what's louder? mono or stereo?

A

acetheface954

Active member
hello ladies and gents. you know how sounds "seem" as if they get quieter when you pan them hard left or right? well doing this forces my hand to reach for that gain fader. is the panned sound already loud enough at that point or is it a must to give it more gain because i want my stuff to sound good even on mono devices such as smartphones and their ridiculous tiny speaker. stuff that gets panned out just don't seem as loud as monophonic sounds. assistance please.


PROGRESSIVE HOUSE, ELECTRO HOUSE, HIP HOP
 
Except that the iso-phon curves are about absolute judgements of perceived loudness at specific frequencies across the Human hearing spectrum, not spatial judgements, which is the thing under discussion here.

Both Hollandturbine and Chirs Carter have recently written (and I agree with them) that a mono track simply has both sides of a stereo image using the same audio - one side is panned hard left, the other is panned hard right.

Because of this arrangement, the panning power laws relating to stereo placement come in to play

  1. equal power (0db),
  2. +3db,
  3. +6db

Essentially this says that when a stereo track is panned center we perceive both channels as having one of the three power curves. I set most of my daws so that it is equal-power, avoiding issues of perceived lumps in the panning field.

If your daw is set to either of the other power laws, then you will perceive a drop off in audio power and attempt to compensate by increasing the channel fader by either 3db or 6db (depends on which panning law is play)......

Solutions:
  1. Adjust your daws panning laws to equal power
  2. understand that the cause is related to panning power laws and adjust channel gain carefully to compensate for the panning law at play in your daw.
 
Last edited:
bandcoach said:
Except that the iso-phon curves are about absolute judgements of perceived loudness at specific frequencies across the Human hearing spectrum, not spatial judgements, which is the thing under discussion here.

Both Hollandturbine and Chirs Carter have recently written (and I agree with them) that a mono track simply has both sides of a stereo image using the same audio - one side is panned hard left, the other is panned hard right.

Because of this arrangement, the panning power laws relating to stereo placement come in to play

  1. equal power (0db),
  2. +3db,
  3. +6db

Essentially this says that when a stereo track is panned center we perceive both channels as having one of the three power curves. I set most of my daws so that it is equal-power, avoiding issues of perceived lumps in the panning field.

If your daw is set to either of teh other power laws, then you will perceive a drop off in audio power and attempt to compensate by increasing the channel fader by either 3db or 6db (depends on which panning law is play)......

Solutions:
  1. Adjust your daws panning laws to equal power
  2. understand that the cause is related to panning power laws and adjust channel gain carefully to compensate for the panning law at play in your daw.
Click to expand...

Wow. I have read this quote for quite some time now and am still yet to grasp knowing what i am not getting.
 
If something is not clear , ask !
BandCoach is a really nice guy (very intelligent too) , I am sure he will be glad to help you .
 
Foggy said:
If something is not clear , ask !
BandCoach is a really nice guy (very intelligent too) , I am sure he will be glad to help you .
Click to expand...

Well hopefully he'll speak on this some more but i think what he's saying is the master gain fader should be at 0db which mine is.
 
Any room you mix in has a sweet spot - this is usually where the sum of the sounds arriving at that spot is greater than 0db. In an acoustic setting this can be as much as a 6db boost in perceived loudness. Move either to the left or the right of the sweet spot and the perceived loudness drops by 6db (thats by a factor of 4).

Most designers of DAWs make use of the sweet spot theory and allow a 6db or 3db fs boost when a stereo channel is panned to the center of the mix environment. Moving it either side of center results in a 3db or 6db drop - (factor of 2 or factor 4).

They are referred to as panning laws as this is where we most often see them implemented in panning algorithms... which attempt to counter the sweetspto problem by boosting the left and right extremeties by between 3db and 4.5db and setting the center as 0dbfs: Pan law - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

So reading back my response, I see some flaws.

the panning laws are meant to counteract the sweetspot theory, not enhance it, however most daws seem to do the opposite, however, when I read my daw manuals, for the most part, I get told the exact opposite.

So the theory is that we should reduce power or set it s as 0dbfs in the center and increase it at the extreme left and right by as much 4.5dbfs,

at this point my flu is making me think that I've got it wqrong I'll check this again when my head hurts less....
 
Last edited:
bandcoach said:
Any room you mix in has a sweet spot - this is usually where the sum of the sounds arriving at that spot is greater than 0db. In an acoustic setting this can be as much as a 6db boost in perceived loudness. Move either to the left or the right of the sweet spot and the perceived loudness drops by 6db (thats by a factor of 4).

Most designers of DAWs make use of the sweet spot theory and allow a 6db or 3db fs boost when a stereo channel is panned to the center of the mix environment. Moving it either side of center results in a 3db or 6db drop - (factor of 2 or factor 4).

They are referred to as panning laws as this is where we most often see them implemented in panning algorithms... which attempt to counter the sweetspto problem by boosting the left and right extremeties by between 3db and 4.5db and setting the center as 0dbfs: Pan law - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

So reading back my response, I see some flaws.

the panning laws are meant to counteract the sweetspot theory, not enhance it, however most daws seem to do the opposite, however, when I read my daw manuals, for the most part, I get told the exact opposite.

So the theory is that we should reduce power or set it s as 0dbfs in the center and increase it at the extreme left and right by as much 4.5dbfs,

at this point my flu is making me think that I've got it wqrong I'll check this again when my head hurts less....
Click to expand...

lol i hope you feel better brother. and i think you just opened me up with this one. it just clicked in my head.
 
is there still such a problem? Wow. There are exceptions, though. There's a Panning law that deal with the problem of sounds becoming quieter when they are panned
 
AdeBeats said:
is there still such a problem? Wow. There are exceptions, though. There's a Panning law that deal with the problem of sounds becoming quieter when they are panned
Click to expand...

damn right its a problem lol. see i mix in mono and i noticed that whenever i pan something out the signal becomes faint once i slap a mono effect on the master. my problem was that i wasn't giving the sound any gain. i would just leave it causing it to sound quieter than it should after the entire mix has gone through the stereo stage.
 
A panned sound can still be monophonic, in fact by definition panning relates to mono. Balance relates to stereo.
Panning reduces the acoustic output of the L/R speaker system so you it will drop in level unless compensated for.

cheers

SafeandSound Mastering
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