Panning for acoustic performance

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scott59

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Hi all:

I've read threads where you all discuss how you pan various instruments. I'm wondering what you do when the instrumentation is a bit sparse. Most of my stuff is accoustic and I have been doing my mixes in mono. Is this what most of you would do? Or would you pan anything?

Let me make it a little more specific. How would you pan, if at all, any of the parts if:

(a) There is one guitar part, one main vocal, and one harmony vocal?
(b) There are two different guitar parts (say a picking part and a strumming part), one main vocal and one harmony vocal?
(c) There is one guitar part, one main vocal, and two different harmony vocals?

I know to just play around until I find something that sounds good. But I would still appreciate hearing what you guys would do. Or at least where you would start.

Many thanks,
Scott
 
It really depends on the music, but the first thing I would try would be to spread the guitars to the right and left, put the lead vocal in the middle, and spread out the backup vocal a little behind the lead.
 
Don't be afraid to hard pan. If there's one thing that I've picked up from the "great recordings"... (Spector, Beatles, Visconti, dub, etc.)... don't be afraid to crank that pan pot.
 
thediscoking said:
Don't be afraid to hard pan. If there's one thing that I've picked up from the "great recordings"... (Spector, Beatles, Visconti, dub, etc.)... don't be afraid to crank that pan pot.
Click to expand...

Yeah, if you listen to the Simon & Garfunkel recordings, they often have things hard panned right, left, or center. Great recordings, acoustic, and often with voices and very few instruments. So perhaps some ideas for you scott. The music style might be different, but you can always adapt the recording/mixing techniques to your own work.
 
mixing 3 pc

Don't know your equipment ...but if tracks are available you could duplicate some of the tracks then the clone-track could have effects, freq changed or whatever then panned away from the original clean track.

maybe fill up the space, which is why your asking?
you have too much empty space in the mix and your wanting to fill the spaces add some razzmatazz?

maybe listening to the new Blugrass stuff would help too, filler tricks etc..
their a pretty simple instrument setup, comparable.

its amazing what just a shaker or tamborinie can add to a chorus part of a song.

Yeah I do the Mono thing too during mixing -
Mono mix forces the Freq-Crowding to raise its head and creates a worst case volume-fighting war between the instruments and too be exaggerated....
so the better it sounded in Mono the better it sounded going to stereo. IMO/
 
Hey, thanks for the responses guys. It's clear I have to start listening to my records with a more critical ear - otherwise I wouldn't have to ask questions like this. As a starting point, I'll dig out my Simon and Garfunkel and Gordon Lightfoot stuff.

Cloning parts and panning separately is something I've read about on here before. Thanks for reminding me Coolcat - I'll play with it some.

When I have three vocal parts, I've been putting the main in the center and the two different harmonies panned (not hard) to separate sides. It sounds pretty good to me. Problem has been what to do when I have only one harmony part. If I keep the main vocal centered, I'm not sure where to stick the harmony.

I probably should put this in the newbie forum, but since I started the thread here, I might as well ask the question here. SonicAlbert: How do I spread the backup behind the lead?

Really appreciate the help fellas. Thanks again.

Scott
 
Why don't you play the guitar part twice, then pan them. It will sound a lot bigger than the cloning trick.
 
You put a delay on the backup vocal. Pan the original a bit to the left and the delayed vocal a bit to the right, for example.
 
Thanks SonicAlbert!

And thanks Farview - I'll experiment with that too.

Scott
 
On some stuff I have panned the strummed acoustic left to about 2:00. I buss the signal pre fader to the right to a 30ms delay which is panned right about 2:00. Both signals go to a group fader and get a small amount of room verb. Gives a nice even spacious sound and allows the vocals to sit center. Its also mono compatible too.
 
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