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Hi Folks

I'm working on a surround mix and have been troubled by the diffusion setting in the Tri-panner ("center" in the other panners). The default is "diffuse" ie nothing in the center channel unless the puck is firmly embedded in the center divot. My question is: doing a music mix does anyone use the center channel? I have been happy mixing the the tri-panner diffusion set to 0.4. T. Holman, in his book, seems to say that music-types are hesitant to use the center chl. and to get over it- its fine for surround mixes, either for film or music.

Any thoughts or experiences with this subject?

Thanks, John

If this will be music under dialogue, then you basically know that the centre channel will be full of speech, so you can keep the musical bits away from there for clarity.
If its a 5.1 mix that is purely music, then the centre channel is just another resource.

Here's something to be wary of, in terms of things 'dropping out' in panning.
I had an issue with the default settings of some of the 5.1 plug-ins in DP that bent my brain until I found them.
What had been wrong was that a "trim" plug-in on the 5.1 Master bus had phase-inversion selected for the sub channel, from the very first time it was initiated in my very first 5.1 mix template that I ended up using for a whole bunch of subsequent mixes, only to have to correct for later.

So, check to see if your phase/polarity settings are all good, then see if that makes the panner behave any differently.

we often mix to 5p1 using music that is supplied in stereo -

I tend to put a little of the music stereo in the center - general working with diffusion around 17%

this seems to work ok for the SR - ofcourse it's fine for the digital.,