I’ve created a post fader send at 0db and it is somehow lower in volume than the original track on the send (which leads to a stereo FX track) is coming from on Cubase 12 PRO. The original fader is also at 0db, what’s going on why isn’t it just exactly the same volume? What am I missing?
I posted about this on Reddit ( Reddit - Dive into anything ) and I got told that the situation is completely normal due to pan law. However, I cannot understand the explanations that people have given me for the exact reason why this pan law was getting applied. I don’t feel like anyone gave me a simple explanation other than “that’s just how it works”, and the one complicated explanation I had I did not understand.
I thought pan law works only when you start to centre the signal of a particular channel because the sound is perceived louder in the centre than it is fully planned hard left or right.
In my case my send is being sent at 0db past fader which means the volume should theoretically be exactly the same. However, I have been told that it is due to the fact that it is going to a stereo channel that it has dipped down by 3db. What I don’t understand is, I thought pan law only takes affect when the sound source is panned to the centre (and that this shouldn’t even technically reflect on the fader as it’s done automatically). And also, if it only takes affect when panning into the centre, then how come my signal is lowered by 3db despite the fact that the return fader is panned hard left.
Could this be something to do with the actual panning of the send rather than the return?
Could someone please explain to me what’s going on here. It is very confusing seeing this for the first time.
The send is not affected by the channel pan (it has it’s own panner if you want to pan it) so the level it’s sending is the original channel level if you hadn’t panned it.
You have it the wrong way round.
The send is not 3db lower than the source. It’s the levels of the source before panning
The panned source is 3db louder than the unpanned source because of pan law.
Notice the center-panned send on the left side of the image but with the track panned fully left. You can then see how the inserted “Insight” meters show the correct value and that the loudness of the FX track is the same as the mono track because of pan law (set to “equal power” in this case) and because there are a total of two channels active before the panner, thus adding correctly to the desired loudness.
Oh right I see thank you so much for the explanation. I knew I was missing something basic.
So, in other words if my actual panning for the send rather than the return was panned hard left or right I’d be getting the same amount of signal?
As far as I understand the most I grasped from this is it is because my actual signal is panned centre and the return panner does not account for this. That means the signal is attenuated anyway, despite the fact the return fader is all the way to the left.
In your example, since you’re set to equal power. Wouldn’t that mean that if your send panner was in the centre, you would also be at the same exact volume as you illustrated in your screenshot? I’m a bit confused as to why you used equal power in the example, since I thought that would not change the volume in any way regardless of the position of the pan.
What I don’t get is why your peak levels are different since you have your pan law set to equal power. I also don’t understand
How is there a total of two channels before the panner, I thought it was just one?
There are two channels before the panner in the stereo FX track. The send is from a mono track into that stereo FX track which is why pan law applies. This is why I showed the insight plugins so you could see the level as it exists in the FX track before the panner. It show that pan law is in effect before the FX track panner, because it is a stereo track and it received a signal from the mono source.
The other reason I used those plugins is because they show you the point of the different pan law settings.
“Equal power” is maybe a bad name for that setting. When it says “-3” it refers to the adjustment that is made, and when it says “equal power” I think the right way to think about it is that the result is that power is equal. In other words the perception is that the sound is equally loud and “equal” refers to the power AFTER adding the two channels together and NOT that the peak level is the same.
“Equal power” and “-3” is functionally the same at the extremes; full left, full right, and center. What is different is how it changes levels in any other position. So you could do the same with “-3” and it should show the same on the meters.
I get the gist of how pan law affects metering when travelling down stream and when sent to stereo channels.
However, I’m sorry to say, in reply to your last post this is probably something I’m still not understanding clearly. It seems you’ve lost me again.
I thought:
If you used -3db pan law, the meters would not be the same. This is because -3db pan law attenuates the signal in the centre, while equal power does not.
While equal power would show the exact same level of signal.
How does it do the same thing? That doesn’t sound right to me. Equal power sounds louder in the centre than -3db does.
One sounds louder, the other one does not.
The reason why you don’t see the meter change is because pan law happens after the fader. That’s why you only see it down stream on other channels like in my example - the stereo FX channel.
It is not the same thing, else there would be no point in using either or. There would just be one option.
Edit everyone who doesn’t know stuff about this ignore what I’m talking about, I am getting confused and still trying to work it all out!
Go to 6 minutes 12 seconds and listen carefully to what he’s saying. Then click on the link I provided and look at the images. Me and this guy are saying the same thing. The difference is the transition curve.
I think I got confused because I thought at the start of the video he uses equal power (which I thought does not dip the centre in signal). I realised now he used 0db!
Now I’m confused about why equal power and -3db are almost the same when all over the internet says they’re not.
This whole pan law thing is a bit of a rabbit hole.
They are exactly the same when panned to the extremes, full left, full right, or center.
Again, if you look at the images in the link I posed you can see that when the panning is not fully left, fully right or center “equal power” and “-3dB” are different.
If you are doing only static panning, meaning you place an instrument once using panning and then you simply adjust levels using the fader then none of this matters much unless you need to output stems like we do for television. However, if you automate your panning so it for example sweeps from full left, through the center, to full right, then “-3” and “equal power” are going to sound somewhat different because the transition curves between the extremes are different.
