I am mixing a song in which both the drums and the acoustic guitar were tracked in stereo. What is a good way to pan them? Right now I have the guitar at about 80% right/ 60% left and the drums 50% left/ 30% right, but it doesn't sound right.
there is no rule in how you should pan them. just use you're ears. if the tracks sound wrong...fix 'em
If it's stereo overheads for a drumset I like to pan them hard L and hard R to start off with. if all you have is overheads, you may want to bring them in a bit. Sometimes a part of the drumset, ie. the snare, can sound too far off to the side. sometimes if the player slaps the snare really hard one speaker can sound too loud at times and can annoy the listener. if you recorded all the individual drums separately, you may also want to solo each drum individually while comparing it to the overheads. I like doing this so I can find the exact spot where the snare fits in with the overheads...where the toms sit, etc. this way the overheads match the rest of the drum mics as far as position goes.
as far as guitar, I like to bring them in a bit. usually 70%/70% depending on how wide my mics were and how loud they were recorded. I may make one side not even with the other as far as % goes....as long as the guitar sounds balanced. Think of the stereo field as one of those balance scales. you want your mix to sound balanced volume wise and content wise. And you do this with a combination of panning, volume and sometimes delay.
