A sneaky trick FL Studio uses to fool you

[@katamari_]

im just glad dylan is alive again

[@almedat2694]

He’s and Undead he can’t die

[@redbones5156]

More vids like this please I love learning about what goes on behind the scenes on fl, any way I can learn more?

[@DylanTallchief]

I'm not sure there's a good resource other than just trawling through the manual but I only noticed this due to working on my converter, so I can see if there's a unique behavior. If I come across more of them I will be sure to do so :)

[@comradecoffee]

the manual might be daunting, but it's incredibly well written and chock full of juicy wisdom

[@RedemptiveIRage]

I mean you’re interested in this and he did tell you exactly where to find the information...

[@ScarrCrow]

I went to a a Academy to learn more all about everything. I learned a lot of analouge stuff, but regarding the software and use of it.... I just started to read the Manual of Abelton and already learned a lot more from that. The manuals are Huge, but they are worth it. My recommendation would be, to look up the shortcut section, try them out, remember them and the ones you don't understand the function of use: ctrl+f to look that function up in the manual. rinse and repeat. After that just try reading this thing, you'll find a lot of additional functions and usages along the way.

[@josealejandrogarciarojas1115]

@@comradecoffee See what you did there

[@TAREEBITHETERRIBLE]

Extremely useful especially as an experienced producer. I always lower panned objects/audio and slightly boost the volume on non-panned items. Now I understand why, I KNEW the program was altering SOMETHING slightly. More videos like this on FL studio please! Your analysis is great!

[@djofftheshit]

Same!

[@djofftheshit]

@Jim Baker We're all students, my friend

[@TAREEBITHETERRIBLE]

@@djofftheshit dont even tend to people like that. 0 videos uploaded 0 everything but leaves snarky loser ass comments. Get a life "Jim Baker" who is a 'producer' we've never heard of

[@TAREEBITHETERRIBLE]

@@djofftheshit I was never handed a musical instrument, I was never told "wow you're so good! you're gonna be a musician one day!" I had a hard life. I even failed music class in elementary school. But one day, a person who didnt even know, bestowed this amazing gift upon me called "Music Production" even so, I never considered myself a musician. I was experimenting. I wound up making hundreds of instrumentals for people all over my city so sorry if I missed out on some of the basics but no one held my hand as a kid and said "You're gonna do this, and you're gonna be great!" No. It was all an accident that kept going.

[@kennydisorder]

@Jim Baker Stop being so boring. Is he hurting your ego so much that you have to write an essay just because he don't know about panning laws. Sounds a little elitist to me.

[@made.online2149]

The reason for -3dB in the center is that it's that it's equal to half volume (due to a bunch of math related to it being a logarithmic scale) . When a sound is centered, you have twice the amount of speakers you'd have were it hard panned, so you want half volume. The 'pan law' has to do with how it *transitions* from being full volume in one speaker to half volume when centered.

[@made.online2149]

Panning rules that use a value other than -3dB are often trying to compensate not just for volume, but *loudness*. Volume is the literal value shown on the meter, whereas loudness is how we as humans perceive it. with the -3dB rule, the *volume* is the same when it's centered or hard panned, since when it's only coming out of one speaker it's twice as loud as when it comes out of both. But the *loudness* might feel a bit different as our brains perceive a sound only coming from one source differently. This is why some DAWs have a pan option that's different from -3dB, to adjust for perceived loudness.

[@dussie920]

@@made.online2149 You are correct.

[@nenntmichbond]

That is almost right, but completely wrong haha 1. Half the volume is -6dB, thats a quick google search 2. Double the speakers doesn't double the volume. It's more like 1.4 or something

[@made.online2149]

@@nenntmichbond You have a misconception here. Your -6dB figure you've found relates to a halving of voltage or SPL, not to the actual power of the signal. However, -3dB is a literal halving of power. In the underlying DSP, it's straight up just dividing the signal amplitude by two (multiplying by a gain factor of 0.5). '-3dB' is simply how that translates to the logarithmic scaling we use. I think you may also be conflating 'volume' with 'loudness' which I addressed in my first reply citing alternate pan rules.

