How is this cascading pan effect done?

bsanfordnyc

bsanfordnyc

New member
I'm trying to reproduce a cover song from scratch...

for reference, it's "Oceans" by Pearl Jam off the Ten album.

The guitar has an interesting effect:

on the verse part, he is basically raking over the strings somewhat slowly, and as he does this, it pans from right to left. it's almost like each string is set to a different pan position.
it has sort of a cascading effect...each time he rakes the strings it goes from right to left. very subtly cool, and I never noticed it until I listened to the song on my studio monitors.

Anybody have any idea how this could be done?
 
I don't think it's delay... the entire strum is not delayed left to right...as he rakes the pick from the low string to the high string, the sound pans right to left. (he's raking all 6 strings) so for the first 3 low strings the sound goes from right to middle, and the last 3 high strings continue panning hard left.

Like I said, it's as if each string has a seperate pan position from right to left.


Still think it's delay??
 
I just downloaded the track to give it a listen. I think it's just two guitars panned L&R with some slight chorus and delay and reverb processing. Try that and see what you get. Maybe a slight stereo chorus...
 
bsanfordnyc said:
I don't think it's delay... the entire strum is not delayed left to right...as he rakes the pick from the low string to the high string, the sound pans right to left. (he's raking all 6 strings) so for the first 3 low strings the sound goes from right to middle, and the last 3 high strings continue panning hard left.

Like I said, it's as if each string has a seperate pan position from right to left.


Still think it's delay??
Click to expand...
I've never heard the song, but I do know that effect... It's a stereo pickup (I don't know the brand name) but the guitarist's dad for my old band was working on a guitar and he was going to install stereo pickups that would do that exact effect. Unfortunately our band broke up and we stopped jammin' together before he finished the guitar, so I never got a chance to hear it! :(

-tkr
 
Tekker said:
I've never heard the song, but I do know that effect... It's a stereo pickup (I don't know the brand name) but the guitarist's dad for my old band was working on a guitar and he was going to install stereo pickups that would do that exact effect. Unfortunately our band broke up and we stopped jammin' together before he finished the guitar, so I never got a chance to hear it! :(

-tkr
Click to expand...

A stereo pickup! That sounds expensive! But, sounds like the correct answer.

thanks man
 
Couldn't there be a simpler answer??

I'm not saying that it wouldnt be some sort of trick gear becuase the one dude from Pearl Jam has a warehouse full of guitars (literally)..........

............but I dont think it would be beyond the pros to simply have one hand on that particular guitar's (or group of guitar's) channel pan knob and just pan the guitar manually during the mixdown.

Like ...the mix engineer says to the toilet cleaner and coffee runner...uh I mean intern.." Hey you. Yes you. Come here and put your hand on that knob right there. DONT touch ANYTHING else. Now, when we get to here, you are going to turn that knob from here! to here! (demonstrating)....and you are going to do it on a four count....very evenly.....very slowly. You are going to try to do it soooo slick that when people listen to it they will think its some kind of cool delay unit or some trick stereo guitar pick-up. GOT IT!!?? Good. O.k.....GO!"

-mike
 
I agree, but I tried to reproduce it that way and it was pretty clear that it wasn't that simple. Because it doesn't just pan back and forth..the beginning of each stroke starts right, then moves left...so there could still be some sustain on the left while he's hitting those top strings and creating something on the right. It made me think of waves,which could possibly be the point...considering the song is titled "oceans". Maybe those guys are bigger genuises than most people are aware of...

you should listen to it with your monitors
 
bsanfordnyc said:
I'm trying to reproduce a cover song from scratch...

for reference, it's "Oceans" by Pearl Jam off the Ten album.

The guitar has an interesting effect:

on the verse part, he is basically raking over the strings somewhat slowly, and as he does this, it pans from right to left. it's almost like each string is set to a different pan position.
it has sort of a cascading effect...each time he rakes the strings it goes from right to left. very subtly cool, and I never noticed it until I listened to the song on my studio monitors.

Anybody have any idea how this could be done?
Click to expand...

Thiers a wave program called MondoMod.

mondomod.jpg
 
I've acheived some pretty funky panning feats using manually drawn automation in Cubase SX. You can draw the automation for panning using a "pencil" tool as if you were drawing a picture. It's very simple to match up the panning path you are drawing to the wave image because you can view one above the other, and magnify the images as much as you want.

I don't know what system you use, but see if it has this capibility...total control of everything is pretty sweet....
 
I still think it's just a delay because you can hear the entire strum on each channel.. Put the track on one channel then copy the track to another and offset it by the delay amount you want. Pan each hard L/R.
 
pdaniels said:
I've acheived some pretty funky panning feats using manually drawn automation in Cubase SX. You can draw the automation for panning using a "pencil" tool as if you were drawing a picture. It's very simple to match up the panning path you are drawing to the wave image because you can view one above the other, and magnify the images as much as you want.

I don't know what system you use, but see if it has this capibility...total control of everything is pretty sweet....
Click to expand...

that does sound pretty f'ing dope! I've got Cubase SX but I haven't started using it yet until I buy a new computer capable of maximizing its potential. So far i've been using the mixer within my Korg Triton Studio
 
TexRoadkill said:
I still think it's just a delay because you can hear the entire strum on each channel.. Put the track on one channel then copy the track to another and offset it by the delay amount you want. Pan each hard L/R.
Click to expand...

I'll give it a shot!
 
bsanfordnyc said:
I agree, but I tried to reproduce it that way and it was pretty clear that it wasn't that simple. Because it doesn't just pan back and forth..the beginning of each stroke starts right, then moves left...so there could still be some sustain on the left while he's hitting those top strings and creating something on the right. It made me think of waves,which could possibly be the point...considering the song is titled "oceans". Maybe those guys are bigger genuises than most people are aware of...

you should listen to it with your monitors
Click to expand...

try that with a really long delay on it
 
In the mid-70's Phil Lesh was using an Alembic bass with seperate outs for each string. So that has been available for a while.

I would think trying to do the effect you're describing with a virtual pencil would be a real pain in the ass.
 
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