QUESTION about PowerPan vs. StereoPan vs. Balance

[fatis12_24918]

 

I got some doubts coming from the behaviour of stereo-channels volume and perceived positioning of some instruments tracks that had both balance and PowerPan manipulated on the channel:

- VI have a single knob acting like a balance or like a PowerPan if the stereo field get open at will. Then no discrepancies are possible in the VI mixer. For that reason I was always considering the PowerPan overriding the balance, with an additional information about the stereo field width.

- In VE Pro channel strip, the "Stereo Pan" is optional, available as an integrated audio insert, and then the Balance slider is still active and can be set with different and "contradictory" direction. Is Stereo Pan overriding the Balance or are they merging/interfering?

- In Synchron Player we have back a Power Pan control on instrument mixer, but a Balance knob is optionally selectable and it keeps different direction even if a Power Pan setting is overlapped. Again, is Power Pan overriding the Balance, or are they merging/interfering?

I'm a bit lost in names/differences/similarities, and sometime the acoustic and metering outcome seems different from the one I expected, so please VSL team, kindly help me to understand and master it correctly.

Thank you in advance, F.

[fatis12_24918]

 

Any chance to get an answer? 

Anybody else can share experience and/or knowledge?

thank you again,

Fabio

[PaoloT]

I have your same doubt, and have asked a similar/related question in the past. I would very much to know the details, because it may seem a simple concept to the developers, but I'm still not totally sure of what each part precisely does.

Paolo

[civilization 3]

Well, the Balance control of VE Pro is not a power panner so I never use it. Leave it alone is the answer, at center/default it's not doing anything.

[fatis12_24918]

@civilization 3 said:

Well, the Balance control of VE Pro is not a power panner so I never use it. Leave it alone is the answer, at center/default it's not doing anything.

Hi Civ, thanks for sharing your experience. I agree on the first statement... Balance is not PowerPan, and PowerPan is not Balance. I also understand that if you don't know about something and it seems not what you are looking for, it's better you don't use it, so I understand you simply ignore it.

On the other side, the slider is in place and it's operational. Usually VSL software is carefully designed and usually everything existing has a reason to exist: that's the reason why I ask VSL experts and developers to tell us more and/or give recommendation. Often I learned so much thanks to Dietz answers to questions, that it changed and improved my practice on features that are not 100% covered or clear in the manuals, and not always self-explanatory.

Dietz... any comment recommendation?

[Dietz]

This is my honest personal opinion, too:

@civilization 3 said:

Well, the Balance control of VE Pro is not a power panner so I never use it. Leave it alone is the answer, at center/default it's not doing anything.

As far as I remember the reasoning of VSL's software engineers, this strange "Balance"-thingy has been left in for compatibility reasons. I would prefer to get rid of it, but I didn't win through, obviously. ;-D

... hope this answers most of this thread's questions.

[fatis12_24918]

@Dietz said:

As far as I remember the reasoning of VSL's software engineers, this strange "Balance"-thingy has been left in for compatibility reasons. I would prefer to get rid of it, but I didn't win through, obviously. ;-D

... hope this answers most of this thread's questions.

Got it, thank you. Yes it does answer.

cheers

F.