[@fluffyfetlocks]

So it would be better for desktop speakers than headphones?

[@FoxerTails]

YES! Thank you for covering this! As an avid FL Studio user, I too, noticed this but never took the time to look up the reason why or ask if anyone else noticed it. I simply would just boost the volume with the channel knob. Lol

[@WojackToter]

oh hi tails lol

[@snaekboi]

haha *_avid_* FL studio user.

[@FoxerTails]

@@WojackToter Heyo Dust!

[@FoxerTails]

@@snaekboi Uhh, yes? I'm not sure what you're implying. Edit: Unless it's a Pro Tools reference?

[@snaekboi]

@@FoxerTails yes, it was a protools reference. _Retarded joke, but whatever._

[@JosephEudave]

I have YEARS looking for this specific issue, thank you.

[@cloudsurfer67]

I’ve heard about this circular panning law many times. Never knew exactly what it meant!! Now it makes sense. Thanks a lot 🙏🏾

[@user-hz4tc2pf3x]

This is why you have to trust your ears instead of your eyes when it comes to producing

[@wubwubwubwubwubwubwubwub]

ya sometimes -12 is louder than -6

[@NotBK666]

Facts

[@Cmvib3]

So thats why it gets quieter when i use the pattern sampler compared to just using the actual files

[@JACKSWAN]

This is a perfect video to watch at 4:30AM ( as I am doing right now) My mind is blown away by this basic info!

[@imlskr]

Welcome back to the land of the living Dylan. Great video too!!

[@altromusic]

We love you Dylan please keep posting!❤️

[@JonathanNeumann]

Another thing that surprised me is, that the pan knob in the step sequencer is actually a balance knob. If you take a stereo signal that contains of lets say bass and drums. Bass hard left, drums hard right. If you use the "pan-knob" in the step sequencer and hard pan left in this case the drums disappear and vice versa. If you would do the same in the mixer, both signals - drums and bass - would be audbile only in the left speaker which is actually pan rather than balance...

[@kumble2687]

This is crazy!

[@DidoInFlames]

that's why i never use panning in the channel rack again ever

[@urphakeandgey6308]

I never really used the panning knob on the rack and this will reinforce that unless I want that specific effect for some weird reason.

[@Fritztafer]

I did not realize this...thank you

[@ItsEphora]

Same for the "balance" knob in Fruity Balance, it's actually a pan knob. I wonder if they'll ever rename them lol

[@UnimportantAcc]

L theta squirt

[@AsherPostmanMusic]

i always wondered why auto panner changed volume.. love this man you are so epic

[@Trye]

To get some more in depth information about this topic I'd advise checking out Dan Worrall's videos: "How to mix in stereo... without sucking in mono" Great video Dylan!

[@trystanfresh]

Super happy to see Dylan back!

[@Sekaitunes]

missed u and ur videos, o smart father

[@medalliondnb]

Fun physics fact: doubling an object that emits sound, will increase the volume by 3dB. This may explain why 'removing' one side of sound by panning, could be stabilized by adding to that 3dB loss.

[@Vanatice]

so this is why making it more stereo using the knob in the mixer makes it louder

[@Pasdee]

Finally a new video! Thank you so much. We need more of you’re stuff *daba di daba da*

[@FeralBlade]

I Knew about the panning law in FL. I did not know you can Alt+LeftClick to reset velocity. 🤤Makes sense considering you can Alt+LeftClick everything else.

[@sebek64]

awesome vid, nice to see how the program we use actually works

[@ItsMePhiliph]

This is one of those few times where I mindfully liked the video and subscribed because of the actual quality omg.

[@GrvMUSIC4U]

Nice informative video as usual with some fun added to it

[@YoungBlaze]

basically its like a sneaky compressor

[@Nayte08]

“L theta squirt” bruh

[@unsanitizedbabywipes6154]

I guess thats the reason why mono samples needs somewhere 40% panning to level both left and right.

[@dasuedm]

Oh wow, I didn't even knew about the panning laws, and that's actually interesting!

[@Sepi666]

1:48 I love this demonstration

[@nothubix]

I knew it was quieter. Very useful video Dylan!

