AudioBeginner

Stereo Pan

Sounds follow their objects across the stereo field — the ear tracks what the eye hasn't found yet.

audiopanspatialpositioning

Examples

Captured from this page's own interactive demo below.

Overview

When an enemy spawns on the left, its sound should come from the left. Stereo panning is the cheapest spatial audio there is — one number from -1 to +1 — and it quietly does two jobs: it glues sounds to their objects (the brain accepts 'that click WAS that coin' much more readily when the directions match), and it points the player at things outside their attention, or outside the screen entirely.

The mapping is one line: normalize the object's screen X to -1..1 and feed it to the pan. Two refinements make it professional. First, soften the extremes — full hard-left sounds detached, so scale by ~0.7–0.8. Second, pan the START of a sound and let it play out; a pan that keeps sliding mid-sample sounds like a mixing desk, not a world.

Know when NOT to use it: phone speakers are mono or nearly so, which is exactly why panning is a headphone bonus on mobile — design so information also exists visually, and let pan enrich rather than gatekeep. Keep player-centric sounds (own footsteps, UI, music) dead center: they belong to the listener, not to the world.

Interactive Demo

wear headphones — the blips ride the ball across the stereo field

Pan Depth75%

Speed0.9×

Use Cases

Enemies and pickups announcing their sideOff-screen events pointing the player's attentionProjectiles whooshing past the cameraHeadphone polish for mobile games and playables

Best Practices

Do

✓Map screen X to pan, but scale by ~0.7–0.8 — a hard-panned sound detaches from the scene.
✓Pan the start of the sound and let it ring; continuous mid-sample sliding reads as a mixer, not a world.
✓Keep player-centric audio (own steps, UI, music) centered — it belongs to the listener, not the world.

Don't

✕Don't gate information behind pan on mobile — phone speakers are mono; pan is the headphone bonus.
✕Don't pan bass-heavy sounds hard — low frequencies barely localize and just lose power off-center.
✕Don't forget to re-pan spawned loops (auras, engines) as their object moves — a left engine idling on the right breaks the glue.

Common Mistakes

⚠Every sound panned to 100% of its position, turning the mix into ping-pong.
⚠Pan computed from world X instead of screen X, so sounds sit wrong the moment the camera turns.
⚠UI clicks panned to the button's position — menus are the player's hands, not scene objects.

Implementation

Paste this into your AI assistant (Cursor, Copilot, Claude) to add the effect to your project.

Prompt

Add the "Stereo Pan" game-feel effect to my project: Sounds follow their objects across the stereo field — the ear tracks what the eye hasn't found yet.

How it works: When an enemy spawns on the left, its sound should come from the left. Stereo panning is the cheapest spatial audio there is — one number from -1 to +1 — and it quietly does two jobs: it glues sounds to their objects (the brain accepts 'that click WAS that coin' much more readily when the directions match), and it points the player at things outside their attention, or outside the screen entirely.

Guidelines:
- Map screen X to pan, but scale by ~0.7–0.8 — a hard-panned sound detaches from the scene.
- Pan the start of the sound and let it ring; continuous mid-sample sliding reads as a mixer, not a world.
- Keep player-centric audio (own steps, UI, music) centered — it belongs to the listener, not the world.

Avoid:
- Don't gate information behind pan on mobile — phone speakers are mono; pan is the headphone bonus.
- Don't pan bass-heavy sounds hard — low frequencies barely localize and just lose power off-center.
- Don't forget to re-pan spawned loops (auras, engines) as their object moves — a left engine idling on the right breaks the glue.

Implement the effect in whatever engine/stack the project already uses and follow its existing code style. Wire it up where it makes sense.