Reaper panning problem.

[RattyFiend]

i must be missing something here.
as far as i can tell the tracks are set to stereo but when i pan left volume goes up, and right volume goes down, and the sound stays dead center....

new to reaper, thanks in advance for any help

other than that i fucking love it so far.

 

[RattyFiend]

i dont think its a hardware problem, everything works fine in my old daw. im thinking i set something to mono in reaper just not sure what exactly.

would reinstalling reaper set everything back to default maybe?

 

[John_C]

any plugins on the track?

 

[RattyFiend]

nah, just the raw track.

 

[PhilR]

Reaper doesn't have "mono" or "stereo" tracks, just tracks with mono or stereo audio on them. Check the interface settings in the audio config. Could be you're somehow summing the signal to mono in the main output.

 

[AudioGeekZine]

There is a mono button on the master

 

[xBOBxSAGETx]

There is not a mono button on the Master that's a "mute" button. Look at this screenshot and look at where the arrow is pointing! That is where you pan bro! If you run into anymore problems just let me know! http://shup.com/Shup/486876/11122422732-My-Desktop.png

 

[AdamWathan]

i must be missing something here.
as far as i can tell the tracks are set to stereo but when i pan left volume goes up, and right volume goes down, and the sound stays dead center....

new to reaper, thanks in advance for any help

other than that i fucking love it so far.

Ignore what everyone else has said, you are completely right, Reaper does not have proper stereo panning in 3.x.

The pan control is actually a balance control, so if you have a stereo signal and "pan" it left, it just dims the right channel.

If you update to Reaper 4 though, there is a new "Stereo pan" mode as well as a stereo width slider that allows you to control the positioning of each channel in the stereo field properly, really useful improvement.

If you want to stick to version 3 for now, I recommend not dealing with stereo tracks if at all possible, just split them to separate mono tracks so you have proper control over the panning. If it's a virtual instrument or something that is outputting stereo, you could route the channels to separate tracks or insert the JS/chanmix2 plugin that comes with Reaper to give you proper control of the panning.

 

[xBOBxSAGETx]

DropBox Link: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/9875484/pan example.png

 

[John_C]

i think the phrase "and the sound stays dead center" had us all confused. Do you genuinely mean that the sound still appears to stay centered, because if so then what Adam said doesn't really apply and you've got something else strange going on.

However, Mr Watham is entirely correct in what he says, as always

 

[RattyFiend]

sorry for any confusion. i guess the simplest way to put this is the panning just changes the volume, but does not actually move the signal left or right. which made me assume something was mono.

thanks for the replies. really enjoying reaper so far.... the plugins alone are worth it.

 

[K Odell]

Hey Bob Faggot, you've literally been no help with your little drawing pointing out the pan area as if the guy didn't already grasp where and how that works. sheesh this place kills me sometimes. sorry for my outburst.

Thanks Adam for pointing that out. I myself hadn't even noticed that, but I have been on 4 for a good bit so it doesn't really affect me now.

 

[ForHerDeadEyes]

Ignore what everyone else has said, you are completely right, Reaper does not have proper stereo panning in 3.x.

The pan control is actually a balance control, so if you have a stereo signal and "pan" it left, it just dims the right channel.

If you update to Reaper 4 though, there is a new "Stereo pan" mode as well as a stereo width slider that allows you to control the positioning of each channel in the stereo field properly, really useful improvement.

If you want to stick to version 3 for now, I recommend not dealing with stereo tracks if at all possible, just split them to separate mono tracks so you have proper control over the panning. If it's a virtual instrument or something that is outputting stereo, you could route the channels to separate tracks or insert the JS/chanmix2 plugin that comes with Reaper to give you proper control of the panning.

I had no idea, thanks alot for pointing that out!
But it applies to the reaper pan only?
Not if I use the panning in a VSTi (ex. SSDrums)?
This vst should work with panning (in reaper) to if I understand correctly..
http://www.kellyindustries.com/stereo_tools.html

 

[AdamWathan]

Yes just the Reaper pan control itself, any panning caused by any plugin or anything internally is done however the plugin does it, but Reaper's own pan control is actually a balance control.

 

[ForHerDeadEyes]

Yes just the Reaper pan control itself, any panning caused by any plugin or anything internally is done however the plugin does it, but Reaper's own pan control is actually a balance control.

Thanks, man! Good to know..

 

[Melodeath]

Ignore what everyone else has said, you are completely right, Reaper does not have proper stereo panning in 3.x.

The pan control is actually a balance control, so if you have a stereo signal and "pan" it left, it just dims the right channel.

If you update to Reaper 4 though, there is a new "Stereo pan" mode as well as a stereo width slider that allows you to control the positioning of each channel in the stereo field properly, really useful improvement.

If you want to stick to version 3 for now, I recommend not dealing with stereo tracks if at all possible, just split them to separate mono tracks so you have proper control over the panning. If it's a virtual instrument or something that is outputting stereo, you could route the channels to separate tracks or insert the JS/chanmix2 plugin that comes with Reaper to give you proper control of the panning.

Interesting. I knew what Reaper was doing (just turning one side down), but I thought that's just what DAWs did with stereo tracks. When do people find the need to adjust the width/pan on a stereo file? What I've always kind of wanted was a simple "sum to mono, then pan" button. I had a band that wanted the end of a song to fade between the speakers, and this part had a floor tom in it. So the tom was very audible when I panned the master right, and much less audible when I panned left. Maybe a stereo pan would have been useful? I think I'm a bit confused suddenly. Long day at work

 

[AdamWathan]

Interesting. I knew what Reaper was doing (just turning one side down), but I thought that's just what DAWs did with stereo tracks. When do people find the need to adjust the width/pan on a stereo file? What I've always kind of wanted was a simple "sum to mono, then pan" button. I had a band that wanted the end of a song to fade between the speakers, and this part had a floor tom in it. So the tom was very audible when I panned the master right, and much less audible when I panned left. Maybe a stereo pan would have been useful? I think I'm a bit confused suddenly. Long day at work

Basically they want control of the two channels completely.

Say you have a stereo synth track that by default is panned 100L 100R right? You want to make it a little less wide, so you adjust the width slider down to 80%, now its 80L and 80R. But you want the center of the synth track to feel like its off to the left a little bit. Adjust the pan slider to 20L for the stereo track (in the new stereo pan mode only) and now it sounds like 100L and 60R, but the left channel isn't louder than the right channel. So it doesn't sound like the left side of the stereo track is more dominant, each side of the stereo file is the same volume, it's just positioned differently in the stereo field.

Know what I'm saying? You are shifting the overall image to be narrower or wider, and adjusting the center of the two tracks to be somewere other than the center of the stereo field. So the relative levels of each side of the stereo file are the same, just positioned in the stereo field in a different way.

 

[bryan_kilco]

There is not a mono button on the Master that's a "mute" button.

There IS a Mono button on the Master.

Sometimes when you have your border set too short, it will cut out some of the features. CTRL + M that shit and take a look at your Master. Instead of a Phase button, there is a Mono/Stereo button.

 

[Sloan]

There's a good example clip of this on the reaper forums [http://stashbox.org/514911/Pan.vs.kill.mp3].

If your just panning mono tracks, like two drum overhead mics, then it will be ok. It's only when you have a stereo sound with both L+R on one track that it makes a difference. I pretty much never record anything stereo to one track so I have never even paid attention to this.

You can use the plugin JS: Utility/chanmix2 to correctly pan stereo tracks in Reaper 3.