Surround Panner

[Devin Sheets]

Does anyone else notice that when using the mono to surround panner, if the diversity is 0.0 and you move the source around 360 degrees, the volume does not remain constant. Its because the pan law for each adjacent pair of speakers in the surround panner is not functioning like a traditional stereo panner does. Also, when you take a source and move it from a diversity of 0.0 to a diversity of 1.0, the volume isn't constant either... it only compensates 3dB, when it really should be more like 7.5dB for five speakers. I want to be working in an intuitive 5.1 environment, and this panner is really bugging me.

Any suggestions?

The attached document is a test I did to prove the technicalities of what I was hearing...

 

[jlproductions]

What are you? Some kind of genius or something? Very interesting - from projects past I can say that indeed you are right about perceived volume and I am about to go into a surround mix and will check this out. However if they changed it to this 7.5 db thing wouldn't it totally mess up the stereo imaging which is all important still when mixing in surround? In my experience every surround setup is totally different sounding in terms of the rear speakers and therefore one needs to be cautious making any kind of assumptions about how 'loud' something is going to be perceived in the rears - if you follow my drift...One better make sure the stereo from the front is 'correct'...it's complicated that is for sure...
jamie

 

[alienimplant]

This is a fascinating thread to me. I know there are third-party surround pan plugins, but I don't know much about them. I wonder if they were created in part to combat this kind of concern. This is just my knee-jerk response to an interesting question.