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| PanHandler Reviews | ||
| The PanHandler -Reviewed by k. k. proffitt Surround Professional Magazine K.K. Proffitt reviews the plug-in capabilities of this popular new DAW surround panner. "Plug into surround capabilities for many popular DAWs" The Panhandler from Kelly Industries is a family of plug-ins for surround sound encoding and panning. They are available separately for different platforms and different software products. The PanHandler, featuring a 4-way LCRS panner plus the "Real Surround" Encoder, runs under DirectX, SAW, Adobe Premiere, and Cool Edit Pro. These are PC-compatible plug-in packages, but by the time this review is published, the Adobe Premiere version for the Mac should be available. The PanHandler Discrete, a 5.1 multi-channel panning plug-in, works with SAW32, SAWPIus32, and SAWPRO.I ran The PanHandler with Sound Forge via DirectX-6, and I jammed with The PanHandler Discrete using SawPlus32. Once I had the hardware setup working, playing with the software was like taking a vacation. Assuming you have a stable system, The PanHandler is a breeze to install. For this review, I used the Lexicon Studio system consisting of the Core32 card and the 12T interface. This has eight digital I/O via ADAT lightpipe, stereo S/PDIF, and stereo balanced analog at +4 dBu. I patched the ADAT optical to an Otari UFC-24 format converter and sent the UFC's I/O via AES/EBU to our digital switcher. Monitoring was usually via our Studer D-19 MultiDAC D/A and StudioComm 58/59, but when I started noticing distortion, I patched my Pro Tools system in with MetricHalo's excellent metering package, SpectraFoo, on all eight digital channels to meter the output of the Lexicon Studio. The PanHandler Discrete This multichannel panning plug-in for Innovative Quality Software's SAW32, SAWPIus32, and SAWPRO works with Quad, LCRS, or 5.1 channel formats. It uses 32-bit resolution for SAW32 and SAWPIus32, but runs with 64-bit resolution under SAWPRO. Since the Lexicon Studio doesn't support 96 kHz sampling (one of the features of SAWPRO), I chose to run The PanHandler Discrete with SAWPIus32. Once I had installed Lexicon's wave drivers, it was easy to pull down saw's audio hardware menu and assign the four stereo digital ports. SAW works with interleaved stereo, and the drivers for Lexicon Studio had previously been tested with other software, so I was much relieved to see the I/O labels waiting for me when I booted SAWPIus32. Setting up the PanHandler Discrete is very easy once you understand the concept underlying its implementation. All input tracks, or tracks with audio, are sent to output 1 (left, right). On every track that you want to pan in surround, patch in The PanHandler Discrete using the Effects Patch Builder Window. SAW32 defaults to 32 stereo audio tracks, but you'll only want to use the first 30 if you use the default setup. On track 31, you'll create the first "ghost" track by patching in The PanHandler Discrete and setting the track output to "2." This "ghost" will not have audio, but will be reserved for the panner to process audio to the center channel and LFE. Create a third "ghost" track on track 32 by patching in The PanHandler Discrete and setting its output to "3." This track is for the surround left and right channels processing, and, like ghost track number "2," will not have audio. Find the point in the mix where the recorded audio tracks are finished and set the cursor to this point. Then go to the ghost tracks and insert a break entry or blank entry after that point. Finally, go to output track 2 located below the first 32 tracks and patch in the LFE plug-in. This is the only confusing part of the setup: the LFE plug-in needs to be on that output track to work properly. All audio sent out of this track goes to digital channel 4 (or the right side of the second digital port), and it is bandwidth limited from 3 Hz to 120 Hz. Five "Wave Channel Types" can be sent to the input of the panner on each channel: left, right, left + right, Stereo X (left and right channels are panned in the opposite X direction relative to the center), Stereo Y (left and right channels are panned in the opposite Y direction relative to the center), and Stereo Op (left and right channels are panned in opposite X and Y directions relative to the center). The last three combinations can whip up some bizarre effects in discrete format, but if you couple these with The PanHandler 'True Surround Encoder," you can also confuse your target decoder when it tries to locate the dominant sound. The True Surround Encoder is a separate PanHandler plug-in that runs under the SAW platform. If you're going to use the LCRS format with True Surround, I'd suggest always sending the discrete LCRS tracks through the encoder and monitoring through a decoder to make sure what you're creating in the discrete LCRS format with The PanHandler Discrete will "fly" when encoded. That is, if you mix to a pair of stereo files created using a lot of fly-overs in PanHandler Discrete and then you open them up to encode them with The PanHandler plug-in with True Surround, you may very well hear something you hadn't anticipated when you send the resultant encoded pair through a decoder like the Lexicon DC-1. One final point: Although DirectX is skillfully implemented in SAWPIus32, it's best not to use this version of The PanHandler Surround Encoder plug-in, since the timing under DirectX is not nearly as accurate as The PanHandler that hooks directly into SAWPIus32. Both The PanHandler Discrete and The PanHandler True Surround Encoder work with SAW32, SAWPIus32, and SAWPRO. Back to the Future It was a challenging project to assimilate several different software packages and hardware to run The PanHandler, but the result certainly was worth it. A big thank you to Kelly Industries for helping me tweak the system. Also, I'd like to thank my assistant, Al Willis, and my partner Joel Silverman, who both learned from this project that the phrase "I see signal on the meters" does not necessarily mean "the system is working." You can learn more about SAW32, SAWPlus32, and SAWPro by visiting the IQS web site: Surround Professional is available FREE to qualified audio professionals who are revolutionizing the world of multichannel sound production. You must fill out this form.
