How hard are you panning your doubled lead vocals

Ray J

New member
For those of you who have doubled your lead vocal track in the past. How hard are you panning each track? I would have thought panning hard would be best, but I always seem to settle in around 9:30 and 2:30. There seems to be a 'sweet spot' somewhere around there. What are you guys doing? WHat's the rule of thumb, if there is one?

Ray J
 
I haven't had much luck with hard panning, especially vocals. Too much separation usually makes it sound kinda wierd to me. It needs to be more centered for lead vocals.

One thing you might try is panning the two tracks to where you want them, then adding a third track back into the center, and play with the levels till you get a good balance.

Twist
 
Yeah, I too have found that hard panning doubled lead vocals tends to degrade that nice centered image I want, especially if you don't nail the double perfectly. One thing I tried the other day was to track the vocal the first time with my LD condenser and keep that dead center. Then, I doubled it with a stereo setup using a SD condenser and a 57. I hard panned those two mics and put them somewhat lower in the mix. The result was a really nice center image with the chorusy effect of doubling AND a wider stereo field. Then you can play with reverbs and delays to make it more interesting. Sort of similar to what twist suggested with a little different twist...:rolleyes:
 
Thanks fellas. Very interesting. I know what you guys mean by hard panning, I've tried it and didn't like the way it sounds. I only have 8 tracks, so tripling is out of the question for me on most songs. I tried pulling them a little more toward the center, around 10 and 2 and it sounded a little better

Ray J
 
Yo Ray J J J J J J J J YAY:]

Try recording your vocals with the pan knobs straight up; like at high noon with Gary Cooper.

When you mix down, you can pan one vocal track a bit left/right, and maybe the other. You will be surprised with what you get.

However, if you pan too much, you lose the "up front" vocal effect which I dig.


I did a spoof and "The Girl From Ipanema," but had a prior recording of my favorite female vocalist doing the the song. After I mixed my spoof, I did another and panned her voice way over.

Quite a nice effect; she is doing it straight and I'm the clown. I just raised her volume enough to make out the lyrics. She'll hate me for doing this but it sure is fun.


Cheers,

Green Hornet
 
GH

yeah, I'm definitely tracking at hi noon, I was doing the panning during mixdown. I pulled it further to the middle and it sounded quite nice. Think I'm gonna use it.

Ray J
 
I like to record 1 track, right up the midle, and then I usually bring out the high end a bit, and go real easy on verb or delay (if any at all). Then, I record an overbud, but send it to 2 tracks hard left and right. This stereo track usually contains the bulk of the effect....only problem I have run into is when there are lots of harmonies.
 
hard panning?

Not to change the subject too much, here.... but what DOES sound good "hard panned"? I'm assuming that "hard pan" means, panning to the left or right as far as the pan knob will go. What are you supposed to put back there? My tendency is to not put anything deeper than 8:30 or 3:30, and most stuff doesn't go beyond 9 and 3. Maybe that's because my arrangements are pretty simple, so there's plenty of room between 9 and 3...

Also, I don't do any panning until I mix... do people use panning while they're tracking?

Pete
 
tmcbrinn - I'm dealing with 8 tracks therefore, I'm usually lucky to have 1 track left over to double the lead vocal and I usually stick harmony, if there is any, on the guitar solo track or something. More tracks would be nice to play around with.

Pete - yeah, I usually don't pan while I track either, everything straight up until mix, with one exception sometimes when I 'm tracking drums but I won't get into that. Also, I rarely pan anything hard left or right in the mix either.. I"ll usually pan things like a egg shaker, tamborine or something like that pretty hard but I too, usually stay between 9 and 3

Ray J
 
Re: hard panning?

PeteAnon said:
Not to change the subject too much, here.... but what DOES sound good "hard panned"?

Electric guitars are commonly hard panned and sound good. A lot of times stereo mic set ups are hard panned too, like overheads or acoustic guitar.
 
i use the full stereo spectrum a good deal of the time.

rhythm guitars panned hard L/R.

bass panned somewhere between dead center and 5% L/R of center.

entire percussion panned no more than 20% L/R of center.

other instruments panned between the guitar and the end of the percussion track panning.

oh yeah, i never quite know where i'm going to pan the back vocals. it depends on what the other instruments are. many times i pan them just outside the percussion.

sometimes, i pan the doubled vocal right down the center and use delay, volume, and reverb to distinguish it from the original.
 
stereo acoustic rhythm guitar tracks sound great when hard panned.. especially when they are the only instruments panned this way..

Cy
 
Panning

For lead vocals, I record a stereo double, BUT it's usually dry, with no FX. It will thicken the vox without adding mud and keeps them dead centre.


I only pan the backing vocals
 
i do the exact opposite.

i put more fx on the double and put as little fx as possible on the original. that way the original vocal is UP FRONT and the double thickens it but further back in the mix; otherwise, i would think that your lead vocal would appear to be further back in the mix because of the FX, and your double would be up front because it's dry.

do you put more FX on your lead or your background vocals? I put more on the background vocals to put them in the background.
 
It Depends...

crosstudio,

It depends on the song. Some songs deliberately have no fx at all to reate a super-tight sound.

But, usually, there's more fx on the backgroud vocals - like a tight delay to really thicken the sound.

I like your idea of using the dry track up front. Depending on the type of music though, the fx on the lead vocals SHOULD move the vocals "back" in the mix to help them sit better and not dominate the song.
 
Thanks for the input everyone. Keep em coming. My tune with the doubled vocal is still in the works and I'm gonna try some of this stuff and see what I like best. I agree about the tight delay, back when I was using 4 track I use to use it on the lead vocal on some songs and it fattens it a bit

Ray J
 
depends on the type of music though....

i can't argue with that. i got this book on mixing where it states not to use very much reverb at all on bass. that's great for me playing r&b, but i've heard dance tracks and old 80's new-wave that had hella 'verb on the bass.

another thing i'm starting to experiment with is using the same reverb parameters on the background and lead vocals but using a different predelay. that way it appears that the vocals are all in the same room, but the lead is more up front. funny thing is, i expected that the lead would have a shorter pre-delay but it's working out to just the opposite. it sounds better with the lead having a longer predelay than the background vocals. i'm still in the early stages with figuring this method out.
 
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