Plenty !
Just curious if anyone knows when it started becoming standard practice to pan drums in a stereo spectrum with the toms out wide - and why.
I would hazard a guess that it was the late 1960s/early 70s when 8 tracks took over from 4 tracks as the big boys in town. Although 8 track machines existed in the 50s, it was as young mens' musical imaginations expanded and different kinds of songs were being written to express these new experiences and new sounds were being sought to convey this in a sonic medium. This is reflected not only in the instruments themselves {mellotrons, synthesizers, the rise of the bass guitar...} but in the use of a huge range of instruments and the way they were being recorded and
mixed. Some ways of panning didn't really survive.
I read somewhere that the Motown engineers were the first to routinely put vocals, bass and drums in the centre.
It's always sounded very unnatural to me to have the toms bouncing hard back and forth between the speakers like that, since just about everyone listening to a drumset (except for the drummer kind of) normally hears the drums as basically a mono instrument.
I've never met anyone that translates their live listening to records. When I used to listen to records, they just
were. Although by the time I was 14 I had begun to notice panning, I never questioned it. I thought it was cool and obviously to have noticed it it must have made an imprint on me but I never thought it was out of the ordinary or out of place or weird.
I have a mate from Zambia who is both a drummer and producer/engineer and he taught this little trick with the toms. Pan the floor tom 20 and the highest sounding tom 15% left and the other tom 17~22% right {or whatever percentage you choose; I just threw that one out arbitrarily !} and you get this fantastic effect when all the toms are being run across.
Well, it's fantastic if you like it, which I do. But I also don't use it on every tune.
I much prefer the sound of older records where the drums are in mono like the other instruments.
I love the sound of older records. But then I love the sound of records of every era, even now. I'm swayed by my love of the song, not how it was mixed.
I can understand recording an instrument in stereo if it's a solo piano piece or something because there's nothing else. But when you hear a band play, you never hear the drums like that.
But in a way, you do. If the drums are miked you can sometimes hear them spread wide, depending on the person doing the sound and on where you are and the PA set up. When I'm recording with drummers, because of the room we record in {my kids' bedroom}, I sit on the high hat side and that definitely minimises what I hear on the floor tom side. When I'm placing the mics and my mates are playing, if I'm central, the right hand toms are definitely heard clearer by my left ear and vice versa.{
I know recording doesn't have to represent reality (and I'm glad for that)
And that's the thing that many of us overlook or don't really think about. All of the arguments about recording the group live vs overdubbing, where the instruments would be on stage, authenticity, overdubbing, sims, amps, VSTis, clicks, which mic to use etc, they're fun to have and all, but in the ultimate analysis, fairly irrelevant because we are creating an artificial soundworld. No band or orchestra sets up in your front room or car and plays through two boxes. So each recordist has the freedom to create their own soundworld. It has little to do with reality. We enhance sonic "reality". Why ? Because as was said earlier, it sounds "better".
I know that lots of people use stereo guitars as well, which I really hate. I mean, if it's two different guitars (tones, performances) playing the same part but panned wide, I can understand it a bit more. But the thought that any rhythm guitar track has to be in stereo "just because" is nonsense IMHO.
Pretty much all of the things that we see in the present day, recording wise, are logical outcomes of progression. When recording first began, it was one mic picking up multiple sources in one space. That's as basic as it is possible to be, kind of like the amoeba of recording history.
But human beings aren't designed to stand still. Sooner or later our curiosity, for better or worse, causes us to try different things. What will happen if I eat this ? What will happen if I light this and inhale it ? What will happen if I stretch this skin and hit it in the centre ? Or at the edge ? Or in between ? Hmmm, what if I record a piano on this machine, then play back and record on a second machine that recording of the piano plus me playing a guitar......? Hey look ! If I then record me on that recording of me on piano and guitar while I sing and play bongos, I can have a one man band at my leisure. Now what if I add another piano part.......
To answer your question, often if people like the sound or effect of a particular way of doing things {eg, stereo guitars}, they'll try it and keep with it.
Until they their curiosity pushes them to try something else....
And since when does a recording have to mimic live? The whole point of multi~track recording is to do something better than just hanging a mic in a room.
The idea that music somehow loses it's soul and integrity if a lot of time is taken to record it and lots of it is done separately has never made sense to me and still doesn't. I think multi~tracking is easily the most important development in the whole of popular music history.
I can't imagine a singular "rule" that says drums should be mixed this way or that way.
Well, there isn't. But certain practices catch on. I mean, look how many people routinely compress the bass guitar. In recording, there aren't rules as such, just many, many finely tried and tested ways of doing things.
