How do you pan different drums left/right when using mixer??

[ugly man dinner]

When i recorded some songs, i put the eight mics from each drum and ran them into my 16 channel mixer. Now, each channel has a nob to pan to left or right. I panned everything at the right place but it didn't record that way onto my 4-track. I think i rememeber connecting the mixer to the 4 track using some rca cables and i dont know if this is right. So anyways, what do you do to make it record this way?

Now that i come to think of it, i think when i panned the knobs on the mixer left/right it didnt even come out that way from the speakers before i even recorded it. Im confused. Thanks

 

[BrettB]

How did you record it on your 4-track? which signals where routed to which channels?

Keep in ind that the actual panning has to be done on your 4-track itself afterwards! Say you pan your toms left-right and route it to a track: it's a mono track, so it can't sound panned!

when you route 1 to track 1 and the other to track two for example, then you can pan track 1 and 2 left and right to get the desired effect. you have 8 mics and only 4 tracks so you gotta live with the limitations of that. I suggest 1 track for the snare/hihat, another one for the kick and track 3 and 4 as overheads/toms.

 

[ugly man dinner]

So theres not really any point to having the mixer then am i right?

 

[ugly man dinner]

Also, If i use all 4 tracks for making the drums sound "decent", i wont have the tracks i need for 2 guitars and bass.

 

[KingstonRock]

Well, if you're using 8 mics with only four tracks, what you would want to do is pan the drums the way you want them and set their levels relative to each other. You'll then have to record from the mains outs, or maybe tape outs; in other words a stereo output. That will give you a stereo drum set on 2 channels of your four track. Also, once you record like this, you have to pan channel 1 all the way left, and channel 2 all the way right, or vice versa, depending on how you routed the outputs of the mixer.

Unfortunately that still only leaves 2 tracks for guitars bass and vocals.