[@avgchoobafan]

I think this behaviour is because in stereo audio, when hard panned to the left or right channel, it's like -3db than their sum when center panned. It's the same reason why everybody lower 3db of gain to stereo signals converted to mono, or when the same signal is duplicated and both are identical. So FL is trying to boost the isolated channels by their default 3db decrease, and lower it when their sum boost that 3db

[@YannSelka]

When you duplicate a signal, it's 6db louder than it was before. Based on that some pan laws cut the center by 6db - however sometimes when the signal is not an exact copy that can lead to much lower volume in the center due to phase cancellation. That's why there's 3db of cutting in FL - it's a compensation between the two.

[@Yotrymp]

I'm guessing the +6db is theoretical, but accurate, as things get complicated with multiple physical sound sources.

[@SaccoBelmonte]

What you see in Ableton is called "Equal power" crossfade. Its purpose is the same. Protools explicitly lists it under that name. Some of the crossfade modes (if not all) in FL Studio audio clips are equal power too.

[@Misfitxoxo]

i was always wondering why things weren't as loud as in the playlist. never thought there was an actual valid reason behind it, let alone panning like this. thanks!

[@SpacedOutDoonie]

/watch?v=R5RONpezKAI

[@ZonymaUnltd.]

JukeBlocks looks pretty neat, thanks for the video!

[@kelvinbeat17]

Legendary ❤️ haha over 13 years using FL and never noticed this 😅😂

[@defectivepikachu4582]

father where has thou been

[@OneonSajid]

0:18 that legit sounds like my school lockdown siren

[@Skyyward]

Yes i noticed

[@atomictraveller]

teh easier conceptualisation: *cosine panning law* 2d rotation gives you two vectors and "90 degrees" continuous transform between them, so center = 45 deg. .7071 amplitude, roughly 3dB (.7079, or 10 to the power of -3/20). the best panning reference i found was on teh official MIDI site but for reals eventually you realise i'm teh only sane audio develoiper and just use fing cosine.

[@dmac3903]

kf

[@killstreak8]

Wtf all that math and producing?

[@LomographyTromography]

in two minutes, you advised me of an issue i didn't know existed, then taught me why its not actually an issue.

[@kiganai]

Let’s talk about Ableton’s true panning next 👀

[@shidosensei.]

After so many years... Finally someone talks about this... When nobody talked about why id the step sequencer quieter than dragging the sample to the playlist. Thanks Dylan, sincerely.

[@SpacedOutDoonie]

/watch?v=R5RONpezKAI

[@Kriskl]

Thank you! Omg i noticed this recently and i thought i was going crazy!

[@Lu_Cidtrip]

I clicked off the video and heard "hey where ya going" as the new page started to load, had to come back and comment, great video

[@iixmusic]

I'm speechless 😐

[@AbcAbc-im3ck]

Amazing analysis man 🔥🔥🔥

[@aphonicsound]

HES FINALLY BACK

[@patrickstudniarz8669]

Dylan man you could be talking about trees and I would listen just because you would talk about the way you do which is just hilarious 😂

[@ДанилаТыринов]

Also some effects make db level on mixer go higher, even if they are turned off and do nothing. I noticed that with Khz snapheap

[@rebirth4119]

Also other plugins when turned on- even parametric eq. It also can change the phase even if set to a non altering state(like a flat eq).

[@AmourEtRespect]

Snaphead doesn't do anything unless you enabled parallel mode between two tracks, for which it doubles your signal without automatic gain compensation. Multipass however will immediately mess with your sound due to its mediocre crossovers. Most of eq and multiband effects will do that, except for the best ones (for exemple iZotope and Fabfilter handle that well)

[@AllinBeats]

Great video, I always love and enjoy these kinda stuff, keep it up 👌

[@DigitalRealist]

The _real_ trick?, that title card. And here i am

[@whale_talk]

You legend for decoding this

[@myinnerchild]

So can you make a vid on why my songs sounds banging in fl but when I render them and upload them to soundcloud etc it sounds really bad

[@myinnerchild]

@@hairbruh4915 so I was trying around with some stuff I tried what u said but it didn’t make any difference, but for some weird reason the only thing that actually fixed it was rendering my song in mono? Now I know exporting in mono isn’t it but that’s the only way I get it to sound clear everywhere what could this mean?

