How can most music that’s playing from headphones have separate sounds for each ear?
In: Technology
It’s called the stereo field. Each individual element of a song can have its own position in this stereo field.
When you record music, each element can have its own track. So for a drum kit, for instance, the kick drum goes on one track, snare on another, and Tom’s each on their own track. This allows you to mix the volume levels of each element to create something that sounds nice and balanced, you can pick out what each instrument is playing.
But it doesn’t stop at volume. There is also pan, short for panorama.
This allows you to place an element in a specific place within the stereo image. Turned all the way to the left makes that element only come through the left speaker, all the way to the right means the instrument only comes through the right speaker. Set in the middle means the sound plays equally through both speakers.
You can place things at any point between 100%left and 100% right.
If you place something at, say, 75% left, then 75% of the total volume of that element will come through the left speaker and 25% through the right.
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