Why hi-hat always need panning but not the vocal?

Even matching video, you have to be careful and select what works best. In the first shot, the hi-hat may be just off centre to the right...then you go to an over-the-shoulder from behind the drummer and the hi-hat swaps sides--and then in the CU of the singer it's right in the middle. Basically you have to pick a sound stage for the music and stick with it.

The most fun I've had with panning vocals is some of the theatre stuff I've recorded. I recall one where the staging of a duet started with one voice on the left of the stage and the other on the right--during the song they slowly walked towards each other and ended up close together. Because I DIDN"T have the worry of trying to match a video, I could copy this in the recording and it worked really well. I'd also commonly put a singer in the centre and a chorus with exaggerated L/R panning to span the whole soundstage behind the lead(s).

Finally, just to add one other reason for panning instruments (including the hi-hat): besides the vocal needing the focus, some instruments can also share a big chunk of the frequency range with the voice--and moving the instruments off dead centre (even if that's artificial) can help the voice stand out without as much EQ as you might otherwise use.
 
Greg_L said:
You said this ^^^^^

I'm saying it's bullshit. There's not even a tendency. Listen to 1000 songs and it will probably be pretty evenly split.

I like to pan from the drummer's perspective because I'm a drummer. But I've done lots of stuff for others that goes the other way. It simply does not matter.
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Way to take things out of context. I intentionally left that in and of course the rest of the clarifications are in the prior replies so no need to say anything more.
 
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try to not pan and see what happens. Experiment. Most listeners are never close enough to the stage to hear the cymbals on the left and right side of their brain. The less you pan instruments, the further away the mix will appear and more than likely will sound more "together".
 
Yeah, just put everything right up the middle, forget about panning anything. Let's go back 50 years and make everything mono. :rolleyes:
 
tjsmithmusic said:
try to not pan and see what happens. Experiment. Most listeners are never close enough to the stage to hear the cymbals on the left and right side of their brain. The less you pan instruments, the further away the mix will appear and more than likely will sound more "together".
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What? That doesn't even make sense...

19 posts in 6 years and you have this keen advice to offer?
 
My own experience with panning drums is through the glass. What I see in front of me from the control room window is how it ends up getting panned. Not too wide and from the perspective of the listener, not the drummer.

There are 50 ways to skin a cat, but that's just how I like to do it.
 
Mono

jimmys69 said:
What? That doesn't even make sense...

19 posts in 6 years and you have this keen advice to offer?
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Make sense??? Listen to some mid 60's recordings like the Dave Clark 5's "Glad All Over". It sounds great and has a live and powerful tight sound. FYI most live concert events are mono mixes.
 
Most live events are mono mixes because the layout of the venue means that the vast majority of the audience are outside the "sweet spot" where you can hear stereo properly.

Old 50s and 60s music were often mono because that was what was available at the time...and, even if the studio could do stereo, most teenage fans (myself included) had a cheap mono record player in their bedroom. The stereo was a great big console in the living room that only my dad was allowed to touch.

Nowadays though, the majority of listening to music is done with earphones on a phone or MP3 player. Those are designed for stereo and, if you put mono into them, you get a weird sensation of the music being in the middle of your head. As good as some of those old mono recordings are, I bet every one of them would be stereo if the artists had the choices they have today. Similarly, not every recording had to sound like a live event--indeed, most live sound engineers are striving for a sound as good as the recording!
 
thesoundtek said:
Make sense??? Listen to some mid 60's recordings like the Dave Clark 5's "Glad All Over". It sounds great and has a live and powerful tight sound. FYI most live concert events are mono mixes.
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Ok, well the response was to a member that has not been around for quite some time.

My response was to:

"try to not pan and see what happens. Experiment. Most listeners are never close enough to the stage to hear the cymbals on the left and right side of their brain. The less you pan instruments, the further away the mix will appear and more than likely will sound more "together".

That really has nothing to do with 'recording' these days.

I personally would not intentionally record something mono just because someone else once did. Times have just changed.

Maybe it is just me... Did not mean to offend anyone.

:)
 
jimmys69 said:
I personally would not intentionally record something mono just because someone else once did. Times have just changed.
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I, on the other hand, intentionally record most things in mono!

(But I mix in stereo! :) )

I've had a long day! I find a bit of pedantry helps. Not as much as the rum and coke, but it helps!
 
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