[@myinnerchild]

@@hairbruh4915 do you have Twitter g? I could send u the two different exports via a SoundCloud link and you could see the differences

[@635design4]

In audio settings change resampling quality to the highest value your computer can handle, try the different settings and see, i keep mine on '512-point sync' which is the highest value. When you export you track change the resampling qualiy to the SAME as you set in the audio settings tab. In my case that would be 512-point sync also. It's a big thing that is missed by a lot of people. It just requires more cpu

[@nagandthebay3099]

Really neat vid, love the nerd deep dive and not another eq vid

[@AmberPearls]

love this kinda stuff ty

[@badbehavior2201]

Sampler channels are 5.2dB quieter because samplers are meant to play together, if you want them to be the same volume as audio clips you go to the sampler channel setting and turn up the volume multiplier up 5.2dB. Circular panning law is there for you when you automate the panning so it sounds like the volume is still the same but it was developed specifically for the automation reasons. I can explain better, maybe you can invite me to a video where I can explain myself lot better, I'm big FL studio enthusiast and I know nearly every detail about it. Also if anyone here in this discussion has any question I'm more than happy to explain it.

[@ULyngskor]

So using circular panning law is much better than triangular?

[@badbehavior2201]

@@ULyngskor if you automate your panning use circular panning law ✅

[@knock01]

@@badbehavior2201 would love to hear your take on why triangular would be useful?

[@badbehavior2201]

@@knock01 you could consider triangular = circular off It just doesn't apply this volume compensation for automation, so simply the opposite, if you won't automate your panning and making LCR mixes or just won't automate it at all, read the manual of FL Studio, the online version you can search on could be very useful for you. There are tons of information you could have a use for

[@angelocast]

Genius!

[@klick2destruct]

Pan law is the thing that you never need until you need it and then you're confused as heck. Important to understand it. In Reaper you can choose how the DAW handles panning.

[@ItsEphora]

In FL as well, if anyone's looking for it it's hidden in the "advanced" tab of the project settings.

[@Jg-be7it]

Because you should never actually need to change it. It's emulating an analog console.

[@juliocamacho8354]

Awesome explanation!

[@crowlsyong]

Watched til the very end. Nice. Subed. Keep up the good work.

[@Aerox90]

Thanks Dylan! I never knew about this! 😁

[@aidanfisher97]

I had two instances of one thing on two different openings on the same plugin, with one hard panned left, and the other, hard panned right, and all I got was a wide stereo effect.

[@Teflora]

No thank you for the research on this, I greatly appreciate it! I use FL Studio all the time for professional purposes and it's good to be aware of these things!

[@SergioNilo]

Honestly, for a sound designer, this is uncomfortable, thanks for the amazing video and information!

[@Jg-be7it]

As a sound engineer, you should know this is completely normal, done in every DAW and analog console.

[@SergioNilo]

@@Jg-be7it I talked about the dificult way to change it in especific, i mean, on fl studio, reaper is most easy

[@Jg-be7it]

@@SergioNilo why would you change it?

[@SergioNilo]

@@Jg-be7it As a sound engineer, you should know this, especially when it comes to working with wave signal generators in a stereo environment, i mean, if u realy study the physics of sound, it really matters

[@Jg-be7it]

@@SergioNilo There is no good reason I can think of.

[@NAWN]

thanks for making this! its helpful to know!

[@danmarm5357]

Yay you are back!

[@heysvpra]

I feel it also in ableton, it's nice to get an explanation, great vid !

[@bozo736]

Lmao the entire first like… minute of this I was thinking “this guy is about to spread some bad infor because he doesn’t know about panning laws” and lo and behold you’re actually just really good at explaining complex stuff from almost no info, fantastic shit, good stuff, toppest of notches

[@ChaceBonanno]

Does the circular panning law apply to the panning knob on the mixer as well?

[@DylanTallchief]

Yes it does!

