Panning Ideas and Techniques

[TripleM]

I'm looking for some general ideas and guidance on panning. What are some things you've done that have worked well? What did you do, why did you it, and why did it work?

Do you try to separate parts in the same frequency range (or keep them together)? Do you separate different guitar parts if there are more than one? Should drums go to one side and bass to the other? Should drums go to one side and cymbals to the other?

What are people's thought processes when deciding how to do things?

Thanks.

[MiXit-G]

Things like bass and kik should alway be centre, if you're using overheads it sounds good to pan them L/R, the same with toms but not all the way maybee 10 oclock 2 oclock if you get what i mean.

Sometimes i'll pan a guitar part all the way to one side for effect, but usally things like bass, vox and drums are centre.

[BrettB]

In the 60's they often panned drums to one side (listen to some old Beatles and Doors stuff) but nowadays nobody uses that today anymore.

What I usually do, and I think is the standard, is to pan the drums like they are in front you in real life. So you pan toms and cymbals slightly like they are in front of you, one a bit more to the left, the other more to the righr. Especially when there is a drum fill that setup pays of. Hihat, snare and Bassdrum are in the middle.

Concerning guitars, try a search on this forum. Doubling guitars has lots of possibilities but it all depends on the genre and the style the guitars are playing.

[TripleM]

Thanks for the advice.

I've read advice about doubling guitars and panning the tracks at 3 and 9. But that was for a double tracked part.

What about if you have two different parts? What do people usually do? Should you pan them to different sides, but just not as drastically?

Just looking for ideas.

Additionally, what are some things you can do with 3-part harmonies? Do you do different things with that, such as sending the lead down the middle and the high harmony to one side and the low part to the other? Good idea? Bad idea?

[Blue Bear Sound]

Originally posted by BrettB
In the 60's they often panned drums to one side (listen to some old Beatles and Doors stuff)

They didn't do that intentionally -- it was a mistake done by the mastering engineers at the time that propogated!

Bruce

[dobro]

Two things. First, I've had two tracks with the same frequency competing, and one of the tracks just sort of disappearing somewhere in the mix. So I pan it hard left, and it stands out and can be heard. Wonderful. As a footnote to that, I read very recently (and I think it's true - I still have to check it out) that you shouldn't pan stuff hard left or right if you're going to take headphone listeners into account, because through headphones stuff panned hard left or right loses a bit of its oomph. Pan less than hard left or right, in other words.

Second, try this, it's wonderful for guitar depth. Put two mics on your guitar. I'm using acoustic guitar, but you can do it with electric. Two different mics, or two of the same model mic in different positions, doesn't matter, so long as they sound different in some way. Each mic goes to its own track, and then you pan the two tracks later on in the mix. These days, I'm finding it a really attractive sound. However, if I suddenly wanted a song on an album to sound bleak or lonely or deserted, I'd use just the one mic on the guitar track.

[MISTERQCUE]

Besides the bass and kick in center, the best part of panning is EXPERIMENTING with diff pan positions as you can! See what your ears like best!

[BrettB]

Originally posted by Blue Bear Sound
They didn't do that intentionally -- it was a mistake done by the mastering engineers at the time that propogated!

Bruce

Are you sure about that? They always told me that bands would be just too eager to show that their recordings were stereo. I mean, on some songs of the White Album the drums are panned more on one than the other, and I don't think any mastering ingeneer working on such a project would 'mistake' on that one. Or am I wrong?

[Blue Bear Sound]

Yup... I'm pretty sure....

[CyanJaguar]

I think the idea of panning is to hear them how you would on stage .

if you position your speakers well and you can visualise the stage, the panning should come naturally.

[dobro]

Unless, of course, you never find yourself on a stage. In which case, pan anything to where it makes sense...

Steely Dan. Good.

Beatles. Good.

[darrin_h2000]

Im with the blue jag dude, I tend to imagine a stage and where the musicians will be positining themselves and pan accordingly. Some of the sounds like percusion stuff gets hard panned but only for a few seconds.

