General Panning Talk Thread

[Jack Russell]

In the olden days of the music biz, they had mono records. Then someone figured out how to get different sounds on two sides of the groove. DUH!!! And then we had stereo.

But how do you mixer/masterers pan your mixes today? Do you go for an open sound with some things far left and right, or a more tight almost mono sound?

[Greg_L]

I don't know anything about anything, but I like the sound of a wide mix. I like drum rolls to go from one side to the other. I like to hear one guitar in one ear and another in the other ear. Big stereo all the way!

[mrhotapples]

It depends...Some songs sound great covering a huge soundfield. Others are nice a little more narrow. I'm a huge fan of the arrangement of a song dictating panning...Say, verse one has no lead guitar but it has a rhythm guitar and the second guitar accenting certain things. The chorus is big and open and wide, not focused like the verse. Then we get to the second verse, and the focus returns, everything is smaller, but there is a lead guitar dancing way off right of you...Then the chorus comes in with a little noodly bit layered in to counterpoint the hook this time!

It's more interesting when a song uses panning like that. There are other ways to think...For instance...Bass frequencies in the middle, highest, longest stuff on the outsides...I usually EQ my reverb sends higher and pan them wide when I want to retain focus but maintain a sense of space.

[rayc]

Horses for courses. For proggy/psych it has to be the wide open road but for most other things I try to start out as mono & pan as minimally as EQ brawls will allow.
When I listen to proggy psych I use a quad amp & a quad sound synth circuit to get really far out.
Mind you Pet Sounds + Odyssey & Oracle are superb in mono.
I like you take on "ménage à trois" figuratively a household of three.

[faderbug]

i like everything from
solid mono
to
far out surround/wild panning effects/beyond-the-speakers stereo

i'm a big fan of phil spectors approach to stereo.

[Jack Russell]

I usually follow some basic rules. Bass, kick, snare, and voice in the middle. The rest panned. Higher frequency stuff on the outside. Two non-bass instruments? Pan them. Bass, drum, guitar power trio with 1 guitar? more to the middle. In complex sections, pan the supporting elements.

But, as soon as the rules are there, it can be nice to break them once in awhile. I've heard tracks with the drum kit, in mono ( !!), on one side, and the bass on the other, with the rest in the middle. This can work very well, but some would say that is nuts.

In general, I like to pan more. I want to be inside the band rather than some distance from it.

[Decipha]

don't tell me you kids know nothing about imaging?

i pan instruments that need to be 'placed'

remember, a completely center track will sound 'weak'

while a lightly panned channel will sound 'direct'

if you kids know nothing about placement of sounds you shouldn't even be considering mixing

[Greg_L]

Originally Posted by Decipha

don't tell me you kids know nothing about imaging?

i pan instruments that need to be 'placed'

remember, a completely center track will sound 'weak'

while a lightly panned channel will sound 'direct'

if you kids know nothing about placement of sounds you shouldn't even be considering mixing

Lol. Thats pretty big talk from a wigger kid. So who's multi-platinum album have you mixed?

[Freudian Slip]

Originally Posted by Decipha

don't tell me you kids know nothing about imaging?

i pan instruments that need to be 'placed'

remember, a completely center track will sound 'weak'

while a lightly panned channel will sound 'direct'

if you kids know nothing about placement of sounds you shouldn't even be considering mixing

Thank god you stopped by. I guess I will have to buy another monitor. I thought I could get by fine with one, but aparently not

F.S.

[rayc]

For imaging I use photshop or graphx.
For annoying things like ads and decipha I usually use the remote.
I pan your patronizing attitude decipha.

[faderbug]

Originally Posted by Decipha

remember, a completely center track will sound 'weak'

while a lightly panned channel will sound 'direct'

so mono - which is completely centered - sounds 'weak' ?

[rayc]

I have the Back To Mono box set & it has some truly powerful pieces & not just the Wall Of Sound tracks.
Stereo can, mishandled as it often is, emasculate a good recording.

[andyhix]

I really dig the lop-sided hard panned classic rock stuff (drums to one side, Vox to the other, etc.). But in all honesty, I can't replicate it and have it sound good. I think it's because (I know this will come as a shock to many of you) my friends and I aren't quite as good of musicians as the Beatles. If you have a slightly off-time highhat hit, it'll stand out a lot more hard-panned than it will somewhere towards the middle. So, I'm more likely to hard-pan something that is dead-nuts on timing wise, and sounds really good on it's own. Otherwise, it's somewhere between the two extremes to hide the subtle flaws. I might hard pan OHs though, cuz I like that, and they still end up "somewhere in the middle."

[Greg_L]

Originally Posted by andyhix

I might hard pan OHs though, cuz I like that, and they still end up "somewhere in the middle."

I'm the same way. I hard pan my drum overheads, but the cymbal crashes and hi hat still sound near the middle 25% or so of the stereo field.

[Freudian Slip]

I love hard panned stuff like Van Halen, Change (hit the ground running).
As of yet I lack the gutts to hard pan the bass opposit the guitar
Sure sounds cool when they do it though.

F.S.

[Freudian Slip]

Originally Posted by Greg_L

I don't know anything about anything, I like drum rolls to go from one side to the other.

The way it should be!



F.S.

[zed32]

I like to make good use of the available stereo field.

[Greg_L]

Originally Posted by Freudian Slip

I love hard panned stuff like Van Halen, Change (hit the ground running).
As of yet I lack the gutts to hard pan the bass opposit the guitar
Sure sounds cool when they do it though.

F.S.

The whole Ramones first album is panned that way. Driving bass on one side, buzzsawing guitar on the other. Sounds awesome.

[Jack Russell]

Originally Posted by Greg_L

The whole Ramones first album is panned that way. Driving bass on one side, buzzsawing guitar on the other. Sounds awesome.

Check out Who's Live at Leeds. This is also done bass left and guitar right. But I'll bet it ain't 100% so, since it was live after all.

Anyway, it is odd that people think bass coming out of one speaker is a negative. The listener will just observe: "Wow. the bass is coming from that speaker over there. Wow."

I mean, geezuschrist, one single speaker in most cases will handle it. So it comes from somewhere else? Big deal.

God forbid that we actually hear the bass playing in a recording.

[Jack Russell]

Originally Posted by Decipha

don't tell me you kids know nothing about imaging?

i pan instruments that need to be 'placed'

remember, a completely center track will sound 'weak'

while a lightly panned channel will sound 'direct'

if you kids know nothing about placement of sounds you shouldn't even be considering mixing

And don't get me started on how I have to explain to people how it takes more than one track/mic to make something be heard in actual true stereo!!

[cmhansen]

Originally Posted by Greg_L

The whole Ramones first album is panned that way. Driving bass on one side, buzzsawing guitar on the other. Sounds awesome.

Hmm... I always thought that was the way you were supposed to do it. Seems logical some how.