Bus versus Pan

[brandon]

I am sending 3 sets of vocals to the same bus. Before the send I have them panned left, centre and right accordingly. However it looks like once they leave the bus I am going to lose all these panning levels? Is there a way around this?

 

Thank you

[Colin Nicholls]

If the Bus is a Stereo Bus, then you shouldn't lose anything. The three tracks should appear in the stereo field of the bus as you have panned them in the track view.

When you say "it looks like" do you mean that you know for sure the panning is lost?

[brandon]

45 minutes ago, Colin Nicholls said:

If the Bus is a Stereo Bus, then you shouldn't lose anything. The three tracks should appear in the stereo field of the bus as you have panned them in the track view.

When you say "it looks like" do you mean that you know for sure the panning is lost?

Hi - Thanks for the reassurance - when I say 'it looks like' its because the Bus has its own pan control. Its set at centre at the moment so I am wondering why does it even exist? Am sure there's a logical reason for it.

[brandon]

53 minutes ago, Colin Nicholls said:

If the Bus is a Stereo Bus, then you shouldn't lose anything. The three tracks should appear in the stereo field of the bus as you have panned them in the track view.

When you say "it looks like" do you mean that you know for sure the panning is lost?

Hi again Colin. It does seem that all 3 vocal tracks are now panned dead centre. I am not surprised though when the stereo bus has  a  pan controller.  Am still perplexed though and I feel there must be some way round it.

[Colin Nicholls]

It is a common use-case to have multiple tracks - each with their own PAN position - feeding a common, stereo bus. That bus can, in turn, be panned. The center detente of the Bus Pan is merely saying "I'm evenly sending my stereo audio to both Left and Right channels, but if you want to bias me one way or the other, you're free to do so".

It does NOT mean that your stereo mix is mono. If you are hearing mono, then there is something else not set correctly, like, um, a mono effect plugin, or that bus is, in turn, being sent to a mono bus. Or something like that. Or your Audio interface is not configured correctly.

If you create a new, empty project, and load up a stereo wave file that you know is good, for reference, do you hear stereo?

[brandon]

10 hours ago, Colin Nicholls said:

It is a common use-case to have multiple tracks - each with their own PAN position - feeding a common, stereo bus. That bus can, in turn, be panned. The center detente of the Bus Pan is merely saying "I'm evenly sending my stereo audio to both Left and Right channels, but if you want to bias me one way or the other, you're free to do so".

It does NOT mean that your stereo mix is mono. If you are hearing mono, then there is something else not set correctly, like, um, a mono effect plugin, or that bus is, in turn, being sent to a mono bus. Or something like that. Or your Audio interface is not configured correctly.

If you create a new, empty project, and load up a stereo wave file that you know is good, for reference, do you hear stereo?

Hi Colin,

I think you may be on to something. The wav tracks are recorded in mono. They are being routed to a stereo bus. Might that be the problem?

Assuming they were being routed to a mono bus would your comments above still hold out i.e. that I can pan the individual tracks separately then when routed to the bus those panning levels would still be maintained? 

[Steve_B]

You can lose the stereo panning in the bus if you have an fx plugin on the bus that is mono.

[Nigel Mackay]

39 minutes ago, brandon said:

 

Assuming they were being routed to a mono bus would your comments above still hold out i.e. that I can pan the individual tracks separately then when routed to the bus those panning levels would still be maintained? 

Play safe. Put the WAV files on a stereo track and only use stereo EVERYWHERE. Set the PAN on the original tracks. Leave all other PANs centered. Only use stereo FX. Then you should be safe.

[brandon]

2 hours ago, Steve_B said:

You can lose the stereo panning in the bus if you have an fx plugin on the bus that is mono.

Is there a way to find out whether a plug in is stereo or not? I notice a lot of them don't advertise the fact.

[Nigel Mackay]

13 minutes ago, brandon said:

Is there a way to find out whether a plug in is stereo or not? I notice a lot of them don't advertise the fact.

If they have input and output level meters there is a pointer.
And, unless it is very old, if there is a mono version there will be a stereo one as well and it will be reflected in the name.
In the GUI, click on the VST, VST3 dropdown -> Plug-in Properties. Then Details.... Is Ouputs 1 or 2?
    

