Orchestral Panner – Free Panning VST plugin for Cinematic and Orchestral Music

There are hundreds if not thousands of panning plugins in the market. I wanted to create a plugin that targets a niche music genre – The Cinematic Music. The Orchestral Panner is not your regular panning plugin that only makes the audio pan to left or right. It actually mimics the real orchestral hall and its atmosphere with the positioning of the orchestral instruments in its space.

The plugin has many instrument and atmosphere presets with fine control over its properties. You can simply select any instrument and this plugin will add an accurate position in the environment.

Currently, the plugin is available in VST3 format only.

Core Features

Stage Position

The plugin uses an interactive 2D drag-and-drop position control that lets you set the position of an instrument in the stereo field. This is a physically modeled panning with an equal power approach. When you move the position around, it doesn’t just change the volume; it mimics the behavior of a real sound source in a real environment with reference to the listeners.

For fine-tuning, there are many extra settings given to manipulate the environment. Some noticeable features are distance, width, height, air absorption, reflection, and pan law.

Reverb Engine

The plugin also has an optional algorithmic stage reverb engine. The reverb is optimized for the stage and orchestral sound needs. With a symmetric and phase-coherent room image, 10 tap early reflection network mimicking the first bounce of the hall, and an 8-line delay feedback network late tail with independent pre-band decay.

Large Instrument Preset Library

We have included 63 instrument presets for the main orchestral as well as world instruments commonly used in orchestral music. Each preset uses the modern orchestral sitting convention.

These are the instruments included in the VST

• Solo & Featured — a centered, forward soloist position
• Strings (5) — Violin I, Violin II, Viola, Cello, Double Bass
• Woodwinds (9) — Piccolo, Flute, Alto Flute, Oboe, English Horn, Clarinet, Bass Clarinet, Bassoon, Contrabassoon
• Brass (7) — French Horn, Wagner Tuba, Trumpet, Trombone, Bass Trombone, Euphonium, Tuba
• Percussion (11) — Timpani, Snare Drum, Bass Drum, Cymbals, Tam-Tam/Gong, Xylophone, Glockenspiel, Vibraphone, Marimba, Triangle, Tambourine
• Keys & Harp (4) — Harp, Piano, Celesta, Pipe Organ
• Voice (5) — Choir (SATB), Soprano/Alto/Tenor/Bass Solo
• World Instruments (21) — Duduk (Armenia), Bansuri & Sitar & Tabla (India), Erhu (China), Shakuhachi, Koto & Shamisen & Taiko Drums (Japan), Didgeridoo (Australia), Balalaika (Russia), Oud & Ney (Middle East), Pan Flute (Andes), Djembe & Talking Drum (West Africa), Uilleann Pipes & Bodhran (Ireland), Bagpipes (Scotland), Handpan, Gamelan Ensemble (Indonesia)

Atmosphere / Room Character

The plugin also includes 7 realistic room and hall presets as a starting point, which you can modify using the various controls added for creating your own space. These rooms are created after analyzing a large library of convolution impulses and converting them into algorithmic reverb. The plugin generates all the atmospheres itself, there are no convolution methods used.

• Concert Hall — mid-size hall, moderate decay, balanced tone
• Cathedral — large stone space, long decay, slightly darker
• Recital Hall — small-to-mid hall, warmer and more intimate
• Rehearsal Chamber — compact room, present and warm, short decay
• Corridor (Offstage) — tight, narrow decay for distant/offstage effects
• Crypt / Underground — long, dense, bass-heavy decay
• Open Air — very short decay, minimal enclosure

We have not touched the reflection knob for these presets as that is your decision as per your mixdown.

Presets

We have also added around 43 presets. These presets are different from the instrument presets. These presets add character to your instruments. These lets you mimic the recording techniques and sound design in an environment.

Here are the presets –

• Solo & Intimate (6) — Intimate Solo Violin, Close Solo Cello, Dry Solo Piano, Whispered Flute Solo, Hyper-Real Close Mic, Small Booth Dry
• Section Placements (6) — Violin I Section (Concert Hall), Full Brass Section (Wide), Cello Section (Warm Hall), Woodwind Choir (Center), Percussion Ensemble (Back Wide), Harp Glissando Feature
• Depth & Perspective (4) — Front Row Perspective, Back of the Hall, Deep Stage Rear, Row 1 Center
• Room Character (6) — Cathedral Choir, Chamber Ensemble, Underground Crypt Strings, Open Air Brass Fanfare, Grand Cathedral Organ, Recital Hall Intimate
• Film Scoring (11) — Epic Trailer Hit, Emotional Piano Theme, Tension Strings, Heroic Brass Fanfare, Horror Atonal Cluster, Adventure Full Orchestra, Distant Memory (Nostalgic), Suspense Low Strings, Bright Fanfare Trumpets, Ambient Pad Wash, Choir + Orchestra (Epic)
• Mix Utility (2) — Mono-Safe Center, Broadcast Narrow
• Cinematic FX (3) — Offstage Distant Fanfare, Backstage Whisper, Extreme Wide Ambience
• World & Hybrid (2) — World Solo Instrument (Forward), Ethnic Percussion (Wide)
• Ensemble (2) — String Quartet (Chamber), Live Concert Recording Feel