Panning different EQ ranges of 1 instrument

A

AlecBeretz

New member
So I'm in a band with drums, bass and guitar. We're recording soon, and I'm contemplating how I should pan everything. Our genre would probably just be "rock," as its fairly heavy, but much of it is inspired by funk and jazz. The bass does a lot of slap, the guitar does a lot of hi chords on the neck.

I was thinking about panning the guitar a little left, and the bass a little right--they are each melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic in different parts of songs, and they often play off each other. My only issue is that, with the bass not hard center, the EQ might feel unbalanced, as much of the low end in the song would be juust right of center. Might sound... lopsided?

Note, however, that this bass track will have a little less low end than usual (not a heavy sub bass), and more mid and treble. It will be able to stand better sonically as its own instrument. More of a chili peppers / led zeppelin tone.


So my question. I have an idea of how to do this but i'm wondering if anyone has (A) an easy way to do it or (B) a reason why I shouldn't. Could I take the bass guitar, and split up the EQ so anything below like, 150hz is panned center, and everything above is panned a little to the right? My DAW is logic, but its probably a question that transcends daws. Thanks!
 
I think that if you have all the instruments sounding the way they need to sound to blend well with each other, you could put this mix in mono and have it sound great. I wouldn't worry too much about panning UNTIL you get everything sounding great. In fact, I would propose that you keep everything in mono until you get to mix time.
 
do NOT pan bass/guitar opposite to eachother.

Bass dead center.... guitar double tracked and panned hard left AND right.

you're ears are much better when they work together, not when one listens to one voice and the other listens to a different one.

clarity is all about EQ... understand where the instruments sit on the EQ spectrum and make room for eachother like puzzle pieces.

Drums?

Trickier and dependant on how many mics you are using and your recording style.

tell me how many mics and the type of micing you will be doing.
 
snus said:
I think that if you have all the instruments sounding the way they need to sound to blend well with each other, you could put this mix in mono and have it sound great. I wouldn't worry too much about panning UNTIL you get everything sounding great. In fact, I would propose that you keep everything in mono until you get to mix time.
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Never mix drums in Mono.

edit - "mix time" starts immediately.
 
Tracked monitoring in mono. Recorded on Black Face ADAT's, thus, everything was tracked "hot".
 
generally I keep everything mono but drums because i KNOW that the oh's are going to be panned, and I at least start panning toms. everything else i do keep center until later.

"do NOT pan bass/guitar opposite to eachother" - the doors did it. saying that their producer is wrong?

"Bass dead center.... guitar double tracked and panned hard left AND right." - i don't want to double track. i want the sound of ONE guitar. maybe on the chorus' we will double track.

"you're ears are much better when they work together, not when one listens to one voice and the other listens to a different one"
-but, I'm only gonna pan them like, 10 o clock 2 o clock. Im not doing hard left and right. They're basically gonna sound mono but with a little space.
 
anyway- for the reasons you said, I want to split the bass frequencies so its low bits are center, and its higher bits are slightly right. is this possible?
 
CMB Studios said:
Never mix drums in Mono.
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I disagree on the basis that this is a never say never situation. Since all recordings up to the advent of stereo were mono it's been amply demonstrated that it can sound fine. In some cases I've gotten a great drum sound with a kick and one overhead. Not much to pan there (though I've actually panned the kick a little left and the bass a little right).
 
AlecBeretz said:
anyway- for the reasons you said, I want to split the bass frequencies so its low bits are center, and its higher bits are slightly right. is this possible?
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It's possible...sort of. Make two copies of the track and eq them differently. But if you use the usual type of eq (minimum phase) there will be phase mismatches between the two tracks and if the mix gets played in mono it might alter the sound of the bass. If you use a less common type of eq (linear phase) I think it will avoid that problem.

Another option is to use a plugin like Bassline. That will bring low frequencies to the center even if you panned the bass away from center. Back in the days of vinyl records mastering engineers sometimes used a filter like this to center the lows because panned bass information could mess with tracking.
 
snus said:
Tracked monitoring in mono. Recorded on Black Face ADAT's, thus, everything was tracked "hot".
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monitoring and checking things in Mono yes... Mixing in mono almost seems pointless.


And Alec, why ask the question if you already think you have the answers :P if your not looking for advice then just try it and see if it works..

And yes... i absolutely hate the production done to the doors.

But tell me, were you looking for advice or reinforcement to your idea?
 
bouldersoundguy said:
I disagree on the basis that this is a never say never situation. Since all recordings up to the advent of stereo were mono it's been amply demonstrated that it can sound fine. In some cases I've gotten a great drum sound with a kick and one overhead. Not much to pan there (though I've actually panned the kick a little left and the bass a little right).
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well drums is different as i stated previously... if you're using a full mic rig...then i find it foolish to mix in Mono and then split into stereo... why not just mix in stereo to begin with?

and as i said before, checking in mono is fine.

Thats why i asked him how he was micing his drums... recorderman? 1 OH, 2 OH? room? toms?... all factors ya know.
 
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