Updated to version 3, Panipulator from Boz Digital Labs tests your music “across various less-than-ideal playback systems”.

Your latest mix may sound perfect on your expensive, well-positioned, hi-end studio monitors, however, unfortunately this isn’t how all of your audience will hear it. Not all listening happens in stereo. Many venues such as nightclubs, restaurants and stores often pump out audio in mono to ensure everyone hears the same thing. Some cheaper home speakers are also often mono. Ensuring everyone can hear all elements of your track, regardless of their listening device, is an import lesson that can be overlooked by producers just starting out.

Panipulator hopes to help you achieve accurate mix translation across devices. The free, updated plugin checks mono compatibility, speaker polarity, identifies phase issues in multi-miked instruments, isolates speakers in mono and more.

The just released third version of the CPU-friendly tool has a refreshed GUI, as well as simple, streamlined controls. A big red MONO button, unsurprisingly lets you listen to your mix in mono. Below you’ll find new lofi effect buttons. You can also flip the left and right channels, invert the polarity of either channel, and adjust the pan law using the 0, -3 and -6 buttons. Pan law compensates for any increase in level when two signals are summed to mono. Any moving elements that pan left and right, when played in mono this can turn that motion into a push/pull feel. Adjusting the pan law per track can fix this issue.

  • Simple, streamlined user interface
  • Check the mono compatibility of mixes
  • Identify problems in the stereo field
  • Hear what your mixes will sound like in imperfect playback media
  • Use correctively or creatively
  • Flip phase on left and right speakers individually
  • Isolate speakers in mono, in and out of phase
  • Flip the stereo field to assess differences in speaker playback
  • Listen in “LoFi” mode

Panipulator 3 is available in VST2.4, VST3, AU, AAX and Standalone formats, and compatible on 64-bit macOS 10.11 or later, Windows XP or later, with at least 2GB or RAM and 150MB of space. To download the free plugin, head here, click Add to cart, View cart, Proceed to checkout, then register for an account.