Boz Digital TODAY ONLY: 65% Off Clipping and Panning Plugins!

[Larry Shelby]

https://www.bozdigitallabs.com/

[bitflipper]

I don't use clippers, but Pan Knob has long been an indispensable part of my kit. Yeh, even $19 might seem unwarranted for a feature every DAW already has built in, but if you use stereo tracks it can be the difference between indistinct mush and a nicely-balanced mix.

[Brian Walton]

1 hour ago, bitflipper said:

I don't use clippers, but Pan Knob has long been an indispensable part of my kit. Yeh, even $19 might seem unwarranted for a feature every DAW already has built in, but if you use stereo tracks it can be the difference between indistinct mush and a nicely-balanced mix.

The more I've used it the more annoyed I've become that DAWS don't have the option to turn on that feature set within the DAW itself.

Also disappointed that BOZ never released a Pro Channel version of it.  Adding it in the fx bin of any DAW is certainly not the best workflow.

[jngnz]

Wait what? What does Pan Knob do?

[antler]

1 hour ago, jngnz said:

Wait what? What does Pan Knob do?

From their website:

Pan Knob overcomes the limitations of traditional panning schemes with a superior algorithm that centers low frequencies while panning higher frequencies for superior balance and mix translation.

https://www.bozdigitallabs.com/product/pan-knob/

[solodancer]

So you use a plugin on every (panned) channel for something that a single plugin on the master bus will do? Is it about the freedom of NOT applying it to certain elements? Can't say I've ever wanted anything below like 100 Hz to be panned but I guess for EDM stuff or sound design you might want to do that.

[Brian Walton]

3 minutes ago, solodancer said:

So you use a plugin on every (panned) channel for something that a single plugin on the master bus will do? Is it about the freedom of NOT applying it to certain elements? Can't say I've ever wanted anything below like 100 Hz to be panned but I guess for EDM stuff or sound design you might want to do that.

Sometimes you may want want the "center" to be at different frequencies for different sources.  

Yes, if you want everything above 100Hz to be panned, Mongoose on the master is fine.  

If you want control over the cross over on different things, then pan knob adds value.  It can also change the pan law for each source where on the master you would be stuck with one way.  

For me the value is being able to have cross over at 100hz for one thing, and then another at 600Hz, etc

[CSistine]

9 hours ago, Brian Walton said:

The more I've used it the more annoyed I've become that DAWS don't have the option to turn on that feature set within the DAW itself.

I totally agree! Also in many DAWs a width control for stereo tracks is missing (except e.g. Reaper). This is also a very important tool to clean mixes, especially for panned instruments!

[bitflipper]

To answer jngnz's question, what Pan Knob does is implement a proper stereo panner, meaning it treats L and R channels as two mono channels and pans each one as if it was mono.

This is different from the Pan slider in Cakewalk, which is a balance control, essentially two volume controls working in opposition to one another. This works great for mono tracks, but not stereo tracks.  Picture a Leslie speaker with two microphones, a true stereo source; if you want the Leslie to sound like it's on the left, you don't do that by lowering the level of the right mic because that would destroy the Doppler Effect. Instead, you feed some of the Right channel into the Left channel.

On 6/20/2024 at 4:24 PM, solodancer said:

So you use a plugin on every (panned) channel for something that a single plugin on the master bus will do? Is it about the freedom of NOT applying it to certain elements? Can't say I've ever wanted anything below like 100 Hz to be panned but I guess for EDM stuff or sound design you might want to do that.

I use this plugin on every stereo track. Most of my tracks are mono, but in some cases there might be half a dozen stereo tracks that need a stereo panner.

True, you (almost - never say never) never want to pan very low frequencies, certainly nothing below 100Hz and in practice rarely anything below 400-500Hz. Pan Knob offers a HPF going into the pan circuits, so that you can explicitly tell it sum to mono everything below a specified frequency. The plugin therefore does just the opposite of what you're thinking - it only pans the higher frequencies.

On 6/20/2024 at 1:59 PM, Brian Walton said:

The more I've used it the more annoyed I've become that DAWS don't have the option to turn on that feature set within the DAW itself.

To be fair, some DAWs do provide such a feature. iirc Reaper is one that does. Plus you can do most of what Pan Knob does (and some things it cannot do) with the Channel Tools plugin, so Cakewalk does cover that functionality, albeit less conveniently. One of the reasons I use Pan Knob over Channel Tools is that I can automate panning with a single automation envelope, whereas Channel Tools requires two automation lanes to achieve the same effect.