Lcr

LCR is about panning, not where things end up in the stereo image. When using a stereo mic technique, the stereo image that it captures is preserved through hard panning the mics (or just panning a stereo track center). There is no reason to screw with it in order to (for example) get all the cymbals to be completely left or right). Doing that is a misinterpretation of what LCR mixing is.

LCR mixing was all you could do in the early days of stereo. Mixers didn't have pan pots, they had switches. Each channel was either left, right or center. With a stereo mic technique, one mic would be left, the other would be right. That preserved the stereo image.
 
I'll play devil's advocate and ask "why do they have pan pots on mixers if LRC is the best way to go" ?
 
Yup. LCR. I actually don't think I've heard a single track in the clinic here using LCR panning. I'm going to give it a try tonight on the current mix I'm working on...should be ready by the weekend, early next week at latest.

Thoughts? Have you tried it and didn't like it?

oh yea, i've used it quite a bit,
for certain arrangements, it totally works......
you certainly have to understand what's going on with sound perspectives,
and if you are using stereo pairs, you have to understand the impact of that.....
 
I tend to think that if something is important to the mix, it should be audible in both speakers.

The video talks about how you shouldn't depend on the user to be listening in an ideal environment where they'll be able to hear your stereo field. As a corollary to that, you shouldn't assume your listener is listening on a system that is actually stereo.

I'll hard pan some instruments (especially if they're double tracked), but if it really *matters* to the song, it's not getting hard panned.
 
I've seen warren huart on youtube (producer for fray, ace frehley, others) hard pan two guitar takes and add a delay to each one in the opposite channel. Really fills out the sound and I guess doesn't violate the rule of being able to hear everything in both speakers.
 
I tend to think that if something is important to the mix, it should be audible in both speakers.

The video talks about how you shouldn't depend on the user to be listening in an ideal environment where they'll be able to hear your stereo field. As a corollary to that, you shouldn't assume your listener is listening on a system that is actually stereo.

I'll hard pan some instruments (especially if they're double tracked), but if it really *matters* to the song, it's not getting hard panned.

All i know is that some of my favorite tracks are apparently LCR'd. The article and video throw science at it, but simply, it sounds good to me. Of course it depends on the song/genre.

I did a mix like this...it's just up in the clinic as of 30 mins ago. I like how it came out. Even if both guitar sets are on top of one another.
 
On your track all the stuff up the middle is really clear and the image is nice.

After I saw this post a couple nights ago I applied the idea to a piece I'm working on and I think I like how it sounds. It gives things sort of a late 90s alt rock feel so I'm not sure I'd use it on everything but if it reduces the work I have to do w eq I think it's a great idea.

Never really occurred to me to pan something all the way, guess I've been worried about getting too wide. But it actually sounds okay.
 
I don't see the point in doing something like this as a rule. If a song has a part that I think sounds better panned all the way, I'll do it. But I don't see the point in doing it stubbornly just because "LCR" is a thing. I totally get how/why it was invented out of necessity. But that necessity doesn't exist any more. So, if you think it's cool to have that one guitar completely on the right, and that other lick completely on the left, go for it. But I don't see the need to use this technique just because it has a name. :)

I do pan my overheads hard, and I pan my rythm guitars hard. Not for any other reason than I think that's how they usually sound best. But if I want to put that "third" guitar only 35% to the left because that's how I think it sounds best, I'm not going to not do that just for the sake of saying I'm using LCR, CLR, CLA, NHL, or ALS, even though I do have OCD and ADD.

So GFO. LOL.
 
Yeah, listening to Colour and the Shape right now, seems like every song is guitars hard panned, vocal drum and bass up the center. Sometimes drum pieces are wide too. Never noticed it before but I knew I remembered that sound somewhere. . . Dry except for some delay on the vocal I think.

Got a new pedal today, might have to channel my inner angsty teenager and try this out this week.:guitar::cursing::guitar:
 
I don't see the point in doing something like this as a rule. If a song has a part that I think sounds better panned all the way, I'll do it. But I don't see the point in doing it stubbornly just because "LCR" is a thing. I totally get how/why it was invented out of necessity. But that necessity doesn't exist any more. So, if you think it's cool to have that one guitar completely on the right, and that other lick completely on the left, go for it. But I don't see the need to use this technique just because it has a name. :)

I do pan my overheads hard, and I pan my rythm guitars hard. Not for any other reason than I think that's how they usually sound best. But if I want to put that "third" guitar only 35% to the left because that's how I think it sounds best,
Yeah, that's really the rub of it. Do what sounds good for your mix. Or apply arbitrary restrictions because it's an interesting challenge to yourself.

I'm not going to not do that
Yep. Didn't follow that sentence one bit! :D
 
Yep. Didn't follow that sentence one bit! :D

hehe...Funny, I read that back to myself a few times before posting, wondering if the double negative will work. I should have made it more prominent, like "I'm not going to NOT do that......". :)
 
Someone said there's something wrong with it?

Where is that dirty rat?
 
LCR panning is quite common in the world of live sound mixing, particularly in a theatre-style environment. Indeed, it's quite common in musical theatre to have a centre array of speakers plus the left/right stacks.

I works well there but I must admit I've never tried it for a studio mix. My suspicion is that it might be hard to make it sound good in our world of earbud mobile listening.
 
I think Bobbsy has hit the nail on the head.It's a very IN THE ROOM experience.
NOT in the headphones.
Binaural audio images on the other hand - wow, I'd love to be able to mix binaural &, therefore, specifically for good headphones.
Obviously it wouldn't be my recent 4 to the floor stuff.
I hard pan main guitars, pop the bass, kick, snare & vox up the centre, match the tomes to the OH phantom image and then fill in with what's left as and where it sounds right.
 
I
Binaural audio images on the other hand - wow, I'd love to be able to mix binaural &, therefore, specifically for good headphones.


Binaural is heaps of fun. Back when I was in the UK (before I retired to Aus) one of the BBC radio networks did a series of dramas recorded in binaural and they were good enough to lure me out of the pub early to listen to them!

Based on that, I thought I'd have a play and did a home made binaural rig with an oval of thing MDF in the middle and a small omni mic (I used some little lavaliers I happened to have) mounted either side with judicious use of gaffer tape and coat hanger wire. I never tried it with music but with things like traffic or underground tube trains arriving you could have thought you were there if you sat back and closed your eyes listening with headphones.
 
LCR for theater is especially useful when you have two actors in an embrace singing to each other, you can avoid the phase cancellation by sending one of their mics to the center stack and the other person's mic to the left right stacks.

Since their signals are never mixed, they don't comb filter.

But that won't help with a recording.
 
I don't know. Many professional recordings disagree with that. It seems like a blanket statement to say it never works for rock music recordings. In fact, the opposite is true.
 
Back
Top