drum panning

O

oneksuns

New member
how do you pan drums? I remember someone saying that there were basically two different "standards" that just about everyone uses.
 
Keep the panning somewhat tight, like maybe from 9:00 to 3:00, and not all the way over... that way you dont have a floor tom all the way right and a high tom all the way left. On a big home stereo from 10 feet away, the kit will sound un-naturally big and/or wide, and the idea is to try and get it to sound like you're sitting in the same room with it.
 
I just listened to a couple of old tunes from the 60's (the original Mony Mony, a some others in that vein).... many had drum panned to one side, bass on the other.... vocals varied.... it was very diffcult to listen with on 'phones...... sounded extremely disjointed....

George Martin perspective worked once, by intentional accident, but I don't think it can really ever work again... most (not all) mixes benefit more from a bit of symmetry.... (no rules about it though!) ;)

Bruce
 
Oh, that was just a non-funny music geek joke on my part. :)

But, I keep telling myself that I'm going to try it on a song at one point... just to see what it does to the song. So far though, I've never done a song that just screamed, "Pan the drums hard right!!" :)
 
and the idea is to try and get it to sound like you're sitting in the same room with it.
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Well mayby I'm wrong but I'm not going to enjoy listening to a cool popsong late at night on my home stereo and having the idea that the drummer is sitting in front of me. Imagine it's Tommy Lee.....(well he actually doesn't do cool popsongs but anyway..)

When mixing I try to get the sound of the drums in such a way that it sound natural as a kit. This doesn't mean that you can't do any heavy processing and stuff on the drums. When listening to any of Sting's recordings the drums are just so freaking unbelievable natural. Like the drums are tracked with only two mics and one hell of a drummer. Now the latter is true, the first I don't know. The other side is something like 'Ozric Tentacles' Talking 'bout processed drums which still sound like a real drum kit.

Offcourse this doesn't apply to house and jungle etc..
 
Well there are no rules as far as I know. If you're producing a normal popsong and you pan the toms in a random way people will throwing fish at you, but in jungle and house? I just produced a trance-track for a couple of Amsterdam dudes with a lot of 303's and 808's etc. I just panned my guts out. I don't believe its ever going to be listened to by not-stoned people so what the heck.

Back to real drum recording and panning. I justed to be moderate when panning drums etc, because your listening position in the studio is just in front of he monitors, and this will definetly screw up your stereo image. Panning a tom off-centre will result in hearing a tom off-centre. When listening to it at home or in your car etc. , this stereo image will be reduced because of the fact your not sitting right in the middle at 3 feet from your speakers. So the panning sensation will be drastically reduced. In the studio it's like looking with a (moment please, I'm going to get a dictionary).......... magnifying glass at your mix.

If you did a proper job with setting up the overhead mics and pan them hard left/right, they will give you a perfect stereo image. You can pan the close-mics you may have used on the toms to this stereo picture.
 
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