Panning for Stereo During Recording or When Mixing?

G

gvdv

Member
Hi,
I have never really attempted stereo recording before, but will be starting to experiment recording an upright piano tomorrow, so please forgive any naivete contained in this question.

If I want to record the piano in stereo (regardless of whether I use A/B, X/Y, or MS techniques), should I pan each of the two mics. while I am recording, or should I record each mic. with the panning in the centre of the stereo field, and then subsequently pan each of them when mixing?

Thanks for any answers.
 
You're not really panning the mics...just record each to it's own, mono track. Don't get thrown by the "stereo" tracks you see in the DAW, and if you can...set them to mono, which is really what it is.

Once in the DAW, yes, each mic track would be normally panned hard L and R.
With MS, you have to do a bit more work to set up the matrix, but pretty easy with a DAW (just Google it).

If you have a hard time with the upright...try this (worked great for me).

3 mics.

Your main L/R "stereo" mics placed down about a 1' off the ground spread L/R and pointing at the open lower section of the piano....kinda on each side of the bench.
The third mic is placed up above (also open piano - remove all the woodwork)...and put it about 1' off the top, dead center.
That's your center fill mic.

Record each mic to its own track.

So...you get most of your L/R stereo from the two bottom mics, panned hard L/R in the DAW...and then you use your upper center fill mic to solidify the center, mono sound, and you can add that to taste.
 
Hi miroslav,
Many thanks for your comprehensive and thoughtful reply.

I was actually planning on using 3 mics..

I am confused, though, about something.

After posting my question, above, I came across this article - 'How To Pan An Acoustic Piano' - which suggests (if I understand it correctly) that one should pan each one of a pair of mics. to (respectively) the L and R during recording, in order to achieve a stereo recording
How to pan an acoustic piano

So, I am confused about whether I should pan during recording.

I should also add that the Zoom R 16 that I am going to use for this recording (rather than taking my computer and audio interface) has the option of linking two tracks into a stereo pair. From the tests that I have done so far yesterday and today, it seems that the dilemma of panning is irrelevant if I record using 'Stereo Link' because the R 16 takes care of that for me.

If I go this route, I will use two mics. to do this 'Stereo Link' recording, and a third mic., as a 'safety', to produce a mono recording.

I would appreciate your thoughts about the above.

Many thanks, once again.
 
Each mic takes one channel. Record each mic channel to one mono track. Don't link them. Deal with panning later*.

*If your setup allows panning of the live inputs or playback to the monitor mix, do whatever works for monitoring purposes. But that's different from panning for recording purposes.
 
Hi bouldersoundguy,
Many thanks for this.

Out of curiosity, why do you think that the Zoom R 16 has the 'Stereo Link' capability?

It sounds like it may be for a purpose such as the one I am describing, but that committing to a stereo track during the recording stage might deprive one of some potential flexibility in mixing the tracks later (unless one can split them of course).
 
The stereo link is good for recording from a stereo source, like a cd player, a stereo chorus pedal for a guitar, 2 mics covering a similar sound source, a stereo electronic piano. Yes, you can run your two mics to one stereo track and record it that way. Each mic will be hard panned. But it won't sound as good as you can make it... for what you're doing, they aren't a similar sound source.

As the other guys said, you don't want to record to one stereo track. When processing the stereo track, whatever you do will apply to both tracks equally. If one mic is recording mostly the low strings at the bottom of the upright and the other mic is recording the high strings at the top, the sounds are different, the overall feel of each mic is different and you're going to want to adjust each one differently. That's why you want to record to two mono tracks; one for each mic. Then you can adjust each one individually so they mesh better in the final mix.

After you get them sounding good, then you can mix down to one stereo track.
 
If you need to tweak clip gain or eq it's easier when they're on separate tracks. You could record to one stereo track, but there's no real advantage.
 
Another reason for separate tracks... In a mix it's rare that you pan a piano hard left and hard right. You will want to place the piano on the soundstage and make it an appropriate width - even for solo piano. Hard panned keyboards generally clog a mix and ironically often make a mix narrower than selective panning can achieve.
 
iqi616 said:
Another reason for separate tracks... In a mix it's rare that you pan a piano hard left and hard right. You will want to place the piano on the soundstage and make it an appropriate width - even for solo piano. Hard panned keyboards generally clog a mix and ironically often make a mix narrower than selective panning can achieve.
Click to expand...

Yep, I do it like that all the time.
 
iqi616 said:
In a mix it's rare that you pan a piano hard left and hard right.
Click to expand...

:thumbs up: .... although in certain productions it can give a distinctive effect. Did it recently in one.

But i agree totally. Normally not while recording. After that.
 
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