Stereo Pan Free VST Plug-in Jim Hewes

Update: June 13, 2003

Stereo Pan has been updated to v1.1. The only change from the previous version is that gain controls have been added to the stereo inputs.

This version of Stereo Pan is backward compatible with the original version. For example, if you already have automation written to tracks, you can replace the old version with 1.1 and it will work fine.

To confirm that you have the v1.1 file, right click on the file in Explorer and select the "Version" tab. The version should read 1.1.

The first version of Cubase SX lacked a feature that existed in Cubase 5.1. Cubase 5.1 allowed you to freely pan each side of a stereo channel from left to right. However in SX 1, you could not pan one side to the other. The pan control actually only set the relative volume of each side. True, this is the way most hardware mixing boards work. But many people were disappointed at the loss of the Cubase 5.1 pan capability.

To address that problem, I wrote a simple VST plug-in that provides stereo pan similar to Cubase 5.1. This plug-in is meant to plug into an insert on a stereo channel. Later versions of Cubase SX have since fixed the pan issue, so this plug-in is not needed as much. But you may find other uses for it.

Installation:

To install StereoPan, simply place the StereoPan.DLL file into your VST plug-ins folder.

Gain

The left two knobs control gain on the input signal, before it reaches the pan faders. The gain amount ranges from -oo up to +6dB and is displayed to the left of the knobs.

The way a knob is controled depends on how you have knob mode set in the Cubase SX preferences. If knob mode is set to linear, you adjust a knob by clicking and dragging the mouse horizontally or vertically. Then you can hold down the ALT key to control the knob in circular mode. If knob mode is set to circular, you can hold down the ALT key to control the knob in linear mode. Holding down the SHIFT key lets you move the knobs with greater precision. Hold CTRL and click to reset to zero.

Pan Faders

Each stereo side has a fader for controlling pan. The left fader will distribute the left input signal and the right fader the right input signal. The pan position is displayed in the small black window to the left of the fader. A pan position of L64 sends the signal all the way to the left side and R64 sends it all the way to the right. To center the fader, hold down CTRL and click the fader. You can also hold down the SHIFT key while moving the fader for better precision.

Pan Law

When sounds are panned to the center, they tend to sound louder than when they are panned to either side. Pan Law is a way to compensate for this. Stereo Pan supports three different kinds of pan law: 0dB, -3dB, and -6dB. The 0dB setting essentially means that you have pan law turned off. The -3 dB setting means that sounds panned in the center are reduced by 3 dB. The -6 dB setting means that sounds panned in the center are reduced by 6 dB.The -3 dB setting uses a constant power curve based on sin/cos, while other two settings are linear.

Mute

Each channel has a mute button to the right of the fader. When enabled, the button turns yellow and the input signal for that side is muted. Note that this does not mute the output. So, for example, if you have the left side muted and the right side centered, you will still hear something in your left speaker since half of the right input is being sent to the left side.

The mute and unmute actions include a 50-sample ramp to avoid clicks and pops.

Phase Invert ( Inv )

Each channel has a phase invert button ( Inv ) to the right of the mute button. When enabled, the button turns yellow and the input signal for that side is inverted. Note that this inverts the input, not the output.

The phase invert uses a 100-sample ramp to avoid clicks and pops.

Link

Located above the faders is the link button. The link button links (gangs) the two faders together. This is useful if you want to set up the stereo width first and then move it across the stereo field to set a position. When the link button is enabled it turns yellow. Then, moving one fader will cause the other fader to follow.

Automation

All parameters in Stereo Pan can be automated.

Automation can be a bit confusing when you take into account the link button. When you write automation, automation only gets written for the control that you are touching with the mouse. Therefore, if you have link enabled and you are moving the left side fader, automation will only be written to the left side. If you playback that track (with automation read enabled) with link disabled, only the left side will move since only the left side has automation events. But if you playback that track with link enabled, the right side will follow the left as you recorded it.

Things can get a bit hairy if you have left and right fader automation going in contrary ways and you have link enabled. In this case, the last fader event will take control and the other fader will follow it. So you may get some crazy behavior. But this will only happen if you write two different fader curves and then enable link afterwords. There really is no logcal way to avoid that situation.

Version 1.0

If you really didn't need the gain controls and liked the previous version 1.0 of StereoPan better, or if you're having trouble with 1.1, you can still download version 1.0 here:

Disclaimer

Ok, I just have to say this for the record. Stereo Pan is provided as is, free of charge, with no guarantees. I am not responsible for any problems you have as a result of using the Stereo Pan plug-in. I provide no support. If you discover any bugs in Stereo Pan, feel free to send me an email and I'll try to fix it.