Melbourne Studio Launches Panoramic, a Mastering Stereo Widener Built for Mono Safety

Nicholas Di Lorenzo has spent years building custom signal chains in his Melbourne mastering studio, layering techniques to open up the stereo field without destroying what happens when a mix collapses to mono. That tension—between width and translation—is the problem most stereo-widening tools ignore. They chase the image outward and leave a wreck behind. So he built Panoramic, a mastering plugin that solves the problem by working sideways instead of backwards.

The core idea is simple but precise: rather than using phase shifts or delay tricks to create width—the usual moves that fall apart the moment a mix folds to mono—Panoramic processes only the side signal, the difference between left and right channels. The mid signal, the stuff that anchors a mix, stays untouched. This means you can open the stereo image as wide as you want without compromising what engineers call the mono fold-down, the critical test of whether a mix will survive on a single speaker, a car radio, or a phone.

The plugin gives you four parallel modules to shape what happens in that side signal. Width is the straightforward control: it opens the stereo image, and you can run it in parallel or across the whole signal depending on how much aggression you want. Density adds compression to the sides only, a move that lifts quiet detail and texture without touching the centre channel—useful when a mix feels thin in the stereo field. Character brings odd-order saturation to the sides for weight and energy, and includes a Steal function that pulls harmonics from the mid channel into the sides, adding depth without muddying the core. Air lifts the top end for presence and includes a high-frequency dynamic EQ, the kind of tool that tames splashy cymbals or sibilant vocals that can get harsh when you're widening.

Keeping the low end safe is the whole point, so Panoramic includes an elliptical filter that folds frequencies below a certain threshold back to mono. You can place this filter before the processing modules for a cleaner result that keeps the lows out of the widening entirely, or after, so they interact with the modules before collapsing to mono. It's the kind of choice that separates a tool built by someone who actually masters from a tool built by someone who read about mastering.

The technical foundation is solid. The plugin runs 2x and 4x oversampling, has linked or unlinked input and output for gain staging, and offers a 0 to 200% mix control so you can blend the effect in parallel if you want. The interface scales, which matters when you're working on a laptop or a large display. It's available on macOS 11 or later, on both Apple silicon and Intel, in AU, VST3, and AAX formats. There's no Windows version planned for now.

Panorama Audio Labs is Di Lorenzo's first plugin release, and it comes from the kind of specificity that matters in professional tools. This isn't a one-knob widener for casual users. It's built for engineers who need control, who understand the difference between a wide mix and a mix that works everywhere, and who have spent enough time in the mastering chain to know that the simplest solution—just push the sides wider—is usually the one that breaks something downstream.