Audio Balance and Pan Adjuster

How the Audio Balance and Pan Adjuster works

Balance is the left-to-right position of a sound between two speakers. In a stereo file it is set by the relative level of the two channels: when the left is louder, the sound seems to come from the left. This page changes those relative levels for the whole file at once.

Balance versus pan

The two words are often used interchangeably, but strictly they act on different sources. Balance turns down one side of an existing stereo recording; everything already positioned in the mix keeps its place, the whole picture just leans one way. Pan takes a single mono source and decides how much of it goes to each speaker. This tool does balance when you give it a stereo file and pan when you give it a mono one, with the same slider.

Pan law

When a sound moves from the centre to one side, something has to decide how loud each speaker is along the way.

• Constant power follows a sine and cosine curve, normalised so the centre is unchanged. Moving off-centre, the near side stays at full level and the far side drops smoothly, so the sound keeps a steady loudness as it moves. Fully left or right, the other side is silent. This is the standard for music and the default here.
• Linear turns the far side down in a straight line: at +50 the left channel is at half level (−6 dB). It shifts the image more gradually around the centre and is common on consumer hi-fi balance knobs.

Neither law ever boosts a channel, so the output cannot clip if the input did not.

Common uses

• Fix a lopsided recording. A singer or speaker who was off to one side of a stereo microphone can be pulled back to the middle.
• Hearing differences. Listeners with reduced hearing in one ear can shift a podcast, audiobook or lecture towards their better ear before loading it on a phone that lacks a balance setting.
• Place a voice-over or instrument. Pan a mono recording to one side before layering it with other tracks in the Audio Mixer.
• Spatial effects for video. Push a sound effect towards the side of the frame where the action happens.

Audio balance and pan adjuster tips

• If one side is completely silent, balance cannot bring it back. Use the Audio Channel Swapper to copy the good side across.
• To pull each side out as its own file, use the Left/Right Channel Extractor.
• To make a stereo image wider or narrower instead of shifting it, try the Stereo Widener.

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