How About a Pan Setting for Stereo O/P 1&2 in 'Mic Settings'

Well, you decide which outputs are used, just by assigning how much of which microphone will be routed to which output, by how much. So Out 1 is left, Out 2 is right, and others would use your rear left, rear right and center speaker, if you have a surround system. Or something like that. There's no need for a pan control because you're in direct control of things.

For recording an acoustic grand piano, the mics would be mono, and their placement and channel routing would be set to produce the desired sound.

This is pretty well what we have now in Pianoteq, and it seems to suit the piano - perhaps not an orchestra, but it suits the piano very well.

The little panning circles are quite common in software (the software  I use has them), but I've always thought they were a bit "mickey mouse" (the software writers didn't know what else to do).

I found the Pianoteq method awkward at first because I was accustomed to the circles, but soon discovered that individual mics offer far more control.

I use three mics, two of them located on either side of the pianist's head, the third directly over the centre of the soundboard just under the lid to get presence.  The fourth mic is set about 4 metres off the floor, and about 8 metres away from the piano on the right side.  Panning circles would be useless in this case.

Glenn

grammar edited 01oct09

My point was more to do with routing from within the Pianoteq interface.  There are two scenarios here:-

1. Standalone.  In my case I don't (nor ever will in all likelyhood) use surround, so only outputs 1 & 2 - stereo left & right - are available to me.  (Glenn NK - I mentioned circles in regard to surround mixing, not for stereo mixing.  Cubase uses a bar that you move a line within which also gives a visual indication where the sound is between your speakers, which could be used here too.)

Coming from an audio engineering background I have only ever had mics come in on a mono channel, & used one fader and one pan to place the sound in the stereo picture.

In Pianoteq it's as if the mic has been split into 2 channels, already panned left and right.  I now have to use the volumes of both channels to place the mic sound between my two speakers, which means a lot of mousing to switch between the o/p 1 & 2, then moving the faders.  And if it's too loud or soft I have move them one by one again, bit by bit.

I just don't find this quick or intuitive way of placing the mics in the stereo of my monitors.

2. Plugin. You're right RepeatChorus (nice name!) that within Cubase I can choose to route the mics to the outputs (1 to 1, 2 to 2, etc) and utilize the pan & volume from the cubase mixer, which is indeed very cool that Pianoteq allows me to do this.

But then I can't save that in the preset for another tune in another song.  And most times I want to start with a nice preset and later maybe flip it over to work in cubase on all 5 ouputs for details on each mic.

So I prefer to have the option of working with the stereo ouput even in Cubase.  My EZ Drummer has this sort of functionality too, for either stereo or multi ouputs within Cubase, which is fantastic.  But it has a very nice, simple but effective mixer desk within it's own interface.

http://www.toontrack.com/images/product...t2_big.jpg

greets, Luke

Don't know but it doesn't help if I want to play it as a standalone.

Luke:

Yes, I see what you mean with both the left and right channels activated with each mic, panning could be messy.

I only use either left or right activation for each mic - this way, they are truly mono microphones, and I can choose the level, timing and channel for each one.

I only do solo piano - with the piano "front and centre", so panning is a bit meaningless for me.  Using multiple mics gives me some semblance of "surround sound" even with reverb off.

If there were other instruments, I would likely use the same recording setup for the piano, and then pan the various instruments into their own space.

Glenn

Etto:

Yes, of course a mono mic is always a mono source.  Two mono sources spaced some distance apart will yield a stereo sound if one mic is routed to the left channel, and the other to the right channel.

I adjust mic one so its channel one output is maximum and its channel two output is zero; and do the opposite with mic two (in fact I use four mics this way).  What this does in effect is pan mic one hard left, and mic two hard right.

There are limitless combinations in between these two extremes.  It's just that there isn't one slider or one panpot for each mic, there are two.

With a single panpot or slider, when one channel volume is raised, the other goes down - the relative volumes are predetermined.

In Pianoteq, I can adjust both channels independently - although much more complex than a single slider, isn't this an advantage?

