
different pan mode.
If you right-click in the pan control field for a stereo audio
channel, you can select one of three pan modes:
• Stereo Balance Panner controls the balance between
the left and right channels.
This is the default mode.
• If Stereo Dual Panner is selected, there will be two pan
controls with the upper controlling pan for the left channel,
and the lower controlling pan for the right channel.
This allows you to set pan independently for the left and right channels.
Note that it is possible to reverse the left and right channels, i.
e. the left
channel can be panned to the right and vice versa. You can also “sum”
two channels by setting them to the same pan position (i.
e. mono). How-
ever, this will increase the volume of the signal.
• If Stereo Combined Panner is selected, the left and
right pan positions are shown as two lines with a blue/gray
area between them.
In this mode, the left and right pan controls are linked, and can be moved
left and right like a single pan control (keeping their relative distance).
In Stereo Combined mode you can also set the pan inde-
pendently for the left and right channels. This is done by
holding down [Alt]/[Option] and dragging the correspond-
ing pan control.
Ö If you reverse the left and right channels, the area be-
tween the pan controls is red instead of blue/gray.
When moving combined pan controls so that the left or
right pan control reaches its maximum pan value, it natu-
rally cannot go any further. If you continue to move further
in the same direction, only the other pan control will move,
thus altering the set relative pan range until both channels
are panned fully to one side. If you move the pan controls
in the opposite direction without releasing the mouse, the
previously set pan range will be restored.
Ö The pan settings made with the Dual Panner are re-
flected in the Combined Panner and vice versa.
Ö You can specify the default pan mode for inserted au-
dio tracks in the Preferences dialog (VST page).
About the “Stereo Pan Law” setting
In the Project Setup dialog you will find a pop-up menu
named “Stereo Pan Law”, which allows you to select one
of several pan modes. These modes are required for
power compensation. Without power compensation, the
power of the sum of the left and right side is higher
(louder) if a channel is panned center than if it is panned
left or right.
To remedy this, the Stereo Pan Law setting allows you to
attenuate signals panned center, by -6, -4.5 or -3
dB (de-
fault). Selecting the 0 dB option effectively turns off con-
stant-power panning. Experiment with the modes to see
which fits best in a given situation. You can also select
“Equal Power” on this pop-up menu, which means that the
power of the signal will remain the same regardless of the
pan setting.
Panning multi-channel audio (Cubase only)
Channels with a multi-channel output configuration fea-
ture a miniature SurroundPanner control at the top of the
channel strip. For further information on multi-channel au
-
dio and the SurroundPanner V5, see the chapter “Sur-
round sound (Cubase only)” on page 217.