Panning law for TV

[antonis]

Hey all,

I used to have panning law at -3dB at the work place but I am starting to find -4.5dB a really happy compromise when checking mixes in mono. Any wise input from you experienced lot?

[Brandonx1]

How does the pan law effect the mono mix down? Seems like -4.5 is too much down in the center and will take more effort to get the stereo mom aging right.

[Postman]

Unless you are doing a lot of pan movement within your mixes, it probably does not matter which pan law you use. A -6db center works best for stereo to mono mixdown. When a stereo mix is combined to mono, center-panned sound increases by 6db relative to hard left/right. SSL (for one) used -6 panpots on some of their boards. Panning left to right, in the mono downmix, should sound perfectly even. But the same within the stereo mix, monitored in stereo, may not sound perfectly even.

-3db has become a standard these days because when listening to your speakers, you can pan a mono signal anywhere between L-C-R, with or without divergence, and experience about the same volume from that sound at any moment. It has an unfortunate compromise of uneven mixdowns. -4.5 would seem a good compromise between those two but is not common because it does not satisfy either mixdown compatibility or smooth audible pans (in my opinion).

-3db is the default used by broadcasters, set top box, and television sets when automatically downmixing a surround signal to stereo (or perhaps mono is some rare case). I would recommend you stay with -3db if you want to know how those devices will treat your surround mixes when playing your mix through the pair of built in tv speakers. If you are creating your own mixdowns, then use whatever you wish!