Newbie w/ Panning, Please Help!!!

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lowlow42

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Hey guys, I can record and mix decently, but I dont have a clue how to pan. If you could just basically tell me where things go to have that nice Stereo sound to it, it'd be appreciated.

More specifically for rapping genre. Like where do the Main Vocals, Doubles, Adlibs, Chorus/Hooks go, left or right, and how far out?

And the beat too, Strings, Drums, Piano, other sounds?

Please help me out!!! This has been stumping me for a long time now, I just had to ask now though.

Thanks in advance!!!
 
Yo 42 LOWS on a dead muscian's chest:}

You ask a questions that is a bit difficult to answer in our short space here.

Panning is something you either score in your music or do it in your head if you doing the music yourself.

Like, you might want a "bang, boom, bang, on a drum or cymbal, to move from left to right, or just to the right or left. Thus, you have to either assign the pan or do it manually when mixing down, depending on your gear.

You might want your do-wah back-up vocals to be on the left or right or once there and once here--depends on your arrangement or what YOU want.

When you play it back, if you don't like the pan, you can do it over, and over, and over, and OVER until you get what you like. Then, after that, you hope your audience will like it.

Also, you can pan a long bass note, like when a song is ending, so it swings from left to right--a very nice effect if you do it right, as well with other voices on a synth or a live quitar, vocal note, etc.

It's a bunch of work but that's what doing a good mix is- A LOT OF WORK.

But, you know, man, it's fun.

Green Hornet :D ;)
 
Green Hornet, thank you for replying, I see what you are saying. I understand its different from person to person and song to song, but is there any guideline that might be followed? Are all vocals pannned? Does the main vocals remain centered, doubles panned? Because I could sit and pan it until I like it, but I dont know how to like it... ie. I dont know what I'm looking for when panning.

Blue Bear Sound, thanks for your reply also, I will read up on that article and see if I can learn a thing or two. Hopefully its not to technical (terms), because as the topic title says, I'm still somewhat of a newbie.

Thanks again both of you!
 
lowlow42 said:
Blue Bear Sound, thanks for your reply also, I will read up on that article and see if I can learn a thing or two. Hopefully its not to technical (terms), because as the topic title says, I'm still somewhat of a newbie.
Click to expand...
I wrote it as non-technical as possible because it was meant as a Primer for rookies! ;)
 
LOL, I read it, it was nice. I learned a couple of things on there. Unfortunately I didn't see too much about panning. But nevertheless everything on there was good!

I got a question, is panning... taking a track and copying it to another, and making one go left, and one go right? Or is it taking the main vocals, and then making the doubles, adlibs, etc. left and right?

The thing is, I try to compare my mixes to real songs, and mine are centered and the real ones are all nice and stereo-fied. And I realize that panning is an in-depth process, and you eventually get good at it, but I just need to get help to get me rolling, you know?
 
The section where I describe starting off by placing your tracks as if it's a band playing in front of you didn't help you understand panning??? :confused:
 
Well, kind of... but I'v never been to a concert or ever watched them on TV. But I can sort of visualize it, with instruments in a beat/instrumental. But I cant see it with as far as vocals are concerned.
 
Maybe a good way to start a visualization is to start with a mental picture of a small stage. Imagine your mixing monitors are the two ends of the stage, left and right. Now picture your band standing on that stage between the monitors in front of you. Start panning your tracks to position the sounds to match the mental picture and you'll be halfway home.

This method is not perfect. For example, the bass player might be standing way off to the left, but it's more common to mix the bass near the center. A group of backup singers standing way off to the side of the stage (picture Ray Charles' Rayettes) would probably not sound good hard-panned to the one side of the stage. But those are adjustments you can make to the mix however you like. Starting with the stage visualization is a good starting point though.

As far as vocals, that can vary widely as far as placement. Generally (but not always) the lead vocal is placed not too far from the center. Backup vocals can vary widely in placement, a lot depends on the mood of the song and the nature of the backups. Sometims they might be grouped in a tight location, other times they might be spread out for a more balanced effect. But one key general rule is to try and keep the lead vocal physically seperated from "competing" instruments that share many of the same fundamental frequencies and/or are being played in the same octave as the vocal.

HTH,

G.
 
Thanks for the reply, Ok... Ok... I see now. See, I dont want to sit down to mix, and end up with something sounding retarded... I'll try it the way you described and see if it all works out.
 
What I do, and trust me, I'm no pro is as follows.

Usually I keep the main vocal centered with one or two adlib tracks of stressed words placed on each side. If i'm only using one adlib track to support the main vocal, I like to put it a little to the right (just my taste).

For hooks, I drop the volume a little and I may have five or six vocal tracks at all different volumes and placed all over the spectrum. This works well with a chanting type of chorus or hook. I do hio-hop too, so hopefully this helps.

If you are making the beat as well:

I like to put the hi's to the right for some reason, especially hi piano's and strings. Lower keys and horns seem to work for me to towards the left. Bass down the center as well as the kick drum. I usually layer 3 or 4 snares to get one sound and place the prominent one down the center with the others at either end of the spectrum. Hi hats I put down the middle of a little to either side.

Now this is just sometimes. As you said earlier, it depends on the song and what your vision of it is. Sometimes, what I wrote above is the complete opposite of what I do. It all depends.

Also, I read the Mixing 101 article a few years back when I first came to this board and it was extremely helpful. The stage thing works well too sometimes, but it is a bit misleading, especially if your dealing with a lot of synth sounds. The rest of the article is great though. I tihnk I'm gonna read it again soon.

Hope this helps...

-Springfield
 
YES! Thats exactly what I wanted to hear, that last post was perfect! Thanks a bunch!

***Don't get me wrong, the other posts were very helpful... but this last one is EXACTLY what I was looking for.***

Thanks EVERYONE!!! You guys really helped me out alot!!! I will use these techniques the next time I go to mix.
 
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