Improve tracks with panningTiming DevicesUpdated on Mar 6, 2019 View more like this | Visit SAINT LOUIS, MO | Contact Edna Johnson |
When someone hears your tune and insists it needs ‘panning’, they aren’t talking about negative reviews on iTunes, but rather the stereo mixing. This is basically referring to how sounds are being output to the left and right signal channels and ultimately, your speakers. When we begin to pan constituent tracks out from the default stereo centre, they start to fan out and occupy their own space. This is a crucial technique for adding dimension and especially letting sections of instrumentation wrap around the vocals. In this guide we’ll identify how to both manually adjust this, along with using track automation curves to pan left or right automatically to create dynamism and movement in the stereo field.
Project ready
To begin, you need a new project or an existing one that contains at least one track. Our example focuses on three tracks, with two bass synths we’ll pan around a vocal.
Manual left
Locate the Pan knob within a track header. Pan the track audio left by clicking it and dragging it left, noticing the indicator showing minus degrees from centre (0).
Manual right
Now pan a second track in the opposite direction. Drag the header knob right instead to pan plus (+) degrees to shift the audio right of centre, in this case +35 degrees.
Automated pans
Panning this way is fine, but it’s static. If you want to pan track audio more dynamically, navigate up to Mix>Show Automation (A) and pick ‘Pan’ from the header dropdown.
Left curve
Click the green Pan automation line to add points. Drag them up to pan left of the initial pan point, which is centre (0) by default, at certain positions of the timeline.
Right curve
Conversely, dragging the points down from the Pan automation line’s centre point will shift the region’s audio to the right of the stereo field to as much as +63 degrees.
Volume slider
This control adjacent to the pan knob doesn’t dictate stereo panning, but rather the green level meter provides panning feedback during playback. Two lines denote stereo volume, with each side reducing to reflect any panning.
Project ready
To begin, you need a new project or an existing one that contains at least one track. Our example focuses on three tracks, with two bass synths we’ll pan around a vocal.
Manual left
Locate the Pan knob within a track header. Pan the track audio left by clicking it and dragging it left, noticing the indicator showing minus degrees from centre (0).
Manual right
Now pan a second track in the opposite direction. Drag the header knob right instead to pan plus (+) degrees to shift the audio right of centre, in this case +35 degrees.
Automated pans
Panning this way is fine, but it’s static. If you want to pan track audio more dynamically, navigate up to Mix>Show Automation (A) and pick ‘Pan’ from the header dropdown.
Left curve
Click the green Pan automation line to add points. Drag them up to pan left of the initial pan point, which is centre (0) by default, at certain positions of the timeline.
Right curve
Conversely, dragging the points down from the Pan automation line’s centre point will shift the region’s audio to the right of the stereo field to as much as +63 degrees.
Volume slider
This control adjacent to the pan knob doesn’t dictate stereo panning, but rather the green level meter provides panning feedback during playback. Two lines denote stereo volume, with each side reducing to reflect any panning.
