FireWalk | What You Need To Know About Circular Panning Law in FL Studio! @FireWalkMusic | Uploaded March 2017 | Updated October 2024, 1 hour ago.
You may have been told to turn off "circular panning law" in FL Studio because it's supposed to cause bad sound quality. In this video I will try to explain to you in simple terms what a panning law is and how it affects your music.
Keep in mind that this is a very simplified explanation. It's intended for beginners who are are confused about the whole panning law vs quality thing.
There are scenarios where one panning law is preferred over the other. Like in hard panning situations. There are things to take into consideration such as signal merging and so on.
However, for most normal day to day panning use that's of little or no concern as in most situations one should not pan more than 20-30% after all.
Some mixer and DAW pan controls work by attenuating the level of both left and right output channels as the pan control is moved towards the centre. Others work by raising the level of one channel as the pan moves towards that side. The perceived effect is much the same, but the absolute levels obviously differ, which can be significant in some situations! The amount by which the signal level is altered is referred to as the ‘panning law’, and there are two fundamental approaches with quite different aims and results.
If you are planning on doing some serious hard panning and are concerned about the stereo field then you should do some more technical reading on how the panning laws actually work.
However, the actual panning law only really becomes significant when a source is being actively panned across the soundstage and you want your audience to perceive the source as remaining at a constant level as it moves around. For any given static pan position you have to balance the source in the mix accordingly, and if you change the pan position you’ll inevitably also change the relative level of that source slightly and so will probably have to tweak the source level to maintain the same overall mix balance.
The two fundamental panning laws relate to the way the material will be auditioned. If you want the panned sound to be perceived, acoustically, as remaining at a constant volume regardless of the pan position, then the centre attenuation needs to be 3dB. This is because the acoustic summation of two identical signals increases the perceived volume by 3dB. So this is the law to choose if your audience will only ever listen via stereo loudspeakers.
However, if you want the panned sound to be perceived as having a constant level when summed to mono, the centre attenuation needs to be 6dB, because the electrical addition of two identical signals creates a new signal with an amplitude which is 6dB larger. So this is the law to choose if your audience is likely to hear a mono sum, such as when broadcast on radio or TV, or in a club, or on a mobile phone or tablet.
Most mixing consoles and a great many DAWs employ a compromise option of 4.5dB centre attenuation, which is half-way between the two previous ideals. The idea is to present a very reasonable compromise with only minor level variations as a source is panned across the sound stage, regardless of the listening format.
Most DAWs offer all of these options and allow the specific panning law (ie. centre attenuation) to be selected to suit the application. However, not all DAWs default to the same starting mode, which is one common reason why mixes constructed on different DAWs but with apparently identical fader and pan control settings can sound subtly but noticeably different.
As you can see, panning laws will affect the way you mix. It affects volume / levels, but it does not affect sound quality in any way. Louder volumes tend to sound better to the human ear. In some cases it's reasonable to assume that some people may think that the sound quality has increased when switching from one panning law to the other, when in reality it's just the levels that has changed.
You shouldn't worry to much about this. Regardless of what panning law you use, you should take care of any level related issues in the mix anyways.
A last note of caution: If you collaborate with another producer, make sure you both use the same panning law!
Here's a few links / resources:
image-line.com/support/FLHelp/html/songsettings_settings.htm
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_law
soundonsound.com/sound-advice/q-what-pan-law-setting-should-use
❤️ Support this channel on Patreon:
patreon.com/firewalkmusic
❤️ Support us with a one-time PayPal donation:
paypal.me/firewalkmusic
⚠️ Do you need professional feedback on your track? Mixing or mastering? Check out my gigs on Fiverr: fiverr.com/firewalk
Follow FireWalk on social media:
facebook.com/djfirewalk
soundcloud.com/djfirewalk
instagram.com/firewalk_music
twitter.com/firewalk_music
📧 Other inquiries?
firewalk.official@gmail.com
You may have been told to turn off "circular panning law" in FL Studio because it's supposed to cause bad sound quality. In this video I will try to explain to you in simple terms what a panning law is and how it affects your music.
Keep in mind that this is a very simplified explanation. It's intended for beginners who are are confused about the whole panning law vs quality thing.
There are scenarios where one panning law is preferred over the other. Like in hard panning situations. There are things to take into consideration such as signal merging and so on.
However, for most normal day to day panning use that's of little or no concern as in most situations one should not pan more than 20-30% after all.
Some mixer and DAW pan controls work by attenuating the level of both left and right output channels as the pan control is moved towards the centre. Others work by raising the level of one channel as the pan moves towards that side. The perceived effect is much the same, but the absolute levels obviously differ, which can be significant in some situations! The amount by which the signal level is altered is referred to as the ‘panning law’, and there are two fundamental approaches with quite different aims and results.
If you are planning on doing some serious hard panning and are concerned about the stereo field then you should do some more technical reading on how the panning laws actually work.
However, the actual panning law only really becomes significant when a source is being actively panned across the soundstage and you want your audience to perceive the source as remaining at a constant level as it moves around. For any given static pan position you have to balance the source in the mix accordingly, and if you change the pan position you’ll inevitably also change the relative level of that source slightly and so will probably have to tweak the source level to maintain the same overall mix balance.
The two fundamental panning laws relate to the way the material will be auditioned. If you want the panned sound to be perceived, acoustically, as remaining at a constant volume regardless of the pan position, then the centre attenuation needs to be 3dB. This is because the acoustic summation of two identical signals increases the perceived volume by 3dB. So this is the law to choose if your audience will only ever listen via stereo loudspeakers.
However, if you want the panned sound to be perceived as having a constant level when summed to mono, the centre attenuation needs to be 6dB, because the electrical addition of two identical signals creates a new signal with an amplitude which is 6dB larger. So this is the law to choose if your audience is likely to hear a mono sum, such as when broadcast on radio or TV, or in a club, or on a mobile phone or tablet.
Most mixing consoles and a great many DAWs employ a compromise option of 4.5dB centre attenuation, which is half-way between the two previous ideals. The idea is to present a very reasonable compromise with only minor level variations as a source is panned across the sound stage, regardless of the listening format.
Most DAWs offer all of these options and allow the specific panning law (ie. centre attenuation) to be selected to suit the application. However, not all DAWs default to the same starting mode, which is one common reason why mixes constructed on different DAWs but with apparently identical fader and pan control settings can sound subtly but noticeably different.
As you can see, panning laws will affect the way you mix. It affects volume / levels, but it does not affect sound quality in any way. Louder volumes tend to sound better to the human ear. In some cases it's reasonable to assume that some people may think that the sound quality has increased when switching from one panning law to the other, when in reality it's just the levels that has changed.
You shouldn't worry to much about this. Regardless of what panning law you use, you should take care of any level related issues in the mix anyways.
A last note of caution: If you collaborate with another producer, make sure you both use the same panning law!
Here's a few links / resources:
image-line.com/support/FLHelp/html/songsettings_settings.htm
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_law
soundonsound.com/sound-advice/q-what-pan-law-setting-should-use
❤️ Support this channel on Patreon:
patreon.com/firewalkmusic
❤️ Support us with a one-time PayPal donation:
paypal.me/firewalkmusic
⚠️ Do you need professional feedback on your track? Mixing or mastering? Check out my gigs on Fiverr: fiverr.com/firewalk
Follow FireWalk on social media:
facebook.com/djfirewalk
soundcloud.com/djfirewalk
instagram.com/firewalk_music
twitter.com/firewalk_music
📧 Other inquiries?
firewalk.official@gmail.com
