Panning left to right

Special Interest Groups Audio Processing
1

First, if this is the wrong area to post this, please bounce it appropriately. :slight_smile:
I have been looking for info re: panning an audio track, say a single guitar on it’s own track, from left to right. Then eventually fading from what ever side its on back to center.
No image to post, but I hope this text gives a good representation:
(LGTR=Guitar panned left)
(RGTR=Guitar panned right)
(CGTR=Guitar panned center)

CGTR=>LGTR=>CGTR=>RGTR=>CGTR
So, center to left, gradual pan from left through center to right, then back to center.
This of course might occur in a time space of 5 seconds to a minute … or whatever.

What I have done before with some success is to duplicate the guitar track twice giving a total of 3. 1 track will be panned left, 1 center and 1 right.
These tracks are “stacked”, left on top, center in the middle and right on the bottom for ease of function. I’ll first use the envelope tool to “quiet” down the left track to where I want it to come in, then gradually “enlarge” it to meet up with the center and off. Then with the right, pick up where the center and left fade out. Make sense?
Although this does work to some degree, it is time consuming and very cumbersome. Not to mention increasing the project file size. LOL

Any thoughts and information would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

M

2

For the manual method (very similar to what you are currently doing) you can use just 2 mono tracks.
(This is all for Audacity 1.3.10 - if you are still using the 1.2.6 or an old 1.3.x version I would recommend that you update).

Start with 1 mono track and Normalize/Amplify to 0dB
Duplicate the track (Ctrl+D)
Click on the name of the track and from the drop down menu set one track to “Left” and the other to “Right”.
Use the Envelope tool to bring each track down to half level.
When both tracks are at the same level the sound will be centre.

Using the Envelope tool you can increase the level of one track and decrease the level of the other to effect a pan from one side to the other.
(Optional) you can select both tracks and use “Mix and Render” from the Tracks menu.

For “automatic” panning you will find some plug-ins that may assist here: http://audacityteam.org/download/nyquistplugins