# Panning not working in Reaper bus



## Schivosa (Dec 14, 2018)

In Reaper, I made a bus track and I am sending two guitar tracks to it. The issue is that it centers both the tracks and I can't pan the guitars left and right. I am using Helix Native for the guitars. Any ideas? Thanks.


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## GunpointMetal (Dec 14, 2018)

If they're already panned and you're sending them post-fader/post-pan you shouldn't have to pan them anyways. That's odd.
Edit: have you tried doing it with folder tracks instead of bussing through the sends? Also, you didn't accidentally engage the mono button on the master buss? It sounds obvious and stupid and I in no way intend to be insulting. For me 9/10 times when something isn't working its because I'm doing something really obvious and overlooking it.


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## Schivosa (Dec 14, 2018)

GunpointMetal said:


> If they're already panned and you're sending them post-fader/post-pan you shouldn't have to pan them anyways. That's odd.
> Edit: have you tried doing it with folder tracks instead of bussing through the sends? Also, you didn't accidentally engage the mono button on the master buss? It sounds obvious and stupid and I in no way intend to be insulting. For me 9/10 times when something isn't working its because I'm doing something really obvious and overlooking it.



By Folder tracks, do you mean like in the screenshot? Mono button on master is off.


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## GunpointMetal (Dec 14, 2018)

yep, still in mono?
Maybe even try moving them out of the folder and dropping them back in. I also see that you have your FX on the input on the buss track. Is there a mono effect in that chain like maybe a gate or compressor that doesn't automatically route stereo?


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## Schivosa (Dec 14, 2018)

GunpointMetal said:


> yep, still in mono?
> Maybe even try moving them out of the folder and dropping them back in. I also see that you have your FX on the input on the buss track. Is there a mono effect in that chain like maybe a gate or compressor that doesn't automatically route stereo?



I running Helix Native on the bus track. I also have it in the left and right tracks but they are bypassed in those. I'm thinking it might be a Helix Native issue. I'm going to try with another amp sim and see if it works.


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## GunpointMetal (Dec 14, 2018)

Schivosa said:


> I running Helix Native on the bus track. I also have it in the left and right tracks but they are bypassed in those. I'm thinking it might be a Helix Native issue. I'm going to try with another amp sim and see if it works.


Two entirely separate signal chains in Native?


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## Drew (Dec 14, 2018)

Try bypassing your FX on the master bus - if you're running them through any sort of mono FX, it'll collapse the stereo tracks back to mono.


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## FwLineberry (Dec 14, 2018)

Schivosa said:


> I running Helix Native on the bus track. I also have it in the left and right tracks but they are bypassed in those. I'm thinking it might be a Helix Native issue. I'm going to try with another amp sim and see if it works.




That is most likely your problem. Ideally, you'd want to run a separate instance of Helix on the individual guitar tracks.


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## Schivosa (Dec 14, 2018)

So, it's definitely a Helix issue. I tried with EZmix and it works fine. Here is what I have




I tried copying the same path to the second line underneath and also changed all of the blocks from mono to stereo. I can't change the IR block though. It's greyed out in mono.


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## Schivosa (Dec 14, 2018)

Drew said:


> Try bypassing your FX on the master bus - if you're running them through any sort of mono FX, it'll collapse the stereo tracks back to mono.



That was it!!! I just removed Helix from the bus. I don't want to bypass the FX because I will be adding an EQ there. Thanks for the help guys!


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## GunpointMetal (Dec 14, 2018)

You should be able to configure Helix Native to run a stereo path, but you'll need two IR blocks and two separate signal chains to maintain full stereo. You really should vary your L/R guitar processing a little bit anyways.


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## Schivosa (Dec 14, 2018)

Ok, I'll look into how to do that.


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## Drew (Dec 14, 2018)

Schivosa said:


> That was it!!! I just removed Helix from the bus. I don't want to bypass the FX because I will be adding an EQ there. Thanks for the help guys!


Yeah, as long as you're running stereo effects (or rather, effects that can handle a stereo routing path) in the bus you're fine. I wasn't thinking when I posted this, the Helix is an amp simulator, isn't it? That's going to be designed to take a mono signal, so you can't run a stereo signal into it. You also don't WANT to - to double track, you want to have two seperately recorded guitar signals panned left and right, so you want to be running Helix on the individual tracks, not at the bus level. What you're doing is sort of akin to plugging two guitars into one amp, which is going to sound very different than double-tracking a guitar and panning it hard L and R.


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## Schivosa (Dec 14, 2018)

Drew said:


> Yeah, as long as you're running stereo effects (or rather, effects that can handle a stereo routing path) in the bus you're fine. I wasn't thinking when I posted this, the Helix is an amp simulator, isn't it? That's going to be designed to take a mono signal, so you can't run a stereo signal into it. You also don't WANT to - to double track, you want to have two seperately recorded guitar signals panned left and right, so you want to be running Helix on the individual tracks, not at the bus level. What you're doing is sort of akin to plugging two guitars into one amp, which is going to sound very different than double-tracking a guitar and panning it hard L and R.



Right, I've always recorded two separate guitar tracks panned left and right but I haven't used a bus before. I just want the bus to add an EQ basically.


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## FwLineberry (Dec 14, 2018)

Running Helix at the bus level is plugging two guitars into one amp. Plug each guitar into its own amp at the track level.


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## GunpointMetal (Dec 14, 2018)

Drew said:


> Yeah, as long as you're running stereo effects (or rather, effects that can handle a stereo routing path) in the bus you're fine. I wasn't thinking when I posted this, the Helix is an amp simulator, isn't it? That's going to be designed to take a mono signal, so you can't run a stereo signal into it. You also don't WANT to - to double track, you want to have two seperately recorded guitar signals panned left and right, so you want to be running Helix on the individual tracks, not at the bus level. What you're doing is sort of akin to plugging two guitars into one amp, which is going to sound very different than double-tracking a guitar and panning it hard L and R.


You can run two entirely separate signals through Helix native, you just have to assign each input to a side (where it says Host and None on the left end of the signal view there) and then pan the outputs (where it says Host at the right end). Not sure what the benefit of doing that would be over running separate instances, because I image the CPU hit would be approximately the same anyways. You can use Native on the bus if you want to use compression or space/time FX from native on BOTH guitars, you just have to make sure you only use stereo versions of the FX and don't have ANY mono FX in the chain.


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