Panning on stereo sources

[Chris F]

My apologies if this topic has been done to death, but the searches I tried didn't turn up much. Lately I've been recording a lot of acoustic duo stuff (mostly jazz related) which involves one stereo source (grand piano or archtop guitar) and one mono source (double bass). I seem to get the best results keeping the bass dead center, and I keep reading tha it's best to pan the stereo sources hard left and right....but somehow that seems to produce a "hollow" sort of sound with my x-y mic setup. I know that the obvious solution is simply to pan until it sounds right, but I was wondering if others with more experience had encountered this same phenomenon, and if so, how they dealt with it.

All input and/or links welcome.

 

[Harvey Gerst]

I try to adjust the panning till the "width" of the instrument sounds about right in speakers placed about 10' to 12' apart. For some the panning might be as narrow as 11:00 and 1:00 o'clock, while others are far wider. About the only single instrument I"ll pan with full width is a pipe organ.

Of course, I'll use full panning sometimes as an effect, but it's usually not from a single instrument stereo source.

 

[Halion]

Well, if you think about it, when you stand in front of a piano or guitar, it never sounds like part of the sound is coming from your right side and part of the sound is coming from the left side, so hard panning will not give you the most natural results. However, it's all about what you want. Hard panning can sound good, just not natural.

 

[Chris F]

Thanks for the input. In my searching through the topic, I heard a lot of people warning about "phase cancellation" if you didn't hard pan (FWIW, I do know what "phase cancellation" is, just not in too much depth). So far, I'm getting the best results with the pan on the x/y mics at about 9 and 3 o'clock, but I'll look into the narrower settings as well after reading this. Am I right in worrying about having a too narrow a stereo image if I pan too close together considering that the instrumentation is so sparse (bass and piano only)? Or is it all as simple as Ellington/Zappa rules (if it sounds good, then it isgood) ?

 

[mixsit]

Thanks for the input. In my searching through the topic, I heard a lot of people warning about "phase cancellation" if you didn't hard pan

The strong point of XY is that both mics receive the signal at the same time, and is rather mono compatible. It's arrival time differences that cause things to be out of phase.

So far, I'm getting the best results with the pan on the x/y mics at about 9 and 3 o'clock, but I'll look into the narrower settings as well after reading this.

A few other variables to look at... The distance from the source -if you place the xy mics rather close in, the image for a given pan setting will be wider than if you pull the mics back (and of course also changing your tone and room Vs direct mix). So as you pick your distance, you can also change the xy angle; as they are turned in or out away from 90 degrees, so goes your image width.

Or is it all as simple as Ellington/Zappa rules (if it sounds good, then it isgood) ?

Exactly.
Wayne