HOW TO: Panning Instruments.

[mister-newb]

I have a VERY basic understanding of mixing. If you'll humor me, I'd like to get some replies here regarding basic panning techniques. I know it's application dependent, I'd just like examples of how you'd pan the following:

Lead vocal
BGV 1
BGV 2
Acoustic guitar 1 (rhythm)
Acoustic guitar 2 (rhythm)
Electric guitar 1 (rhythm)
Electric guitar 2 (rhythm)
Bass guitar
Piano

I did not include drums, because I'm using loops. I know vocal and bass stays center, but what about the rest? On another forum, I got the following replies:

Lead vocal - center
BGV 1 - hard L
BGV 2 - hard R
Acoustic guitar 1 (rhythm) 50 L
Acoustic guitar 2 (rhythm) 50 R
Electric guitar 1 (rhythm) - 75L
Electric guitar 2 (rhythm)- 75R
Bass guitar - center
Piano - stereo spread

OR

Lead vocal - center
BGV 1 - 25-50 L
BGV 2 - 25-50 R
Acoustic guitar 1 (rhythm) - hard L
Acoustic guitar 2 (rhythm) - hard R
Electric guitar 1 (rhythm) - hard L
Electric guitar 2 (rhythm) - hard R
Bass guitar - center
Piano - either 25 L or 25L to 25R stereo

OR

Lead Vox, bass - center
Acoustic 1 - L35
Acoustic 2 - R35
El gtr 1 - L60
El gtr 2 - R60
Piano - stereo or panned L/R25 with a short delay reverb delay on the opposite 25
BV's - L & R 50 hi and lo vox opposite each other


Some of my follow-up questions to these examples is:

Is it common to pan the same instrument to the same position on opposite sides? Does anyone ever pan, say, an electric guitar L75, R35? Or would that mess up the stereo image? Let's say I just have one ringing electric guitar on one side, like L60. Then would I need something else in the same position on the R side?

 

[legionserial]

I think all those examples would work fine and I have applied similar panning to some of what I have done. Personally I'm not too much of a fan of absolute hard panning things too much, but that's no more than my personal preference and certainly not a rule I live by. More of an observation...

As for using different positions on opposite sides, to be honest, that's all good too. Panning is very much something you do with your ears. It could be better to just ignore the numbers on the screen and listen to what sounds good There aren't really any rules or techniques as such other than just to listen.

I know it's a somewhat of a clichéd answer, and sometimes it's not what some people want to hear, but the only thing you can do is experiment. See where you feel it sits best. It can depend on the genre of music you are mixing too. Basically the content of the song. Sometimes it's good to get a symmetrical balance of all the instruments, other times you might want to play around with it a bit.

If you're adding stereo effects into the equation, like maybe a reverb or a stereo chorus or something, then that can affect you decisions too. For example, panning something left, and sending it to a reverb that's panned right.

And the end of the day, it's really about what sounds good to you.

 

[mister-newb]

For example, panning something left, and sending it to a reverb that's panned right.

How would I go about doing that?

 

[NL5]

How would I go about doing that?

You pan a send channel the same way you pan an audio channel........it's usually a knob labeled "pan".

edit - if you don't know what a send is, read your software manual about "sends".

 

[mister-newb]

You pan a send channel the same way you pan an audio channel........it's usually a knob labeled "pan".

edit - if you don't know what a send is, read your software manual about "sends".

That's how I thought I'd do it.

And if anyone wants to keep chiming in on panning, that would be swell.

 

[Seafroggys]

I've only recorded single singer trios (guitar, bass, drums, and vocals).

I pan bass and guitar opposite of each other, seperating them enough but not completely sending them off into left and right fields. I pan my drum overheads hard left and right, bass drum center, and snare slightly to the right. Vocals are center.

This works well.

 

[Steve Henningsgard]

It's kind of like asking, "where should everyone stand to get the best-looking photos at my family reunion?" There's no simple answer! In general, a "standard" (generic) mix for a typical rock band would have the overheads panned pretty hard, the rhythm guitars panned a little less hard, the kick, snare, bass, and lead vocal over the center, and any other stuff (lead guitars, vocal harmonies, etc.) panned to taste.

 

[RAMI]

It's kind of like asking, "where should everyone stand to get the best-looking photos at my family reunion?" There's no simple answer! In general, a "standard" (generic) mix for a typical rock band would have the overheads panned pretty hard, the rhythm guitars panned a little less hard, the kick, snare, bass, and lead vocal over the center, and any other stuff (lead guitars, vocal harmonies, etc.) panned to taste.

That's really all anyone can say.

There are guidelines, but no rules, really. If it sounds right, it IS right. What "rules" did the Beatles follow when they panned bass guitar, tambourine and one back-vocal to one side, and everything else to the other??? It works, and that's all that matters.

