Pana is a sophisticated stereo tool designed to let you do more elegant, natural audio positioning than what regular balance panning might accomplish.
Panning an audio signal can be done in several ways, where the most common is to alter the volume on one channel. This is a CPU efficient way (and many times the best) to achieve a sense of positioned audio. Almost every DAW and mixing console have this feature built-in.
Another way is to add a short delay to one of the channels – the Haas method. This renders a richer sound, but can also make a sound come off as somewhat unnatural.
A more elegant way is to apply a low pass filter to one of the channels. This maintains the audio energy on both channels, but at the same time makes it sound positioned.
This works very well on transient rich sounds like drums or other percussive instruments.
Pana uses both the delaying and filtering methods in combination, to achieve a more natural positioning. This makes Pana a very versatile tool for most types of sounds – and having these features in one plug-in makes for a great mixing experience. To top it all off, there’s also a crossover filter that makes it possible to leave the low end frequencies completely untouched, letting the bass remain wholly centered.
Features
Size – Adjusts micro delay times to emulate the size of a person’s head.
Rolloff – Sets the steepness and frequency of the opposite channel’s filter (if panned left, the right channel will be filtered).
Pan knob – Sets the panning amount and shows the output levels. Note that this parameter is like a macro of Rolloff and Size, and a maximum panning value will process the opposite channel’s audio stream with the set values in Rolloff and Size.
Crossover – The level of the internal frequency splitter. Frequencies below the selected value will remain unprocessed.
Stereo button – Press and hold for mono checks.
Pan lock – Locks the pan amount when browsing and loading presets.
Correlation
- All to the right (green): Left and right signals are in phase.
- Middle: Wide stereo.
- All to the left (red): Indication of possible phase issues.
Works standalone as well as an AUv3 plug-in compatible with any AUv3 compliant host such as Garageband, AUM, Cubasis, Beatmaker 3, Auria etc.