When you go to the Kelly Industries web sight you are greeted by the question: "Why are you still mixing in stereo?" After using their program named (with a musician's sense of humor) PANHANDLER I am tempted to ask the same question. Is surround sound here to stay? Is surround sound musical? Is surround sound Hi-Fidelity? Is surround sound hard to mix? The answers please . . . Yes, can be, can be and not when done using Panhandler in the SAW environment. Panhandler is available both as a DirectX and SAW plug-in and is about as seamless to use as any program could be. The installation was a snap and as I have three computers running three different, though similar, operating systems (Windows 95 and Sound Forge, Windows NT 4.0 and SAW+32 and Windows 98 and SAW Pro) I must say I was Pleasantly surprised. This is all the more amazing as I am also using various other plug-ins with these programs, such as Power Technology's DSP-FX, Nero Software's Ignition CD Burner, an assortment of software from M; 'Audio and the Innovative Quality Software AVI Viewer, to name a few. While Panhandler Discrete requires a multi-channel i/o card, amplification and speakers, using the Panhandler with True Surround plug-in you can use your normal two channel sound card output and any surround sound decoder or receiver to monitor your mix. It is important to note that Panhandler Discrete is not an AC-3 (Dolby Digital) encoder. An outboard encoder or AC-3 software (such as Sonic Foundry's Soft Encode) must be used to accomplish that task. This program in conjunction with SAW makes repeatable surround mixes a breeze. I have also found it to be an invaluable aid in producing sound effects libraries which can be saved as wave files complete with the surround panning already incorporated, just build mix and then open sound file as region and voila: perfectly repeatable surround sound effects. There is also a nifty ambience extractor plug-in which helps to eliminate the dreaded collapse to center syndrome that seems to plague certain samples and guitar effects. One of the first projects I used Panhandler for was to produce the surround mix for a product demo soundtrack I was composing music and sound cues for. In the past I would have done the mix live to ADAT and then used an outboard encoder that I rented to go to DAT and then back into the computer to burn a CD. Panhandler eliminated the need for the rental and the two time consuming transfers (not to mention the potential for audio degradation that every transfer represents). I would be remiss to not point out, however, when doing any mix it is wise to also monitor in stereo and mono. Certain reverb and delay effects can give you very strange and very unpredictable results. For example, with one THX system that was used to listen to some of the mixes the surround channels at times disappeared entirely. I found that creating a multi-channel test tone sound file in order to optimize the system and speaker set-up both helped to eliminate the problem of inconsistent mixes and made me very popular with my friends with surround sound systems (all signals at -10 dB; 55 Hz for the sub out, 440 Hz for the left and right channels, 660 Hz for the center channel and 880 Hz for the surrounds). I checked out the results using Panhandler by monitoring in studio, recording to DAT and CDR which I then played on several other surround sound systems. At first I thought there was a problem with the program when going to DAT, as the mixes sounded very different, but I found that a new digital i/o card that had just been installed was the culprit. After installing new Windows NT drivers for the sound card the problem was eliminated. One use of this program came about by accident. A client had recorded a concert performance consisting of a small orchestra and choir utilizing a non-standard stereo microphone placement that resulted in a badly unbalanced and rather unmusical representation of the performance. After transferring the DAT to SAW I split the stereo tracks out to two mono tracks and the utilized the ambience extractor on each of those tracks. Then a little EQ for the bottom end on a l+r version of the original and a mix of all three utilizing Panhandler to generate a stereo image within a three dimensional space. The client was amazed at the results and the recording of the performance was saved. Panhandler came to the aid of a solo acoustic guitar recording that just hadn't been getting the right feel using just delay and reverb. By recording the reverb and delay to different tracks and then placing the dry guitar forward in the surround mix a feel of having the guitar on a live stage resulted. Another happy client, hooray for the home team! Over all, I would say that the cost vs. performance ratio for this program is very good and having used Panhandler on several projects without the program locking up, crashing or otherwise creating digital havoc in my studio I feel confident in recommending any or all of the Panhandler plug-ins to anyone running SAW or any DirectX application. The downside to all of this is that surround mixing requires practice, good ears, good judgment and a screamer system doesn't hurt. Check out the Kelly Industries and IQSoft web-sites for more info and system requirements to see if this will work for you. Remember the operative word here is work, which this program does in spades. Kelly Industries
