Stereo Width & Panning
🕑 Added 2022-06-21 15:01:02 +0000 UTCHey Everyone,
I recorded a video with a bunch of tips and tricks for stereo width and panning. I wasn't planning for it to be an hour but that's how long it took to cover all the useful info: I go over ways to pan creatively in Drum Rack, Diva, Repro, and Wavetable as well as tips with Echo, Echoboy, Microshift, Auto Pan, and Reverb, plus many other cool techniques. Hopefully this will really open your eyes to the most effective ways to achieve stereo width! Feel free to ask any questions below.
Note: I was incorrect on what some of the Wavetables modes do so I've pasted the definitions below. Some of them act with more than one specific mechanism which explains why they all react a little bit differently but retain a similarly chorused sound (from the detuning or wavetable offset). At the end of the day its always useful to audition all of them and pick which you like best for that specific wavetable / sound.
- Classic: the oscillators are detuned with equal spacing and panned to alternating stereo channels.
- Shimmer: the oscillator pitches are jittered at random intervals, giving a shimmering reverb-like effect. A small amount of wavetable offset is also applied for extra fullness.
- Noise: pitches are jittered as in the Shimmer unison mode, but at a much faster rate, resulting in noisy breathy textures. A small amount of wavetable offset is applied for extra fullness.
- Phase Sync: the oscillators are detuned as in Classic unison mode, but the phases are synced when a note is started giving a strong sweeping phaser-style effect.
- Position spread: the wavetable positions for each oscillator are evenly spread out by an amount. A small amount of detune is additionally applied for extra width.
- Random note: the wavetable positions and detune amount for each oscillator are randomised each time a note is started.
P.S. Now knowing exactly what Position Spread does, I'm inclined to find some really weird wavetables with drastic differences within their range, import them into Wavetable and see how it treats them...
Comments
Michael
I know most of the prophet series has a pan spread knob
I love Voice Map on Diva. I usually use it on the filter section, mainly cutoff and resonance. Never thought of using it on panning, it's dope. Immediately came to mind the main arp on Patrice Baumel's Dead End Thrills remix, probably was made by doing something similar. Are there any hardware modular synths capable of doing this or is this only a vst feature? Excellent class btw, thanks for sharing!
Didn't know about the transient mono compatibility of the Haas effect. That was super interesting! Loving these little masterclasses