Pan Knob by Boz Digital Labs with intro offer

[Omkar]

With a $10 intro offer on Oct 18-31
https://www.bozdigitallabs.com/product/pan-knob/

Boz comes with latest creation Pan Knob

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGNY29iJqpo

which admittedly leaves me with some question marks
and I thought it may makes sense to have a public debate.

Most obvious:
If the implemented "X-Over" equals to a "Mono-Maker"
doesn`t instruments sum up at given freq in the center?

In Boz` example alone it means 2x guitars with a summed centered low
and taken further instruments into a mix I`m not sure if I`d go this route in general
at least not without a healthy M/S check.

Is there a difference to plugins with a Mono-Maker?
I could use Klanghelm VUMT Deluxe for example as I use VUMT daily.

[MogwaiBoy]

Haven't watched the video but read the description. Very simple plugin - nothing unique, BUT... Boz take exceptional consideration to signal quality (internal processing / noisefloor etc) so at a guess I would say that it's a step up from your regular DAW mix channel pan. Usually you have to go menu diving to change pan laws and stuff anyway. Curious about the 120% pan.

In terms of mono-making, Mongoose is my favourite compared to all others I've tested (Tokyo Dawn, Brainworx, Fabfilter sidechannel HPF etc) so I trust Boz in this area of frequency splitting

As for mono-making dual panned instruments like guitars... I dunno, it seems kinda unorthodox. I guess as long as you keep it really low (the sub area) it should be fine, any cancellation has already happened in the process.. it may auto-compensate for that?

[Bouroki]

These go to 120%

[Burillo]

Boz take exceptional consideration to signal quality (internal processing / noisefloor etc) so at a guess I would say that it's a step up from your regular DAW mix channel pan.

sorry, but that just cannot be true. panning is essentially floating point multiplication (or multiplication and addition if you're doing stereo panning). there aren't a lot of ways to do it, and even less ways to do it incorrectly. i also don't think panning can get any more convenient than using a DAW fader, and i'm sure you don't go around changing pan laws enough times for it to matter whether it's in a submenu or in a plugin.

[Tronam]

It's true that nothing is more convenient than the built-in DAW fader, but none of them tend to sound like this when panning. It kind of reminds me of Logic's binaural panner at modest settings. Is it *only* centering the low end below the x-over, or is there also some slight delay being introduced to enhance it? I'd like to know what the slope is for the x-over. Experimenting with sub-millisecond delays and high frequency cuts on one of the L/R channels can create some very interesting stereo effects.

[plexuss]

I believe that what Pan Knob does is similar to other cross-over solutions for more pleasing headphone listening. For example Goodhertz Canopener Studio which crosses each channel over a bit to the other, in simple terms. This "moves" the audio image from directly beside the head to a bit in front of it, simulating the experience from speakers. I use it and it works well. The way this is done in practice can determine how real and natural it sounds.

One caveat with using this during mixing is you essentially burn "headphone listening" into the track. Although you can still listen to it on speakers it will suffer artifacts from the cross-over.

I'd advise against it unless you are fully aware of the implications and that is your intent.

[Aloysius]

No. It keeps the signal below the threshold in mono and pans the signal above the threshold.

[cprompt]

In the Youtube video, someone asks if this is the same as Mongoose, and Boz replies

Yes, the idea came from Mongoose. Same idea, but instead of putting it on a bus, you use it on each track, and you can set your xover to be whatever you want for each track. If you use a normal pan knob and put Mongoose on the bus after, the effect is the same.

So if you own Mongoose (which Boz gave away for free some years ago when he used to do that sort of thing), you can just use that instead after the pans.

[Burillo]

In the Youtube video, someone asks if this is the same as Mongoose, and Boz replies

Yes, the idea came from Mongoose. Same idea, but instead of putting it on a bus, you use it on each track, and you can set your xover to be whatever you want for each track. If you use a normal pan knob and put Mongoose on the bus after, the effect is the same.

So if you own Mongoose (which Boz gave away for free some years ago when he used to do that sort of thing), you can just use that instead after the pans.

that's my thought as well - why would i use a pan plugin when i can use regular DAW pan and mono-ize on the bus? i mean, yeah, different crossovers, but really? does that make enough of a difference to matter?

[cprompt]

that's my thought as well - why would i use a pan plugin when i can use regular DAW pan and mono-ize on the bus? i mean, yeah, different crossovers, but really? does that make enough of a difference to matter?

Simpler with just one plugin perhaps? But yeah, it's not a problem that I've needed fixing, even for $10. I'll chuck Mongoose on the guitar buss and see how that goes.

[Burillo]

that's my thought as well - why would i use a pan plugin when i can use regular DAW pan and mono-ize on the bus? i mean, yeah, different crossovers, but really? does that make enough of a difference to matter?

Simpler with just one plugin perhaps?

i agree, it's simpler with just one plugin meaning, instead of sticking the "pan knob" plugin on every track and bypassing DAW pan pots altogether (and losing out on usability), i'll just put ONE plugin on the bus and be done with it.

[cfanyc]

Mongoose is so much more powerful because
it centers the low frequency band and allows for
a variable manipulation of the stereo width rather than summing to mono
or leaving the original stereo width intact (as the new plugin seems to be doing).

Also: for those who say that you can do what Pan Knob does with a daw,
it is true but the amount of work over multiple tracks is very taxing because
you have to set up subtracks for low and hi, split each track using
appropriate (transparent) filters, and then apply stereo manipulation tools
for each and every track than needs this treatment.

[DJMaytag]

More smaller devs should do little simple utilities like this. $10 was a no-brainer for a useful tool for something like panning toms around a bit.

Re: using your DAW’s panner & monoizing. If you’re targeting a 150hz crossover for everything below that to be mono, you still have a lot of sounds in the 150-400 range that you’re going to hear out of both speakers, regardless of position on the soundstage... and Boz’s pan plugin addresses that issue while DAW’s channel pan controls just reduce volume from side to side.

If I’m wrong in my understanding, well... worst case scenario is that I just wasted $10.

[dna_studios]

No. It keeps the signal below the threshold in mono and pans the signal above the threshold.

PK pans above the crossover, and leaves what's below the crossover as is. So, in the case of a stereo track, the audio will remain stereo below the crossover. There's no mono-making going on.

[Aloysius]

^ Interesting. I stand corrected.