Cardinal Points Pan Law

V

vaultstudio

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Has anyone checked out this thread over on prosoundweb?

http://recforums.prosoundweb.com/index.php/t/13724/0/

Once you wade through the usual smartass comments/etc there's some pretty interesting thoughts there.... we're not talking Joe Shmoe in his home studio either - there's some major names jumping into the fray...

I actually re-mixed a couple tunes on my latest project with this as a baseline and I ended up liking the results so much I re-mixed everything. It's an interesting starting point...
 
hey bud,

I read like 2 pages (and here it's 1 o'clock in the morning so I'm tired...) didn't quite understand what is supposed to be good.

Isn't cardinal point mixing about panning HARD? some said this is the way to go, and another said never pan hard, another one said paning overhead to 3 and 9. I'm a bit confused (+my maternal language is french, doesn't help much :rolleyes: )

so, does that tread says to hard pan or not? More moderated then that?
Is more about surround sound?
 
It is indeed a long thread, and you have to pick through it for the good stuff. What they're saying - in a nutshell - is to pan mono sources either L, R, or C.... AS A STARTING POINT. What I did in my mixes was basically stereo drums, rhythm guits panned hard L & R, bass & vox straight up centered, and then filled in the 25%-50% range with extras - guitar solo lines, piano, bgv, etc. I was surprised the space that was there for the extra stuff....
 
I'm trying to figure out what's so new about panning drums and guitars, putting bass and vocals up the middle while filling "the rest" with extras. If that's what the thread comes down to bottom-line, then that's a lot of bandwidth being taken up for no reason by that thread.
 
RAMI said:
I'm trying to figure out what's so new about panning drums and guitars, putting bass and vocals up the middle while filling "the rest" with extras. If that's what the thread comes down to bottom-line, then that's a lot of bandwidth being taken up for no reason by that thread.
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The poster is talking about "hard" panning everything, as if there were only L,C,R switches instead of pan pots. So basically, there is no middle ground, except for necessity, as he says. You only use the spaces in between when you want some thing to stick out, like a tom.

So in the example of overheads, if you can't fully pan them without it sounding weird, adjust the microphones so that you will be able to fully pan them for them to sound right.

So it's not really as simple as what you said, RAMI, but it's not all that much different, I guess either.

I don't really understand the reasoning behind it (haven't finished reading the thread) so I can't really comment on why it supposedly works better than filling out a complete sound stage.
 
The Cardnial Pan Law is only slightly less silly than the CD Demagnetizer.

C'mon people, has the era of using your own heads completly ceased?

Crikey...

G.
 
Rami - in a broad sense you are right, but my take on the whole thing was not messing around with paning things 85-15, 75-75, 50-50, etc. etc. etc. I don't want to suggest that's it's a rule, only a starting point. Personally, I like the mixes I did starting this way as opposed to some of my older "spreading around" stuff....

Now I have to see if I can interest Terry Manning, Ross Hogarth, & William Wittman in those CD Demagnitizers... ;)
 
The Cardinal Points Pan Flying Circus thingy is just a fancy way of saying "preset", for those who don't feel like actually mixing.

G.
 
IMO there is some validity to LCR panning. before shooting this down, you should try it - it forces you to work harder to make things work together but you can end up with a positively HUGE sound stage...
 
For anyone who's been watching the news in the last 2 years...I'd keep my children far away from anything called "Cardinal Law".
 
bblackwood said:
IMO there is some validity to LCR panning. before shooting this down, you should try it - it forces you to work harder to make things work together but you can end up with a positively HUGE sound stage...
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I agree!

Also, mono mixing is a MUST! My best mixes were mixes that I spent about 40-50% of my time listening and adjusting stuff while in mono!
 
Ford Van said:
I agree!

Also, mono mixing is a MUST! My best mixes were mixes that I spent about 40-50% of my time listening and adjusting stuff while in mono!
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I agree with FV, listening in mono forces you to rethink EQ settings so that instruments don't compete and to listen for phasing problems.

This just seems like another term for taking it to the next step to help ensure things don't compete in the center or L/R channels. After that I would place them in the final positions where you feel appropriate.
 
masteringhouse said:
I agree with FV, listening in mono forces you to rethink EQ settings so that instruments don't compete and to listen for phasing problems.

This just seems like another term for taking it to the next step to help ensure things don't compete in the center or L/R channels. After that I would place them in the final positions where you feel appropriate.
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Exactly! Final levels of everything should be done in stereo, but it will only take a quick listen to get that once you have worked out everything else in mono.
 
Ford Van said:
Exactly! Final levels of everything should be done in stereo, but it will only take a quick listen to get that once you have worked out everything else in mono.
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Ok, explain this a bit...I mix in Sonar. Are you saying to listen with the master summed mono instead of stereo? That's what I am getting from this discussion, but want to clarify.
 
RAMI said:
That's what they be saying.

Get it right in mono.
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Kinda what I figured, but I figure I had better clarify before I find a new way to screw my music up.... :D
 
eraos said:
The poster is talking about "hard" panning everything, as if there were only L,C,R switches instead of pan pots.
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uhh...on my mixer there are only L,C,R switches instead of pan pots. what's the big deal?
 
Dogman said:
Kinda what I figured, but I figure I had better clarify before I find a new way to screw my music up.... :D
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I know what you're saying. I've discovered many ways to screw up mine. Every new trick = one new screw up. :D
 
Wow, here I am in a minority of one again :rolleyes: .

My problems with the LCR (or LcR, or CPP) approach to mixing are that it a) flies in the face of the "4D" approach to mixing, of which I am a fan almost to the point of evangilizing, and b) tends to lead to mixes that, while they can intrinsically sound perfectly good, tend to get monotonous and uncreative when you put a disc or playlist of LCR-mixed songs together.

And as far as "the experts" liking and using LCR often, for every one who does, one can find another who doesn't (Roger Nichols, Alan Parsons, Paul Hornsby, etc.) It's the old game of you get your expert to testify and I'll get mine, and we'll let the jury decide who's the better public speaker. It's a silly game that's not worth playing.

Let the inspiration and structure of the song and the arrangement determine the mix layout in the four dimensions to create a true stereophonic sound field, and leave the straightjacket of starting with the three artificial and arbitrary cardinal points in the bag, IMHO.

G.
 
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