Mono blocks creating panning problems.

[UFODeathCult]

Greetings everyone. I've run into an issue I can't solve regarding stereo panning with Stadium Native. It seems that any mono block inserted on a path designated for the Left or Right channel ruins the purity of the panning. 

 

I have Stadium Native on a drum bus, with two paths set up, both panned hard left and hard right on the Output blocks. When no blocks are created on either left or right path, my drums pan perfectly. As soon as a mono block is added to one of the paths, crossover is created between left and right channels, even though the output blocks are hard panned. The stereo spread on the mix bus becomes quite a bit narrower, and all my panning on the individual channels coming in to the mix bus is compromised.

 

I'd really like to use some amp blocks on the drum bus, but the panning issue is killing it for me. Could this be a bug? Seems to me that if a output block is panned hard left or right, no blocks added on that path should affect the direction of the panning. What say you?

[datacommando]

On 10/30/2026 at 1:33 PM, UFODeathCult said:

I'd really like to use some amp blocks on the drum bus, but the panning issue is killing it for me. Could this be a bug? Seems to me that if a output block is panned hard left or right, no blocks added on that path should affect the direction of the panning. What say you?

Hi,

 

Hmm… not a bug - it’s the way it works.

 

A few things to bear in mind here - all signal paths are stereo throughout, and an amp block is essentially a mono effect. Any mono effect on a stereo path will collapse it back to mono.

 

I’m not sure what you are really trying to achieve here? Are both of those signal paths using identical amp blocks with identical settings? If so, then have your drum bus feed into path 1, then add a single amp block adjusted to suit, then Y split the following path into 1A and 1B and then pan those hard L&R.

 Not sure if this helps - more info may be required.

 

[UFODeathCult]

I understand that a mono block sums things to mono, but if that mono block is on a path that outputs only hard left or hard right, why would it negate the output block panning?

 

My purpose here is to run my drums (drum machine, rather) through an amp block. Since an amp block sums everything to mono, my workaround was to create two paths: a left and a right, with each output block hard panned. This way I could put an amp block on each path, and still maintain the panning of all the individual drums that go through Stadium Native. Yet, even with this workaround, the panning is all still summed to mono.

 

For example: my hi-hats coming in to Stadium Native are panned hard left. With the two path setup described above, it seems to me that my high hats should still be panned hard left. But they don't - they now come out of both left and right speakers. This doesn't really make any sense to me. A path hard panned at the output stage should come out hard panned, no matter what blocks are on it.

 

[UFODeathCult]

Addendum: I've figured out a workaround. If one is wanting a true stereo Stadium Native setup on a bus, it should be used in Dual Mono rather than Stereo. It's a bit of a pain switching back and forth between the Left and Right instance of the plugin, but at least it doesn't sum everything coming in to mono.

 

I still contend that a hard panned output block should stay hard panned, regardless of what kind of blocks are on it, but at least there's a way to make this work.