hey friend chris fehn driver here from white logic pool rules calm the website that helps you get the most you can out of Apple's Logic Pro 10 today we're gonna dig into pan laws because pan laws are something that get users very excited there's a lot of controversy around them and when a user finally stumbles across the pan law options in logic and they start to change the different laws they believe that they're hearing their mix getting wider or narrower they think that there's like a stereo width change that's going on so let's unpack pan laws so you know exactly what's going on under the hood of logic so you don't have to worry about when these conversations crop up and folks are you know contending Cubase has a better pan law or Pro Tools or whatever first things first let's just think about what a pan law probably has to do with there's some sort of adjustment that occurs when we're panning our tracks from the center to the hard right or to the hard left when we pan ur tracks from hard left too hard right and to the center we don't expect there to be any sort of volume difference right you just imagine the same volume but to the left or to the right or anywhere in between to demonstrate this let's take a listen to a drum loop that I have here I made sure to adjust the gain of the drum loop so it hits exactly at zero and I've just put a game plug-in on the stereo output to accommodate for this boost in volume so we're not clipping just watch the peak meter tag right here for the peak level as I play this small section of this drum loop [Music] okay so it's negative zero point zero meaning it's at zero decibels okay so now what happens if I hard pan this track to the left keep watching this peak value okay to the right and now I'm gonna pan from left to right and just pay attention perceptually where is the volume of the track how do you feel the volume of the track is [Music] to my ears it seems like the track is at the same volume it's at a consistent volume from left to right right to left but yet we know that the hard left and hard right signals are three decibels louder then when we pan the track to the center what gives well in this case we need to go to file project settings down to audio and then in the general tab here in the audio project settings we can see pan law- 3 DB compensated okay so keep this in mind when the track is in the centre it's at zero once hard left and hard right it's 3 decibels louder okay so let's now move on to pan law at zero decibels and let's just play our loop and then we'll dissect okay it's at zero as we expect it to be let me now hard pan to the right keep watching this peak value okay so the hard right is at zero presumably the hard left is at zero as well okay so now let's start panning from Center to left to the right and back and forth just by listening it sounds like that our drum loop here as it gets closer to the center it gets louder and when we hard pan further to the left and to the right the volume drops on our track no it's not really possible for the volume to drop right because they're all at the same volume it's negative zero point zero it's a perceptual thing but what's going on is is a perceptual change in volume though it's the same volume when we hard pan we perceive it as being quieter so let's hear that again this goes hand-in-hand with what I was explaining earlier we don't really expect the volume to change as we're panning from left to right we expect in a consistent volume and it is a consistent volume but the problem is is that the perception is is that the volume is changing that's what's going on right now okay so let's now change from a pan law of zero DB 2 negative 3 dB set this to the center and let's watch the value right here well it's kind of weird now we're at negative 3 let's let's hard pan to the right and now we're at negative zero point zero the hard right is at the same volume as if we were at zero DB for a pan law but we're at negative 3 what's now hard pan left to right again so with the pan law of negative 3 GB what's happening is is that when we have the track pan to the center logic is compensating for this perceptual difference by reducing the volume of our tracks when they're panned to the center by 3 decibels so this means that they are perceptually equal from left to right but perhaps you don't want your tracks to be reduced in volume when they're in the center you want 0 to mean zero and not zero to me negative 3 well in that case we have a pan law of negative 3 DB compensated this is a different sort of compensation that we first explored at the beginning of the video instead of the centrally placed tracks being reduced by negative 3 DB they're actually left at 0 DB so zero means zero instead as our tracks move from the hard left to the hard right the signal is boosted by three decibels is it makes sense because when a track is straight down the center we expect zero to mean zero but as we move a track from left to right we don't necessarily scrutinize the volume I would think as much so it's a different sort of compensation and one that logic defaults to so again let's play this loop and let's move this to the hard left to the hard right and let's pan between so it's a different type of compensation and frankly I think it's fine at the default I don't need to adjust this at all I want my track to stay perceptually at the same volume and that the default pan law of negative 3 DB compensated our track stay at the same perceptual volume now again that doesn't mean that the volume doesn't change the volume is changing to compensate but our perception as we listen to these signals remains consistent so when a user decides to adjust the pan law and they're listening in the context of a whole mix they believe that their mix is getting wider or narrower based on the pan law what's actually happening is the volume is being adjusted across the mix so any tracks panned are going to experience a change in volume any tracks in the center will experience a change in volume and so it's not really stereo with expanding or contracting it's just volume changes across your mix and honestly changing the pan law is not going to change the way you mix because the pan law might be different but as you mix and record you're gonna still make the same decisions perceptually but the pan law changes are not going to change your mix in a way that makes your track wider or narrower and we can also apply pan law compensation to stereo balancers so this is a stereo track that I made mono if I switch it to stereo apply pan law compensation okay let's play this again you see a tiny change moving the stereo so I'm going to bring this 10.8 and since a stereo pan knob is actually a balance knob to start with if I move this to the right [Music] the pan law is applied to the right side and left side of the signal we're not panning at the moment we're just deciding how much of the left or right signal we actually want to hear [Music] that perceptual change is not adjusted for the balance knob so again pan laws are something that users like to get really excited about and interrogate and you know make it a really controversial idea all a pan law really is is a compensation of volume of the center versus the hard left the hard right and everywhere in between the default pan law of negative 3 DB compensated exists so that you and I don't perceive a difference in volume as we're panning our tract from left to right that's it I hope that was helpful for you as always if it was I highly suggest subscribing to the YouTube channel why logical rules are subscribing on the website itself why la jeepers rules calm every week I'm posting new videos new emails new posts to help you get the most you can out of Apple's Logic Pro 10 thanks so much