Hi,
I have a question of the sends panning. Does this panning control the actual sound of the send bus, or does it control the panning of the signal being sent to the send bus? I assumed it was the former, but I ran a little test that suggests it the latter.
added an FX channel to a selected track, and made it a reverb.
made the send pre-fader and turned the track all the way down so I’m only hearing the reverb.
went to the tracks channel settings and panned the send all the way, hard right.
The result was that while the reverb was strongly on the right, there was still a lot of left channel information, despite being hard panned. So now I’m a bit confused, and wondering if the panning is just controlling the signal being sent to the FX. If anyone can explain this I would greatly appreciate it, I haven’t been able to find an answer anywhere.
A reverb is probably the worst kind of fx to use to test this. The left channel information is certainly from the reverb itself. The send pand determines the panning of single sources, which can all have a different panning, so it does not control the panning of the complete bus. The panning of the complete bus is determined by the panner of the FX channel.
Thanks for your input, do you mind explaining why a reverb is the worst FX to use to test? I just used it because it’s the most common send effect that I use. I understand that the send panning only applies to the channel that is being sent, not all the channels being sent, but I still don’t understand if it’s an input panner (that then gets sent to a stereo reverb algorithm) or acting the same as the panner on the FX channel itself, but only being applied to one channel. When I hard pan the panner on the FX channel, I get one channel coming out. I don’t understand why this isn’t the case for the send panner.
I have a question of the sends panning. Does this panning control the actual sound of the send bus, or does it control the panning of the signal being sent to the send bus? I assumed it was the former
actually there is no real control for the send bus (and it’s not necessary)
the send bus collects (sums) the signals from the channel and group sends, since there is at least 32bit summing involved it can’t really clip and needs no level control, this signal gets directly to the FX channel (like an FX return)
in the analog world you will have a level control for the aux bus to adapt the overall level to the fx device
In addition to what st10ss said, usually a reverb will create reflections and signal also for the opposite side it it fed, just like in a real room, the reverb is not restricted to only one side, but the whole stereo field.
If you want the reverb to just come from one side, you have to use the FX channelˋs panner
The send panner is just the same as the regular channel panner. It sits at the output of the channel you are sending from and determines, how much signal is being sent to the left or right channel of the stereo send bus.
It’s not answering your question but it may help anyway.
I quite often instead use reverbs as inserts effects because it’s less complicated when exporting stems. If you use a 3rd party panner you can pan the instrument before hitting the reverb.
Ok, I get it now, thanks folks! Just wanted to understand what was going on under the hood.
I have a system for this which might not work for everyone, but works for me. When I group my tracks into stems, I route them all to a group channel. Then I route whatever FX channels I’m using to those same group channels. If I’m using the same reverb for all my stems, each stem group will have it’s own FX send, but they will be same for all the stems. If I even explained that correctly.
Yeah exactly, you have to have send channels per stem. Or you can be lazy and use reverb inserts which as the added benefit of being able to insert a panner before the reverb.
Yeah exactly, you have to have send channels per stem. Or you can be lazy and use reverb inserts which as the added benefit of being able to insert a panner before the reverb.
hmm every signal gets his own reverb
this will sound weird
if you have a string ensemble should they not be in the same room to sound natural?
it leads not to the same result
the signals brought together for one room do have a different room response than every signal in a separate room
so it definitly sounds not the same
if the reverb effect is meant to apply a natural impression you can mostly place your sources on different positions in the same room
It does lead the same result - you can test through nulling as long as its a convolution reverb like reverance.
Set up two stringed instruments routed to a group. Do this twice - one group where both strings are routed to the same reverb and one group where the strings have their own own reverb. Reverse the phase of one of the groups and they’ll null.