Alright, let's do a poll here...

Which side do you pan your cymbals (mainly hi-hats, assuming you're a regular righty)

  • Left, so it sounds like I'm sitting at the kit playing.

    Votes: 23 35.9%

  • Right, so it sounds like you're looking at someone playing.

    Votes: 26 40.6%

  • Center. I keep it old school.

    Votes: 11 17.2%

  • What the hell is a pan?

    Votes: 4 6.3%
  • Total voters
    64
Carny1122

Carny1122

Plugin Whore
Okay, so I'm sitting here attempting to study for a biology exam tomorrow (yeahhh, not going so well...I should disconnect this thing from the internet...limit my distractions....:D) and I'm listening to 30 Seconds to Mars (again, not the best study habit....). I noticed that their hi-hats are panned to the right, and the crash/ride and ride are to the left, so it's like you're looking at the drummer playing. In my mixes, I do the opposite, so that it's like you're sitting at the drums playing them....so I wanted to see who does what.
 
Get back to studying. Dammit, you're 53 yrs old and you haven't passed that biology exam yet?? Just kidding, I'm practicing for when my kids get older. :D

Panning.... I like to hear cymbals and hihats to one side or the other, not all centered. I always prefer a live recording over a studio recording and you'll almost always hear drums with wide panning. I never gave it much thought, but I think I'd prefer it from the audience aspect because they're the ones listening. With a right handed drummer, the highs on the right, ride on the left. But nothing is in stone.

And of course, I realize I'm contributing to your study delinquencies...

Now get back to the books!!! :mad: (and good luck :rolleyes: )
 
Haha thank you, Glen. It's introduction biology, which I haven't had in 5 years, but I switched majors and took microbiology with my old major...so compared to micro, this is NOTHING. But I do appreciate the Krebs cycle, I'll be sure to come back to that in a few weeks! :D

I do mine with the hats to the left, high crash to the left, and ride and crash ride to the right...probably because I'm a brat and like to imagine that I'm doing all the drumming :cool:. I do sort of like it when people do it opposite from myself, though. Changes it up, I like it. Although I heard a Demon Hunter song the other day that had double kick (I could only assume from a true double-bass-drum kit) and the kicks were panned :eek: talk about messing with your sense of equilibrium!!!
 
Drummer perspective enables more people to "air-drum".

I don't stick to the same setup everytime, sometimes it's drummmer, sometimes it's audience.
 
Drummer's perspective....but I'm a lefty, so that goes to show how un-important it is which "perspective" you decide to go with.

Except for the air-drumming consideration, like Sloan says. :D
 
I don't care for the exaggerated stereo like you're the drummer. I want to hear it as if it's in the room with me, but several feet away. The way it would be watching someone play.
 
Carny1122 said:
Okay, so I'm sitting here attempting to study for a biology exam tomorrow (yeahhh, not going so well...I should disconnect this thing from the internet...limit my distractions....:D) and I'm listening to 30 Seconds to Mars (again, not the best study habit....). I noticed that their hi-hats are panned to the right, and the crash/ride and ride are to the left, so it's like you're looking at the drummer playing. In my mixes, I do the opposite, so that it's like you're sitting at the drums playing them....so I wanted to see who does what.
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A recording is the capture of a performance. Unless you regularly sit in the drummer's seat at concerts, the drums should be captured from the audience's view. Panning it centered comes from the fact that in a car, you don't hear the opposite side very well so many engineers mix in almost mono.
 
MCI2424 said:
the drums should be captured from the audience's view.
Click to expand...
So, does Phil Collins do that??? He's a lefty. His "drummer's view" is everyone else's "audience view". How about Ian Paice???

Personally, I don't think it matters what side you put your hats on, etc....And I bet if you ask 100 people (even musicians) what perspective the drums are on for their favorite song, they wouldn't be able to tell you.
 
RAMI said:
Except for the air-drumming consideration, like Sloan says. :D
Click to expand...

Ah, SO true! I didn't even think of that one....And I've been known (or so my friends tell me) that I have a bad habit of air drumming while walking around campus. Not a bad habit, actually. PRACTICE! :cool:
 
Drummer perspective. Being a drummer myself, I can't stand it when I hear it from the audience's perspertive.
 
I set up the kit from the drummer's perspective most of the time. Occasionally, I'll do it the other way, but for 80% of the time it's the drummer's perspective.

I particularly like toms to be panned hi to low, left to right. It just *feels* right to me.


But, as with everything, there's no hard & fast rule about it...
 
Seeing as how I'm usually sitting at table 7, I pan the entire band between 1 and 2 o'clock right, with the keyboards in the distance, the lead guitarist closest , the front man wide left at 1 o'clock, and the drums clustered together wide right at 2 o'clock. Because that's what I'm used to and feels right to me. ;) :D

Seriously, it entirely depends upon the arrangement and the mix. If I'm doing a standard stereo image with kick and maybe snare, it will usually be oriented from an audience perspective, but the pan width and center location of that image could be anywhere. I make no assumption that it will be centered kick on center and fully spread L-R.

But almost as often - especially in one of those silly 10 mic setups, I'll take advantage of the situation and turn that kit inside-out in 4 dimensions and ignore any kind of sensible resemblance to an actual physical kit altogether. I've been examining some commercial recordings lately where sub-instrument location can even be different from verse to chorus to bridge in such situations.

I was just watching the Blue Man Group DVD of their live concert tour not long ago (yes I subscribed to PBS :P). These guys have - simultaneously - two drummers with full kits, three more drummers standing and playing three large tom racks, and the three Blue Boys themselves banging on their PVC tubes. Tell, me, which of those EIGHT drummers on stage all playing at once would you consider to have the right perspective? Or would it be right to use standard audience perspective? For the latter, there'd be so many drums all over the pan space that there'd be no room for anything else. You gotta go custom with the knobs there.

I know that the Blueheads are an extreme example, but there's zero reason why that idea of custom panning can't translate down to a standard 5-piece combo with one drummer on a single standard kit.

G.
 
RAMI said:
So, does Phil Collins do that??? He's a lefty. His "drummer's view" is everyone else's "audience view". How about Ian Paice???

Personally, I don't think it matters what side you put your hats on, etc....And I bet if you ask 100 people (even musicians) what perspective the drums are on for their favorite song, they wouldn't be able to tell you.
Click to expand...

All drums are considered "righty" If you are a lefty, you must pan your drums "righty" because righty is right and lefty is sinister.

ACtually, Ian Paice gets panned close to center because the engineers over the years adopted the "car" mix method. I think you will find that most modern stuff has radio play in mind and drums center is the norm.
 
I usually just let the OH pick up the HH, I center the Snare, so if there is bleed it get panned center. I do pan toms high left to low right as if I where sitting on the throne of a righty.
 
In alot of cases O/H mics do the trick for me, but if I do mic hats it realy depends for me on who and what I'm mixing...But for a VERY broad example...A tight mix I'd tend to stick them in the middle, but for a wider image I'll usually push them toward the left...For me it's natural as my main instrument is drums...Having said that, if it is a wider soundstage for drums, whatever side I push the hats to I'll make sure the kit, ie cymbals and toms are sitting the right way drum setup wise...
 
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