[@ajsounds]

This is amazing

[@Azirolemioth]

When I tried jukeblocks and generated EDM and drum and bass and put it into fl studio most of the sounds arent even there so I just hear a kick the whole time and nothing else

[@DylanTallchief]

It doesn't generate any chords or melodies (yet), so the idea is to fill in the patterns with your own basslines/melodies/etc. If you have a paid account you can add synths to the project files too, but you still need to write your own melodies (for now). It's essentially an outline for a song that you fill in. It doesn't create the full song for you (yet...)

[@ayushmanthapa_onion]

someone remembered their password

[@larry89]

Back then on FL 10-11 I used to always work on Triangle and it had my mixes sounding a lot louder. Might go back to using that panning law.

[@astralyd]

Oooh I never understood this but never bothered enough to check why, this quick video was perfect, thanks !

[@icepicmusic4324]

this is why I have always changed it from circular to triangular in the settings on every project, I noticed it stopped doing anything around FL 12 and was wondering why

[@AKINICEmusic]

have a great year

[@WEARY_Music]

I have noticed this ever since i started using FL. Glad to know why

[@highestinthedeck]

He has risen!

[@darksentinel082]

I’ve always noticed that having a sound turned all the way purple (on the mixer thing, other side is blue, forget the term it uses but I think blue is spreading it out fully with stereo and purple is merging it together to be fully mono) will make it notably quieter, and have often compensated for that by raising the volume. Then, for other people, it’s too loud. It’s probably something to do with my headphones, so I’ll keep this in mind!

[@Mattrixx]

The wider a sound is the louder it is in the mix bc it stands out more. You always wanna make sure you tweak the gain to a value you think is good after making something wider. For the “Mono being louder to other people” thing, i’ve noticed if you make something that’s stereo into mono it tends to be louder because you’re simply shoving everything that was spread out into one direction. Idk I guess a few factors could play into this but those are just a few things I know from my experience.

[@FINXainarskrastins]

jukeblocks idea: AAF converter to project files for DAWs that don't support it. That will enable even more collaboration.

[@orphicstudiotraphiphopbeat9711]

Keep em coming

[@monkeyselektah]

a wise man called eliminate once said audio clips hit harder

[@qpSubZeroqp]

This is actually really great to know

[@tracksbyanidiot670]

Nice Information man

[@finboy818]

Thank you for this, I now have a one more music nerd story no one want to hear at a party.

[@18CC]

THe paning law is everywhere, even my audio interface has her own.

[@krasen671]

have you ever tried making an fl project file converter? like going from 20.9 to 20.7.2 or 20.6

[@lee_the_underground_producer]

THIS I THOUGHT I WAS THE ONLY ONE TRYING TO DO THIS. I asked them about fowards compatibility. They said it was impossible to do on the forum. I tried opening a project made in FL 20 to 11 all I would get is stuff not opening correctly and a message from FL telling me it was made in a recent or older version of fl. :(

[@thewrz763]

Good stuff Dylan

[@ProdByPeterBeats]

"Alt + Left Mouse Click to reset to default velocity".... this would have saved me so much time, if somebody had mentioned it earlier!

[@PrinjPal]

FL : circular compensation Ableton : * here's God equation

[@sketchywav7741]

Oh my god it’s him. He’s back. Oh my god

[@KlareAudio]

yeeeesss hes back loved the bideo

[@producedbysteez1402]

Jeez blast from the past huh

[@johnwostenberg840]

There are also different pan laws depending on whether you're listening on headphones or on true stereo speakers (not attached to your head) - e.g. linear vs constant power.

[@drxghostpro]

dude, ive heard of Jukeblocks! I didnt know you were the creator, good job!!

[@karaokewaala9107]

This makes so much sense.

[@gaberica]

pronouncing sqrt as squirt just made my day

[@АлександрГлинский-х7к]

This segue is smoother then LTT's segues! 😄 Thank you for the video, Dylan. The information about pan laws is very helpful!

[@DinkyPattern1]

Okay then. Now i render my songs, put audiofile in fl, dublicate it, and pan one left and one right, so it MUST be louder right?