[brandon]

Hi - where will I locate the GUI?  (i.e. which GUI do you refer to)?

Thanks

[Nigel Mackay]

30 minutes ago, brandon said:

Hi - where will I locate the GUI?  (i.e. which GUI do you refer to)?

Thanks

The GUI for the VST FX you want to know if is stereo or mono.
It opens when you insert an FX. Or if you click on an already inserted FX in the FX list in the track.

If you insert the free Voxengo SPAN you see this:

Click on the little down arrow next to VST3 at the top middle.
Select Plug-in Properties and then click on Details....

Outputs is 2. Stereo.

Also, there is a button to Switch between LEFT or RIGHT as the front graph in the display.
But only a few FX will have a give-away like that.
The ones that have input and output meters mostly show left and right.



 

[mark skinner]

 Brandon , look at your fx rack in track view. If you have a stereo plugin like a reverb inserted , it will have 2 small vertical lines under it (between the name of your plugin and your next plugin). Several stereo plugins in a row and it will look like vertical bars behind the names. A mono plugin will have a Single small line in the middle under your plugin name. Surround sound plugins have 4 lines. This same question was answered by Scook several months ago with a lot of people responding that they had never noticed the dots or lines.  Pretty easy to overlook.       mark

[Nigel Mackay]

7 minutes ago, mark skinner said:

This same question was answered by Scook several months ago with a lot of people responding that they had never noticed the dots or lines.  Pretty easy to overlook.       mark

VERY easy to miss. ?

[brandon]

34 minutes ago, mark skinner said:

 Brandon , look at your fx rack in track view. If you have a stereo plugin like a reverb inserted , it will have 2 small vertical lines under it (between the name of your plugin and your next plugin). Several stereo plugins in a row and it will look like vertical bars behind the names. A mono plugin will have a Single small line in the middle under your plugin name. Surround sound plugins have 4 lines. This same question was answered by Scook several months ago with a lot of people responding that they had never noticed the dots or lines.  Pretty easy to overlook.       mark

Hi it is sounding promising. i can find synth rack but cant find anything that will bring up FX rack.  Can you expand? Many thanks.

[Nigel Mackay]

The FX rack is there on the right where it says FX(1). With the Sonitus Delay in it.
Look at the bottom edge of Sonitus Delay. Two tiny little lines going downwards.
Stereo.

 

[brandon]

I have expanded my track properties as per below. Although there are FX showing in the pro channel they are not showing where yours appear to be. I guess am looking in the wrong place?

 

[Will.]

16 minutes ago, brandon said:

I have expanded my track properties as per below. Although there are FX showing in the pro channel they are not showing where yours appear to be. I guess am looking in the wrong place?

 

If you look closely - it is there.

Question: Can you collaps your properties and show both bus pane and track view in the console view?

Meaning your tracks and Buss tracks together. 

Edited October 28, 2020 by Will_Kaydo

[Nigel Mackay]

That is not the Pro Channel. The Pro Channel is just the top section. That is the channel strip.
You would see the FX in the track pane if it wasn't disabled in the view.

At the top of the track pane change the dropdown (which here says Custom) to All. Your track views will look like the one in my screenshot.

Besides, the where it says FX with Classic Reverb and Classic Chorus is the FX rack. And you can see the 2 little lines coming down. So they are stereo.

In other words, your panning should be working.
 

Edited October 28, 2020 by Nigel Mackay

[brandon]

I can see them. Now that I focus on it. Thats great thank you and to everyone else for their input.

[brandon]

Ok - am going back to my original query regarding this topic.

I have taken in what has been said above and I converted all 3 mono vocal tracks into stereo tracks. I sent them to a  stereo bus and applied stereo affects. However I still cant get the individual tracks to pan separately from each other. They all pan in the direction of the pan knob on  the Bus. So if I turn it left they all pan to the left for example.

There has to be a way around this otherwise it renders the Bus useless if it can only cope with everything routed to it being panned in the same way.

Some more advice would really be appreciated.

 

Thanks