Glenn

Hi Guys,

You can partially work around this by assigning a midi controller, say 100,
to the "left" and "right" of the same mic, but with reverse ranges.
So for instance, in midi mapping table you should have:

Controller 100 | Any | Mic[1].Level[1] | Off | +6.00
Controller 100 | Any | Mic[1].Level[2] | +6.00 | Off

Then you could do this for each of the other 4 mics, say with controllers 101 - 104 ...

The downside of this is that although it gives you the panning effect, it won't let you control the overall volume of mic1 between the two outputs (in this case it is fixed to +6.00).

Perhaps, dear Modartt, it would be cool if we had a little more abstract controller mapping.
For instance, say i'd like to control with controller 99 the overall volume of mic1, then we could add "variable parameters", say "m1v", assign contoller 99 to "m1v". And then have controller 100 control the panning, so assign it to "m1p". It is enough to have such variables always be floating numbers between 0.00 and 1.00, so the range should be fixed e.g.:

Controller 99 | Any | "m1v" | (0.00) | (1.00)
Controller 100 | Any | "m1p" | (0.00) | (1.00)

Now we "map" Mic1[1].Level[1] and Mic[2].Level[2] to expressions.
-- | Any | Mic[1].Level[1] | Off | m1v*m1p*6.00
-- | Any | Mic[1].Level[2] | m1v*(1-m1p)*6.00 | Off

Implicitly this means that both these parameters are mapped to controllers 99 and 100, via the variables of the expressions.
Of course it requires supporting arbitrary expressions...

By the way,
I've recently setup my Korg nanokontrol to have some knobs mapped to multi-parameters with different ranges. E.g. I have a "brightness" knob that controls the 3 "hammer hardness" parameters in different ranges:
Min : 0.19 - 0.35, Medium: 0.36-1.20, Max: 1.10-1.80.

I have another knob that controls "distortion", by simultaenously:
raising the volume from 0db to 12db,
raising the limiter sharpness from 1.00 to 2.00,
lowering the limiter threshold from -12.00 to -25.00
lowering the limiter gain from 0 to -9.00db

...

I drifted "a bit" to the controller mapping features... perhaps it should be on another thread. But let me suggest some GUI enhancement in the current domain:

Already we see that in the microphone matrix, we can select multiple cells, and then the "level" and "delay" sliders affect all of them simultaneously.
A simple enhancement would be that we could make simultaneous "positive" and "negative" selections, say by right or left mouse buttons respectively, so that the sliders have a reverse effect on the negative selections.
You could use different highlight colors for the cells (say - positive "green", negative "red").
Then the user could select two cells - the mic output 1 level - positive, and mic output2 level as negative. Now the "level" slider acts temporarily as a pan slider ...

How about it?
-- Eran

Yeah, too bad he didn't use the EDIT function to edit his posts, instead of multiposting. =

Etto & Etalmor, you get my reasoning.   Etto's description is perhaps a better way of what I was trying to describe.  Sometimes so difficult to explain what's physically infront of you!

Etto - 2. A "stereo out" option could be added so, if activated, a panpot control could replace the "single output per mic volume" sliders being the only possible outputs 1&2

Yep.  As new option is great.  I fully understand that the current setup is very useful as is too. 

3. A "true space" stereo option would be fantastic letting the user choose only mic and listener positions and letting PTQ calculate right pan, volume,EQ and delay for every mic activated

I started having ideas about this when I was writing the last post, but didn't add it as It wasn't clear in my head, but you hit the nail on the you-know-what!

My though process was actually to show two speakers in the corners of the virtual piano room, and where the mics were placed was where they would be heard from
the listener's perspective.  Now it dawns on me from your comment, Etto, that one could even move the piano in the space!  No need for 4 people, just a mouse click to move the grand, ha!
------------

Etalmor, good call, & lots of ideas.  I've got a korg nanocontrol (actually all 3 - they're fun & good), so I'll give you method a try.  I see you point about volume though, and your idea of offsets, and that would definitely work, if the system stayed the same.

But if Modartt added the stereo option & with midi controller values, we'd be clear out of the woods and mixing without even looking at the screen.  Playing piano & tweaking the nanoKontrol for intuitive placement of the mics' vol & pan  - ah, Manna from Heaven.

Thoughts please!

Luke