What are the meanings of pan(ning) and pan pot?
from what original meanings of pan and pot are the meanings in sound engineering derived?
1 Answer
Pot is short for potentiometer, which is a fancy electronics word for "knob" or "dial". Panning means positioning something left to right in a stereo sound field. To pan is the verb meaning the action of moving something to a certain place in a stereo sound field. So, a pan pot is a knob that you turn to move a sound left or right in a stereo mix.
I'm not sure, but I suspect pan is short for panorama or panoramic as in "panoramic sound", which I believe was used to describe stereo sound when it was new and amazing compared to mono sound. Also, panning is used in video and filming to mean moving left-to-right or right-to-left while filming, so this is the audio equivalent.
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1"Potentiometer" originally meant specifically a variable resistor and I suspect that comes from being able to measure electric potential by adjusting a variable resistance to match a predetermined voltage or current point and using math to calculate the potential based on the resistance. Now "pot" pretty much means any knob; digital, analog, or whatever. Commented Jun 29, 2015 at 20:39
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Potential refers to a voltage. A potentiometer is a device that acts as a variable voltage divider - proportionally dividing a voltage based on two resistors in series. In a potentiometer the two resistances are proportion to the position set on the potentiometer so that the output voltage can swing fully between the supply voltage and ground. Commented Jun 30, 2015 at 9:08
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1And here I thought the Berlin techno duo Pan-Pot was just choosing extremely common kitchen apparatuses as their name to symbolize the minimalism of their style... Commented Sep 9, 2015 at 3:03