Panstation 2

Name: Panstation 2
Price: 39 USD
Author: Audio Damage

by Audio Damage · Modulation · Auto-panner and tremolo

Not rated yet

Panstation 2 is an auto-panner and tremolo that combines Drawmer M500-style panning with vintage tremolo modes.

Panning can follow an LFO, audio triggers or MIDI notes and CCs, for $39.

Best for: Keys & Synths, Guitars, Drums, Sound Design. Genres: all genres.

Keywords: tremolo, auto-pan, MIDI-controllable, drums, vintage, electric guitar, keys, rhythmic, sidechain input, sound design, external sidechain, hardware emulation, metering, mixing, mono, musical, percussion, resizable UI, smooth, spacious.

What it does

Panstation 2 combines "Drawmer M500-style auto-panning with vintage tremolo modes" in one effect that works as an auto-panner, a tremolo or a mix of both.

Pan laws: four panning laws, one of them an exact clone of the M500's pan law.
Waveforms: eleven modulation shapes, from smooth to abrupt.
Trigger modes: free-running, triggered by audio crossing a threshold, or triggered by MIDI notes, with a Count control to set how often triggers fire.
Envelope: an adjustable envelope generator that shapes the intensity of the movement after each trigger.
Modulation controls: depth, an LFO time offset between channels, global phase, bias weighting, and rate in Hz or musical fractions of a measure.
MIDI and sidechain: set the pan position by MIDI note or CC, or drive triggering from an external sidechain input.
Extras: optional stereo-to-mono input summing, a resizable vector interface and cross-platform XML presets.

Version 2.1.1. A fully working demo runs 20 minutes at a time and cannot save presets.

Source: Audio Damage product page

When to use it

Panstation 2 is a focused, low-cost auto-panner whose strengths are the M500 pan laws and its trigger and MIDI options. Compared with Soundtoys PanMan, it covers similar ground at a fraction of the price, a point Resident Advisor made about the original. It is narrower than ShaperBox 3 or LFO Tool, which shape volume, filters and more with drawn curves, while Panstation 2 sticks to panning and tremolo. MIDI note triggering and note-position panning give it more performance control than a typical DAW tremolo.

Best for: rhythmic panning on keys, guitars and percussion, tremolo, and pans triggered by drums or MIDI.
Genres: electronic, dub, rock, pop and sound design.
Look elsewhere if: you want drawn multi-effect modulation or stereo widening; ShaperBox 3 or LFO Tool fit better.
Tip: Computer Music suggested using the trigger modes on rhythmic parts with host sync off for "controlled chaos", and auditioning the pan laws in the full mix.

What producers say

Reviews of the original Panstation (2011) found it a well-designed, cheap auto-panner; criticisms were about details of control rather than sound.

Computer Music (via MusicRadar) called it "classic autopanning with new twists, and unrivalled at the price", praising the metering, presets, trigger modes, envelope and manual.
Resident Advisor rated it 5/5 for cost, 4/5 for ease of use and 3/5 for sound and versatility, and liked the Sum Input option and the "powerful" envelope controls.
Criticisms: Computer Music found the Depth control awkward to tweak and automate; RA wanted note values for the envelope time and a note-release option in Note Trig mode.

Where to buy

Audio Damage: $39

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