Panning/Effects for Vocals

[mattr]

Those are my starting points. In fact, I have a real issue with how we setup speakers. Pshshs, why are they all setup in a circle around us? Why don't we have some that are overhead? Then you can really play tricks, like having some bitch yell at your listener from the above

Sounds like you should be mixing in 22.2 surround sound
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/22.2

 

[noisewreck]

Sounds like you should be mixing in 22.2 surround sound
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/22.2

Sounds expensive

 

[grimtraveller]

Now, maybe there's several different ways of teaching that concept, sure.. This guy may need to be drawn a picture. That gal may need to walk the process. The other gal may need to understand the science while her hubby may learn by analogy, etc. But please don't change the concept and either lie to them or mollycoddle them into thinking that the way to do it is to ignore the song and just follow some non-existent "standard" procedure.


G.

When I started recording in '92, the only info I was armed with was from a Fostex X15 manual that said something like "...other than the accepted practice of putting bass and vocals in the centre........it is much more art than science...."
I did start there and much of the time, I do put the lead vocal in the centre, and the bass. But from day one I also experimented with where to place any component just to see how it sounded and sometimes the vocal sounded better elsewhere although in 100 or so songs, the bass never has. Only once has it ended up somewhere else. I find it sounds unbalanced. I don't know why that is. But I like those 60s recordings with the bass panned to the side. Other than the bass, I've found every other thing can be anywhere. It always depends on the song.
At the end of the day, go with what feels right but don't ignore what people say, even if you don't end up going that way. Any method is at least worth hearing and thinking about. I've noticed that the time always comes when I'm ready to try something new.....

 

[grimtraveller]

Glen's point of view is, if you are already hearing the music in your head, you'd be hearing whether the vocals are in the middle or somewhere else, so the question itself is silly.


It is possible that they ask the question because they are afraid of breaking some "rule", or going "against convention"... which in itself is an entirely different problem altogether, and partially propagated by the spread of contrived "rules of thumb" that have little artistic bearing on the music at hand. And this is exactly the point that Glen is arguing that by giving "rules of thumb" we are actually making people scared of "breaking rules"...

Applying the wrong EQ on the bass is not the same as running the red light and smashing into a bus full of nuns and their daughters.

These are some very basic questions that people ask that to me it is perfectly OK to push them to listen more carefully to what they already hear in their head.

The point about hearing the music in one's head therefore enabling one to know how a vocal should be panned just sounds odd to me. Whatever I hear in my head bears no relation really to anything technical such as where things may be placed. My head just ain't like that ! And the recording and mixing process does have a technical aspect to it, just by dint of the fact that machines are used. But they're just tools. I don't think the question is/was silly.
The second point does throw up an interesting conundrum though. Almost every engineer/producer will say that there are no rules yet will tell you that there are certain things that you shouldn't do.........bit of a mixed message. Luckilly, there really are enough disobedient experimenters that will eventually break 'rules'; it's hard and frankly boring to do the same thing throughout one's life with no variation. Rules of thumb may not actually be a bad thing because people will eventually discover them anyway or break them if they are the starting point. People are different and develop differently.
The third point, how many nuns have daughters ?

 

[noisewreck]

The point about hearing the music in one's head therefore enabling one to know how a vocal should be panned just sounds odd to me. Whatever I hear in my head bears no relation really to anything technical such as where things may be placed.

Why is that such an odd thing? Furthermore, why do you consider where the sounds come from to be a technical thing?

I think the placement of the sounds is as much part of the actual "hearing" process as hearing their timbre. Or don't you hear the timbre of various instruments either? This is not an attack, I am just curious and wondering just because things like this don't occur to me as "something to think about" after the fact, they just appear in my head. And that's where my struggle begins. Making the actual thing sound like what I hear in my head.

But I never think about "should I use an oboe or violin here?" (as an example). I already hear the line being played by the instrument that it's destined for. Of course in my case it's about 99% abstract synthesized timbres, but I hear the timbre.

Same thing with stuff such as panning. Sometimes I hear a crossrhythm being played by two high-hats (or something that sounds like them)... and sometimes that interplay is either panned opposite, or maybe near/far or some mixture of the two.

Often times, a musical idea will ferment for a while in my head, before I even sit in front of the synth. It is not uncommon that I will grab a staff paper and write down some of the musical motifs, and then take notes as to what I was imagining at the moment when I was writing it. Then after a while, I will set out to work on creating the sounds and what not. If I am lucky, I'll already have most of the sounds from my previous noodling sessions and I'll just need to load them in.

I suppose my mind works in mysterious ways