 

[Concrete_Lake]

Well, they actually didn't have much control over the stereo mixes, did they? And from what I've heard they don't like the stereo mixes of Abbey Road and Sgt Peppers..

Anyway, it's all been said- there aren't too many rules about it, but you'll find most commercial CD's have certain similiarities or standards in mixing.

A lot of people seem to say they're not a fan of hard panning- I definitely am though, for certain applications- eg. double tracked acoustic playing the same thing I will almost always pan hard. If they were playing in different registers I might not be so harsh with my panning, unless the acoustics were a central elemnt to the mix.

As you see, there's different times when a certain 'panning standard' is going to suit.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

I take the approach that panning is just one dimension of a 4-dimensional audio canvas: spectrum, pan, depth and time. I can't seperate one from the others; they are all interconnected and interrelated.

How can one say that this or that is specifically how you should pan the guitars or drums or keyboards or vocals if one has no idea of what the tracks actually sound like, what the instrumental arrangement of the song is, where the hooks are located, what the emotion of the song is, and how all that evolves from intro to verse to chorus to bridge?

All I can say is that I'm a fan of using all 180° of pan space. The rubber-stamp LCR (Left-Center-Right) method, where everything is either hard-panned or down the center, while unfortunately very common, is IMHO heavily overused in the name of convenience but more often than not limits the mix's potential. There are 180 different degrees out there, not just three. Use them all; paint on your whole canvas.

G.

 

[RAMI]

Well, they actually didn't have much control over the stereo mixes, did they? And from what I've heard they don't like the stereo mixes of Abbey Road and Sgt Peppers..

I know, you're right.

But it still doesn't make the songs sound "wrong", right?

 

[Wish]

Doesn't anyone try to get hands on experience any more?

Ya gotta use your ears to figure out what sounds good. Do you ever listen to other people's music? You can put on some cans and listen to "pro" music in the same genre as your own music, and it's not rocket science to figure out where 95% of the tracks are panned.

Now apply what you just heard from the pros, and experiment with the panning of your own music....season to taste. And you're good to go.

I think panning is one of the easier things to do in mixing...it's not that complicated, and you don't need to overthink it in most cases.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Ya gotta use your ears to figure out what sounds good. Do you ever listen to other people's music? You can put on some cans and listen to "pro" music in the same genre as your own music, and it's not rocket science to figure out where 95% of the tracks are panned.

I agree 100% with the first sentence, but - with respectful disagreement - I think it goes downhill fast from there.

While it depends a lot upon genre, the 95% you're talking about - at least in most pop/rock genres over the past 40 years - are LCR panned. Well, maybe not as much as 95%, but certainly a majority, perhaps somwhere in the 60-75% range. This is not necessarily because it's what sounds *best*, but because it's a solid way of churning out an efficient and expedient mix that will sound "OK" and at the same time be easy to quick check for phase issues.

It's assembly line mixing.

It's the audio equivalent of those mass-produced-by-hand paintings of still lifes and mountain ranges and covered-bridge landscapes that one finds at every starving artist's show at the local Holiday Inn or weekend community art festival.

Sure it'll be an acceptable mix if done right. But it'll be one that's no different from every other LCR painting hanging on the Soundclick display wall.

Use your ears, for sure. but - IMHO, of course - use your ears to listen to what the song tells you, how the song makes you feel, not to what Joe Punchclock Engineer has done to the 39th album by that rock band that sounds like a slightly different version of the 17th album by that other rock band.

Find the hooks, make them sharp. Determine the domionant feature of the song (is it the lyrics, the groove or the guitarist?) and start building around that. Determine the arrangement and how the mix should either emphasize or ignore it.

Figure out each track's role in filling the spectrum, and in front-to-back relevance, and then set the pan to fill the canvas in a way where each instrument has it's own room to breathe in those three dinemsions and/or contributes to the others's position without stepping on them, balancing the mix in each dimension and leaving whitespace only where it's actually intended.

And then decide how it all should or should not change or stay the same from verse to chorus to bridge. Use the dynamics of time to create tension, release and emotion. Use crescendos, use sotto voces (sp?). etc.

If you're going to paint a mix, strive for Rembrandt or Picasso, not for some paint-by-numbers result.

G.

 

[Wish]

I don't disagree, and every track should have it's own space, but I think there are a few basics that most songs will follow:

- lead vocal, bass guitar, kick and snare, - will be pretty much centered,

- I'll usually hard pan rhythm guitars if I have 2- additional guitars will go somewhere in the middle - allowing that breathing space. Usually if I put an instrument on one side, I'll try to balance it out with something on the other side. I like things to sound fairly balanced LR for the most part.

- Lead instruments like guitar solo pretty centered...

