Does panning from <100 100> to <30 30> Change anything?

[StringBean]

Well it's lowering one relative to the other so I think a -30 degree panning will still leave some sound coming out of the right speaker but if you went full -64 degrees then the right speaker will have no sound coming out at all. The relativity of how all the channels are panned creates a left-right "stereo image". Notice how if you go from -64 to 0 the channel sounds "deeper" like its coming out of a phantom center speaker. It might indeed seem "softer" but it's better to think of it has simply having greater depth, thus perhaps requiring a little more gain.

[wado1942]

It all depends on what "pan law" you're using. Some techniques will put the waveform at 100% in both left and right, then panning to one side simply reduces the other. Some laws subtract from one side and add that information to the other. Other laws set something panned center at -3dB or -6dB and panning keeps the total energy constant. There's a piece of software I use that stupidly defaults to a pan law I don't like and every time I start a new session with it, I have to change it to the one I do like. If I forget to do that at the beginning and don't corrected till after I've already set up a mix, everything changes.

[Rob Murray]

<100-100> I assume you're reffering to 100% or discreet 2 Channel Stereo. With <30-30> You're summing a large portion of L into R and vice versa. Essentially it's the same thing as turning up the M portion, or decreasing the width on an MS processor.

Picture it this way, if you have different signals lets say a sax L and a Bass R then at 30/30 you'll have a largely mono blend of both in both speakers with the sax slightly louder in L and the Bass slightly louder in R.

[Zak Kazanski]

Thank you for the prompt replies!

@Wado How can I tell which panning law I am using. I run PT LE and FL 10 on occasion. Do you have any suggested threads on the different panning laws, or could you elaborate?

@Rob Any way you could expand on MS processing or suggest a good thread, I have read about it in the mastering forum but don't really have a could grasp on the concept.