[BrettB]

Originally posted by Blue Bear Sound
Yup... I'm pretty sure....

Even the remastered Cd of The White Album has that one. How do you explain that one? I keep my point of view: this must have been done during the mix process, intentionally I think. I think it is unbelievable they would mak ea mistake on an album that sells millions of copies.

[Blue Bear Sound]

Happens all the time... the mistake happened back then, and became "the version" -- if I remaster it now, I wouldn't fuck with it either (keeping it consistent with the way it was released!)

Now George Martin re-did some of the albums a while back, re-mastered as originally intended in mono... that's different, that's the original producer "fixing the mistake!"

You don't have to beleive me... but don't fool yourself into thinking mistakes don't happen....!

Bruce

[sjjohnston]

My understanding is:

The earliest Beatles albums (Please Please Me, With ..., aka Meet ..., etc.) were mixed on the assumption they would be released in mono. Indeed, I think they were released in mono, and only in mono, in England (not sure about that). Capitol, though, released these as "stereo," with all the vocals on one track, and all the instruments on the other. The CD releases have these back in mono, so only those old enough to have actually listened to vinyl have experienced this.

Later albums were mixed with the intention of being released in stereo, and were in fact released in stereo as intended. Some of these have what might today be considered unusual panning. There's a fair amount of hard-left and hard-right stuff on the White Album, Sgt. Pepper, etc. That's really how they (or George Martin) meant for it to be.

[BrettB]

sorry Bruse, no hard feeling, but I think sjjohnston is right. In the early days of stereo, there would be some mistakes, but that one is just too obvious for me.

[Blue Bear Sound]

Originally posted by BrettB
but that one is just too obvious for me.

But that was the whole irony of it... those original Capitol recordings WERE mistakes!!!!

[BrettB]

Why is it I can hear it also on some Jimi Hendrix and Doors stuff?

It is panned hard, but not 100%. Like on Break OIn Through, you hear the drums at left, but not entirely if I'm correct.

[Blue Bear Sound]

Those came after....... if someone heard the mistakes, and used the mistake as a model.... you get the idea... the same reason NS-10s flourished.... Bob Ludwig uses them to check a mix as a consumer would hear it, and someone misinterprets that as reason to use them as mixing monitors ... the rest is history!

This kind of stuff happens all the time...!!!

[BrettB]

Let's just assume this: someone began with it, mistake or not, and others copied it.
discussion closed

[heylow]

Man...

I really hate the old "ALWAYS KICK AND BASS IN THE CENTER" thing. Whatever happened to creativity...as in "whatever the song calls for?"

It may not be something one should do all the time but I have strayed from that rule because sometimes its just cool. Turn off the radio and step outside the box. (comment not specificly targeting anyone....just a thought)


heylow

[crawdad]

On the Doors first album, they recorded the guitar and keyboard on one track and the bass and drums on another. The vocals and any overdeubs (like Fender Bass) were recorded on separate tracks. If you wanted a stereo mix, you really didn't have a whole ton of options. This is according to Bruce Botnik in the book "Inside Tracks"--which is great reading, by the way.

[Chibi Nappa]

Originally posted by heylow
Man...

I really hate the old "ALWAYS KICK AND BASS IN THE CENTER" thing. Whatever happened to creativity...as in "whatever the song calls for?"

It may not be something one should do all the time but I have strayed from that rule because sometimes its just cool. Turn off the radio and step outside the box. (comment not specificly targeting anyone....just a thought)


heylow

Heh, I just wrote something like this in that "mixing cliches" thread. Yeah, I never restrict myself to always keeping the bass and kick in the center. It just doesn't make sense to me. If the song sounds the best like that, fine. They go in the center. If the song sounds flat out boring like that... off to the side they go. Especially with some of the smaller bands. Live trios n' stuff. One guitar, one bass, and drums. Put the vocals, snare, bass, and bass drum in the center like you're "supposed to" and you get a damn mono mix! Just don't throw the off center bass or kick drum in your listener's face and they might not even notice it. It can be done tastefully when the situation calls for it. The key is the "tastefully" and "calls for it" parts.