panning question

T

thecugga

New member
Hey,
I was listening to some Thelonious Monk tonite on headphones while studying (a big change from the normal hardcore and metal i always listen to) and I noticed that the panning used in these songs is huge.
Drums almost always way left, usually so is the bass.
Main flute, trumpet, etc. panned way right
Background instruments like piano are left in the center
Everything is pulled way up front or pushed way back.
Listening to it created a visual image in my head of where all the instruments actually were and it felt like I was sitting in the middle of a live jam session. It was awesome! and something I never heard/noticed before. It gave the music an extra dimension, every instrument could be heard separately, but at the same time they all blended perfectly.

What im wondering is why is this restricted to jazz style music? Would it be impossible to mix metal tunes like this? Or even just some mellower rock tunes with this style of panning?
It obviously wouldnt work for EVERY song, but could it EVER work?
I think im gonna experiment with this (or some variation of this) on the next recording i do just for fun, to see if it could actually work. I have a feeling it wont, but if not, then why does it work so well for jazz and not for metal?

Maybe im just retarted and this could never work, but any input on this subject would be great. This has interested me.
 
there was a great noisy indie rock band from NB, Canada who sort of did that, they were called Eric's Trip. Usually the drums and bass were panned left with guitars panned right (a few odd musical parts were also panned left) with vocals usually in the center.. really cool to listen to.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric's_Trip
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_White_(musician)
 
On the Thelonious Monk recording, I don't think they had variable pan pots in those days. It was either hard left, center, or hard right. Very cool way to mix if you can get everything to fit right.
 
thanks for the input

nice. i'll check out eric's trip forsure!!

its definitely a cool concept for mixing, adds a different dimension to it all.

maybe someone else has an example of music other than jazz (rock or whatever) that is mixed like this.
 
There are three main reasons why a lot of jazz is mixed that way.

TuoKerf hit on one of them; many older recordings didn't have incremental pan technology.

The second is that in many cases they just want to recreate the organic sound of the jazz trio (or quartet, or quintet.......) as if you were watching them in a small club, which is where most of these folks were first heard before the recordings were made.

The third reason is that the music style and the artist of the times really showcased the musician; the piano player, saxaphonist, trumpeter, drummer, etc. were all assigned their showcase parts in a song's arrangement. An organic mix that seperates the instruments serves to keep the instruments in their own space, making such showcasing easier to engineer and to present to the audience.

Ignoring the old technology - we all can pan where we want now - any style of music (genre or arrangement) that would benefit from thr reasoning in the last two points would benefit from this kind of mix. Bluegrass, folk and indeed just about anything done acoustically would work. Musical arrangements in just about any genre that are built to showcase individual musicians and not just homoginize the players into a wall of band could also stand to consider such a mixing technique.

G.
 
I'm working on a progressive rock demo right now, and this got me thinking. With how many solos these dudes are playing, I'm going to do an alternate mix using only left/right/phantom center.

I'll post it up if it turns out ok.
 
In my opinion heavier music styles should be narrower in size, focusing on the stereo center. In fact, for heavier music you almost want it to sound mono (operative word: "almost"). Just my opinion.
 
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