(Another) Question Regarding Logic's Pan Law

Question

Hello, everyone. Just as I thought my previous pan law thread absolutely exhausted every possible question that could be asked on Logic's PL, another one popped up, albiet this one seems much more easilly addressed (or so I hope):
When Logic's PL is set, and you bounce a track, will the resulting bounced file when listened to OUTSIDE of Logic (i.e. on its own) be heard WITH the pan law or without the pan law? In other words, if I bounce the track on a -3dB PL, where my center signal is -3dB lower than my left and right signal, will I then hear the bounced track when played outside of Logic with the -3dB lowered middle? or will I hear it with the center signal a little louder now?
The reason I ask this is because if the latter scenario is the case (i.e. Logic's PL gets ignored when the bounced track is listened to outside of Logic) - which, incidentally, might just be the case given that some tracks I bounced and then listened to seemed to be a little louder in the middle than I rememebered them being - then what on earth is the purpose of the pan law itself?? If the PL only exists and functions so long as you're in the vaccume of Logic, then that obviously won't work because it doesn't apply OUTSIDE of Logic, and, consequently, gives you inacurate mixes.
Ugh . . .
Thank you everyone for your responses in advance . . .
And I promise this thread won't be as long as the last one.
Javier Calderon
Message was edited by: Javier72
Message was edited by: Javier72
Message was edited by: Javier72

Answer 1

Hi,
So then to hear back how a -3dB PL bounce sounds in Logic, you have to listen to it with the PL readjusted to 0 dB, correct? otherwise Logic will add another PL to the track that was already bounced with the PL on it . . .
This statement is incorrect. If you playback a single Stereo file in Logic, and do nothing to it pan-wise, it will come out sounding exactly the same as the mutlitrack.
You need to really understand why Pan Law even came to be.
Back in the analogue hardware days of yore, there were some engineers that had issues with certain resistive pots which were chosen for panoramic control of a mono sound source on a stereo mixer.
They invented a system, for their particular board, whereby a "panoramic" pot would be fed by TWO versions of the same signal, instead of one signal. This cause the center to be about 3dB LOUDER than the hard left and right, because, when you add the same signal in a mixer twice, generally you get a total gain of 3dB.
So, they did some fancy pantsy calculations and figure out they could add RESISTORS to these two equal signals, and bring down that center by 3dB. The side effect became that when you panned hard left or roght, you were now getting 3dB LESS signal at those panoramic positions.
When DAW's came along, they orignally did not behave like their analogue mixer counterparts. they mostly were set to 0 pan law, meaning the center would be louder. After much complaining by the audio industry some companies changed this, some with options, like eMagic Logic, and some simply changed it period (ProTools).
So now you have the option to have your DAW behave more like an analogue desk, or not. the option is entirely up to you. although, if you want to mix music and have it sound like older, analogue recordings, you should choose -3dB.
Cheers