If you max out your signal and pan it to one side, you’re probably gonna clip your output. And that sort of makes sense, doesn’t it? I mean, when you pan something, you’re losing one of your speakers, right?
So we need to add a little back to make up for that lost level. How much? Well, this is a 60-second video, so let’s go with the simple answer.
Around 3 dB. This is what’s known as a pan law, and it’s gonna be built into pretty much every DAW and every console, although it may be handled a little differently from one to the next. The actual detailed explanation is a little more nuanced.
It involves the distance between the speakers, the acoustics of the room, and of chorus your left ear hears the right speaker, and that has all sorts of implications for headphones. But either way, take a moment and study the stuff that seasoned engineers know to be important. The best trick is knowledge, and the best tricks are evergreen, and I’m here to share that with someone who belongs in a Beat Kitchen class.
