panning stereo sounds

djclueveli

New member
how do you pan your stereo sounds? what if you have more than 3 stereo sounds in a track how do you pan them if they are already stereo?
 
im not exactly sure on what you are asking. I'm guessing you are asking something like, you have a single stereo track that has guitar, bass, and drums. you want to pan the guitar to left, drums to the right, and keep bass in center. Well if its already bounced to 1 track. it just cant be done. you could only pan everything to 1 direction. HOWEVER, if you have 3 separate tracks with the 3 separate audio parts. just pan each track accordingly. wether it be stereo or mono it can be panned. someone correct me if i'm wrong
 
yea i dont know how to explain my question. what im saying is isnt stereo tracks from keyboards or vst instruments just hard left and right not panned left or right?
 
that doesnt make any sense

a stereo track has 2 channels, L and R. some software has the ability to pan either channel independently i think, and i think there's also some free plugins that do that
 
Your problem is that they're already mixed down to a single track (if I read your post correctly). Once you're down to a single track, any panning you do will affect all the information on that track...pan left...every thing goes left. The only way to move the three sound sourcess independantly of one another is to get the raw tracks (before the stereo mix down).


Good luck
 
yea i dont know how to explain my question. what im saying is isnt stereo tracks from keyboards or vst instruments just hard left and right not panned left or right?
(If this is what you mean) If you break a stereo track into dual mono you can have all pan options open; reduce the width, slide to left (or right) + center (narrow with offset), plus the raise/lower a side (the balance control) of a stereo pan.

This is exactly why my tracking template for 'stereo o/h' and kit tracks are dual-mono- set trim for the final center balance, and 'reverse-group pan' for one-knob width control.
 
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Hope I understood the question.....

I think I know what you're asking...For example if you had a bunch of background vocals(mono) bounced to a stereo pair.(Actually..DUAL MONO) You might want to position them in the mix as if they were standing in a row on the right side of the imaginary soundstage. no problem . Pan the pair so that the guy closest to the center is panned to the center, then pan the other track far to the right (left...whatever)and play with it till you get the sense of space you are looking for. I generally lower the volume on the track nearest to the center just a bit . I have used this many times with stereo background voices, string sections, etc. Take your time with it and the imaging you can get can be very cool sonically. While I don't recommend mixing with headphones, in a case like this headphones can help with the final tweak. If you know in advance that you will be doing this, you can setup the bounce to maximize the effect. To do this, set up the panning as you want it to end up in the mix before you do the bounce. Of course, you have to treat the destination tracks as "DUAL MONO" instead of "stereo" when bouncing to retain the ability to pan them around and adjust levels independently.
chazba
 
Actually ,
I think I read in the last few weeks (could have been Oshansky's book or I think a comment in a recording mag by Charles Dye) That Allot of "stereo " coming out of effects Racks and VST's is just a mono track with some delaying or phasing tricks applied. If you throw some of this stuff together haphazardly panned far left and right , you get less than stellar result (comb filtering or beating comes to mind) , or what the commentator dubbed " BIG MONO" You should probably experiment with only panning some of it LLC ( left left center) and RRC (right right center)to narrow some width down, or , even using a mono version on one side only. Basically , If you want Clarity, you do have to take this issue into consideration: Is that what you were concerned with , djclueveli??? You get a gold star for thinking about it !!!! Your more likley to hear criticisim about your mix being hoplessly muddy than to thin.
 
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I think I understand:

by 'track', he means "song".

Keyboards and vstis are usually in stereo. My guess is that he has three individual stereo tracks that make up a song, and they are recorded in the center. He is asking if he can pan those. I guess the answer is "maybe". It may cause some problems, it may not. Just do it. Pan the individual tracks and see what happens, it really all depends on WHY the tracks are stereo to begin with. Most keyboards are stereo because the notes go Left to Right, so the low notes are on the left etc.
 
Oh gawd...I gotta get off this one. No hashing intended and love ya all but this thread seems more complicated than it really should be...am I wrong? I could be having a senior moment...that's always a possibility.

Hey! Little boy...wanna pull my finger?
 
yea i dont know how to explain my question. what im saying is isnt stereo tracks from keyboards or vst instruments just hard left and right not panned left or right?

First, understand what panning is. Stereo channels are a relatively new invention. Well after we had stereo records, we still had mixers with only mono channels, and multi-track recorders with only mono tracks. If it was a stereo mixer it had a stereo buss. If it had a stereo buss, it had pan pots to assign how much of each track got sent to the left channel of the stereo buss, and how much of it goes to the right channel of the stereo buss (and by extension, how much ends up in the left speaker, and how much in the right speaker). With tha pan centered, the channel was routed with even amounts going to the left and right buss wire (yes, it was actually a pair of buss wires running horizontally across the mixer). A pan pot (potentiometer) had the channel output going to the center (wiper) and the two ends going to the left and right buss. Turning the pot from center would simultainously increase the resistance to one buss, while decreasing the resistance to the other buss.
Ok, back to the future. Even before we got software mixers, we got stereo channels on analog mixers, usually with only line inputs. The left and right outputs of synths, drum machines, etc., could be controlled by a single channel. These channels use stacked pots to control 2 channels at one time. When the signal reaches the pan pot, the stacked pot is wired with each of the two signals (L&R) going to one of the two wipers. The two halves of the stereo buss are wired one to the CW terminal of the upper pot, the other to the CCW terminal of the lower pot. So, when you turn the pan knob, you are no longer really panning in the mono sense. You are now turning up the volume of one half the stereo signal as it routes to it's buss, while simultaniously turning down the other half. Most pan pots have their tapers such that in the center position, the signal on each side is down by 3dB so that the relative loudness remains consistant as you pan, and not louder when both left and right are equal. This is one version of "pan law".
Once we get into software mixers and recorders, we can do anything wth code. So we have stereo tracks, which are really two mono tracks that are linked by code, and stereo channels, again virtual mono channels linked by code. Since they really are seperate, good software will allow you to make and break that link anytime you want. The link is just a code representation of the stacked pots. When you convert to dual mono channels, it's like unplugging from an analog stereo channel with it's stacked pots, and plugging into two adjacent mono channels. This allows you to do different things with panning, like adjusting the width.

At least, this is how it works with the gear and programs I'm familiar with. Can't say it holds for any and all cases.
 
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