Panstation 2 is an auto-panner and tremolo plugin by Audio Damage for macOS, Windows, Linux, and iOS. Its panning engine is loosely modeled on the Drawmer M500, with an exact copy of the M500's pan law among its four, and it adds the trigger counting of the Audio & Design PanScan, the vintage autopanner that has long been a studio secret weapon. The left and right channels follow LFOs with eleven shapes, and the phase relationship between them takes Panstation from tremolo through stereo movement to full side-to-side panning. Run it free or locked to your host's tempo, or let an envelope bring the movement in and out, fired by the input level, an external trigger input, or MIDI notes, with a Count control that waits for a set number of triggers before it pans. MIDI notes and CC 10 can also set the pan position directly. It comes with 19 factory presets. Available as VST3, AU, AAX, and CLAP for desktop, and AUv3 for iPhone and iPad. Priced at $39 USD with no DRM, no subscription, and a perpetual license.

Platforms & Downloads

Fully functional demo. 20-minute session timer, save disabled.

Features

• Four pan laws. Equal Power, Equal Distance, Linear, and an exact copy of the Drawmer M500's pan law.
• Eleven LFO shapes. Sine, Dual-Sine, Tri-Sine, Triangle, Steps, Ramp, Saw, Wide Square, Square, Diverge, and Converge, including all of the M500's waveforms.
• Free or synced. Run the LFO free from 0.01 to 50 Hz, or lock it to the host tempo with cycle lengths from two bars down to a 1/32 note, including dotted and triplet values.
• Panning, tremolo, and everything between. The phase offset between the left and right LFOs runs from 0 to 360 degrees. At 180 the channels move in opposition for classic auto-panning, at 0 they move together as a tremolo, and the settings between give stereo movement and widening.
• Depth, Phase, and Bias. Depth sets how far the sound moves, Phase sets where the LFO starts, and Bias weights the movement toward one channel or the other.
• Triggered panning. Instead of running constantly, the movement can follow an envelope with Attack (1 ms to 10 s), Dwell (2 ms to 20 s, or infinite), and Decay (100 ms to 10 s), fired when the input or the external trigger input crosses a threshold from -40 to 0 dB, or by MIDI notes.
• Trigger Count. Inspired by the Audio & Design PanScan, Count sets how many triggers, from 1 to 16, arrive before the envelope fires, and Invert starts alternate triggers from the opposite side.
• External trigger input. A mono sidechain input lets a kick, a hi-hat, or any other track trigger the movement on the track you are panning.
• MIDI control. Fire the envelope from MIDI notes, set the pan position from the note number, or steer it with MIDI CC 10.
• Input summing. Sum a stereo input to mono before panning, for clean side-to-side movement of stereo sources. Works in mono-to-stereo and stereo.
• Metering. Input, output, and trigger level meters.
• Preset browser. Factory and User folders, copy and paste of presets as text, import of single presets or ZIP files, export of whole folders as ZIP files, and 19 factory presets.
• Universal preset system. Cross-platform XML-based presets compatible across all plugin formats and operating systems, including the iOS edition. Save over the Default preset to start every new instance from your own settings.
• Resizable vector UI. HiDPI and Retina aware, scales cleanly from a laptop panel to a large display, and each instance keeps its size with your project.

Sound Design Ideas

Set the phase offset to 180 degrees with a host-synced sine at a half note for classic side-to-side movement on a Rhodes or a pad. Pull the offset down to zero and Panstation becomes a tremolo; switch to Square or Wide Square for a choppy, gated pulse, or Steps for hard rhythmic jumps across the field on percussion. Feed a kick into the trigger input with Count at 4 so a guitar swings across the stereo field once a bar, or set the source to Input and let only the loudest hits start a pan that fades out with the Decay. Map a hardware knob to CC 10 for hands-on panning moves, or play notes to drop a sound at fixed positions across the field.

Frequently Asked Questions