Look in the mirror, you have one ear on the left and one ear on the right - so stereo.

 

That's exactly the opposite of what's right..

End or Beginning, doesn't matter,
the fact is when you're Panning in stereo you're screwing up the Mono mix regardless..

The more you Pan a sound/instrument, the lower/weaker it appears on the mono mix.

Pan Law is made to mitigate that effect,
giving the panned sounds a corrective amplification.. the more you pan the more it raises volume.

However that doesn't mean using a pan law will solve the problem automatically,
your is mix is "what you hear", if you adjust things to sound right in stereo using whatever pan law,
you're in effect doing the same thing as panning+adjusting the volume..

So for a similar/equal sounding Stereo mix,
the Mono mix will be roughly the same regardless of pan law used.


-I don't like to bring bad news,
but I think there's no real Solution to this problem, it's just the way it is.

However checking/improving your mix in mono doesn't mean "doing a Perfect mix in mono"..
Why would you do that, just in case somebody listens with the Phone speaker?

Checking your mix in mono, means doing little adjustments,
raising the most-panned sounds just a bit, to make them more discernible in Mono, while still keeping a mostly well balanced Stereo mix.

It's only if your Target media/audience listens exclusively in Mono that you will do the whole mix in Mono.


The only real solution to this problem would be: including Two Mixes,
a regular/universal Stereo mix; and a Mono mix for phone users, when they unplug the headphones/whatever.

Then why not, also Surround/5.1 or Ambisonic mixes if you're working for that target/media too.

But that's 2 or 3 mixes per track, which means double/triple the work,
which is probably not gonna be well remunerated anyway/if at all.. so why bother?


Besides, the only way I know mono summing effects can be mitigated is screwing with M/S panning.
Like reading a Stereo signal in M/S, panning the L and the R channels to the M channel, and collapsing it back to Stereo..
(different options could be tried)

This can mitigate some Pan-Loudness derived effects, but it may introduce Massive Phase problems instead..

 

 

Last edited: Apr 18, 2022