- Background vocals panned around the lead vocal.

When you start talking about the arrangement of which instruments to bring in and when in support of the song - to me, that's a whole 'nother topic, of which panning is but a small piece of the puzzle.

Anyways....it's all good!

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

I don't disagree, and every track should have it's own space, but I think there are a few basics that most songs will follow:

What you describe are indeed common go-tos, and there's nothing of necessity wrong with them. But there are so many potential exceptions to them that I just can't put the word "basic" on any of them. Allow me to illustrate, if i may:

- lead vocal, bass guitar, kick and snare, - will be pretty much centered,

What if the lead vocal and lead guitar are doing a call and response type of arrangement (yes, arrangement does enter into panning decisions)? Sure, you could have them both centered, and that might work. But might not a symmetrical pan around the center at something like 30% L and R often be more dynamic and interesting?

And if the drummer is playing the snare laid back, slightly behind the beat *on purpose*, sometimes laying a lead guitar right on top of it can tend to defocus the groove a bit.

Speaking of snare, personally mine is rarely centered, as I often prefer a more natural stereo spread to my drums from thr listner perspectinfe, which tends to put the snare slightly right of center. This does of course depend upon many other factors, not the least of which is genre. If I'm doing a jazz ensemble, the snare may be neither centered nor stereo spread, it might be way off to one side.

Bass and kick, yeah, usually - not always, but usually - pretty near the center. There are times though when slightly de-centering the two to either side by say, 5 points each, can help just a tad with center definition.

- I'll usually hard pan rhythm guitars if I have 2- additional guitars will go somewhere in the middle - allowing that breathing space. Usually if I put an instrument on one side, I'll try to balance it out with something on the other side. I like things to sound fairly balanced LR for the most part.

I usually agree with the keeping balance aspect of it, but how the individual guitars are panned depends upon the (take a guess arrangement. Are they doubled parts or syncopated rhythms? Are they alone or is it a bluegrass thing with a banjo and fiddle in there too? Even if it's rock, hard panning eliminates the opportunity to use the edges to put a sense of the mix's place in a room, which sometimes can be desireable in a more grung-y type of sound or mix, or one that is trying to recreate a real physical soundstage.

- Lead instruments like guitar solo pretty centered...

See above for common exceptions. Also, what do you do when multiple instruments share the lead in sequential solos or (there's that word again) the arrangement has several instruments that share rhythm and accent duties, and contiinue to do so during the solo which only comes in at the bridge? You just stick them all down the middle? That doesn't often sound very good when you have two lead guitars, a piano and an organ that have those duties in the song and wind up stacked on top of each other. Better in many cases to balance the instruments across the pan and spectrum than to overload the center.

- Background vocals panned around the lead vocal.

That's one way, but certainly not the only way. How about lead and backing vocals balanced? Or, do you surround the lead vocal with the backing when the lead vocal is balanced with the guitar, or do you figure out how the backing and and guitar and lead vocal actually relate to each other in the (here we go again) arrangement, and situate them appropriately.

There was that example we had in here a couple of months ago where the panning and depth were set up to make it sound like the lead singer were singing to girl inthe passanger seat when played in the car (which is often was, as it was a classic makeout song.)

When you start talking about the arrangement of which instruments to bring in and when in support of the song - to me, that's a whole 'nother topic, of which panning is but a small piece of the puzzle.

It's not only which and when, IMHO, but, as I tried to demonstrate above, the arrangement can have a direct determining factor of pan.

Just the sheer number of instruments can make a difference. You gonna pan a bass, a double kick, a vocal duet, two lead gits, two keys, a horn section and a tambourine all right down the middle? Or simply distribute them LCR? Or do you want to actually create a textured, stereophonic soundstage? All are valid options. They are in other contexts known under different names: mono, false stereo, and stereo .

The arrangement in the relation of the vocal to the background vocal, or of the vocal to the lead instrument (which is not always a guitar, BTW), or of the lead instrument to the rest of the band can have a very important say in finding a good panning scheme.

I agree, you are 100% right when you cay that panning is just one piece of the puzzle. But just like any other puzzle piece, deciding which way to orient it and where to place it cannot be done without considering both the other pieces connected to it aand the actual overall picture. (Even a corner piece has 4 possibilities, and that piece with the eye in it requires looking at the overall picture before you know where it will actually go )

Recipes for paning are like presets; as often wrong as they are right. More importantly, IMHO, they are designed for the deaf...well at least for those who don't have an engineer's ears. And if one doesn't have the ears, the rest doesn't matter.

And for those who say, "yeah, but they at least give you a place to start", I can only respond, "everybody already has a place to start, a natural preset. It's called everything center panned." That's no better or no worse than any other recipe. Might as well just start from there and let your ears direct you.

G.