Recently, I had the pleasure of using the 'Panhandler' plug in for SAW+32. I needed to create a surround mix of a TV commercial for broadcast in NICAM digital stereo in New Zealand. Previously I did surround mixes through the console, but being able to automate all the surround panning within SAW+32 was fantastic. I also found the surround limit function was a real plus for television, as not everyone has a home theater setup, so the mix must be as mono compatible as possible. With this function set to around 20% I was still able to get a fair amount of front to rear separation without things disappearing in mono. The Ambience extractor was also very useful on stereo music. Usualy, such things tend to collapse into mono when doing a Surround Sound compatible mix (a shortcoming of the format) but using the ambience extractor I was able to achieve a wide music spread. In one scene, a car drives towards and over us. It was an easy matter to set up a front to rear flyby simply by moving my trackball from front to rear with SAW+32 and Panhandler locked to the pictures, voila! I highly recomend the Panhandler plug in, not just for television work, but for music production and audio visual work as well. It's just plain fun!! Jon Cooper Music & Sound Designer
PanHandler does what it's suppose to do, efficiently, quickly, and with ease. It brings surround sound audio to the digital video desktop. Your masterpiece can be encoded to play back using surround sound, all from stereo outputs on your computer or capture card. It's truly incredible that what use to take specialized hardware costing more than a Buick is now available as software for under $100. Installing the plug-in is a snap. Simply unstuff the package and drop the plug-in in your Premiere plug-in folder. Under the "Make" menu (in Premiere) both Preview Options and Output Options must be set to process sound in STEREO and not mono. Next, select your audio clip in the construction window, apply the PanHandler as a filter, and finally play with the settings until you get something you like. Note: The green circle in the photo is the starting point. The red circle is the ending point. PanHandler works over the entire length of the clip so it is important that if multiple effects are required the clip should be sliced up (via the razor tool) and PanHandler must be applied to each clip. The tests we ran were with an ONKYO TX-SV919THX Dolby THX Decoder and 5 pro-level speakers (center, left, right, and two surround). The speakers were made by JBL. Another session was with a Sony STR-D565 Dolby Pro-Logic decoder and 5 Sony consumer level speakers. Video was captured and processed with a Targa 2000 and the final audio/video file was transferred to Betacam SP with audio recorded in stereo via XLT inputs. The PanHandler was used on a 10 second clip containing a mono soundtrack. There were 3 different pans applied to the clip. The clip was broken up into 4 parts, one was not affected. The final processed clip was rendered with stereo sound. Total file size: about 30 megabytes. Pans from left to center to right were smooth and only incurred a small amount of noise on a quick pan. The noise was a result of panning too quickly and was easily removed. The first system we tested relied on THX surround speakers. This created little to no surround effect. The documentation warns against using bi-polar speakers (used in THX systems) and this seems to be a serious shortcoming. At some point, users of the PanHandler may have their work presented in a THX environment and could be rather surprised that their surround channel effects are faint or disappear all together. On the other hand the Sony system worked well. The surround channel came out fine and there was a definite center, left, and right. Working with the PanHandler is a breeze. A single window controls all the functions of the plug-in and even has a preview button (so you can preview the effect). Creating an effect is done by clicking once on a start point and simply drawling where the sound will "travel." My only two gripes with the program are the lack of save/preset buttons, and the lack of bezier curves to fine tune an effect. Having a "center to surround" preset would speed up drawling a line from the center channel to the surround channels over and over again. A save button would be good to easily load a setting of "Limit Surround=15%, Master Volume=+6dB" instead of doing this by hand over, say, 12 clips. In short, Batch Processing. The bezier curves would help to precisely tweak the way a sound travel. If you don't like the way a sound pans your only option is to redraw the line as close to how you like it as possible. If you mess up on the second take you must go for a third and forth take, or further. It depends on how anal one is to get it right. With years of simply having to choose from mono or stereo it's great to finally break out and move into surround sound land. The PanHandler plug-in is a welcome addition to the DV tools available and should be procured by anyone who wants to stand above the crowd. Besides, the crowd merely plays stereo. For more informationon the PanHandler please visit Kelly Industries
Plug-in brings surround sound to Premiere By John Poultney Santa Barbara Film and Video Inc. this week began shipping PanHandler, a plug-in for Adobe Premiere that brings surround-sound encoding to digital video projects. Priced at $159, PanHandler requires Version 4.2 or higher of Premiere. It lets users convert soundtracks into the four-channel format used for surround sound, thereby bypassing expensive outboard gear normally required for this process, according to Santa Barbara Film and Video. Encoded files will play back correctly with any surround-sound receiver-decoder unit, the company said. All panning information saved in the original file will be transferred to the final commercial product. Aside from the standard left, right, center and surround channels, PanHandler lets users save files in mono or stereo mode. Frequency response for the left, right and center channels is 20 Hz to 20 kHz; the surround channel ranges from 100 Hz to 7 kHz. In addition to Premiere, the plug-in also works with Berkley Integrated Audio Software Inc.'s BIAS Peak, Macromedia Inc.'s Deck II and MOTUInc.'s Digital Performer audio-editing programs. Copyright 1997 Mac Publishing LLC. All rights resered. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission is prohibited. MacWEEK and the MacWEEK logo are trademarks of Mac Publishing LLC. |
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