bass, kick, snare, and generally lead vocals go Center position. Hats and cymbals a little to the side. Then as you go further left and right you can add in guitar, piano, percussion, backing vocals. Hope that helps.
I think this is what is actually happening. I just didn't understand what was going on. The vocals still sound centered with the effect on and hard panning, but the stereo image seems much larger.
I have only worked with mono lead vocals panned dead center in the past, but I have recently gotten the waves jjp vocal plugin which has only a mono-to-stereo component. It seems to want me to pan the vocals hard left and hard right. Is this okay for a lead vocal? This worries me since...