panning two tracks?

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dobro

dobro

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Just voice and guitar - is it standard to pan them slightly for a better sound? I don't see the point in using a stereo field if there's no improvement in sound. Plus when you hear someone singing and playing guitar, there's no left/right separation. But does panning them get a better sound in audio recording when those two tracks are the sum total of the mix?
 
As long as you listen to something...anything... with 2 ears there is left and right separation.
However - 2 identical sources panned left and right will always just sound as one single source.
If you use to microphones on a guitar, aimed at the instrument in different places, or in a stereo configuration - play with the panning and see what brings the best results.
 
For just voice and guitar I like to have two guitar tracks--either stereo or the same track doubled. I pan one hard left and one hard right. This will make a good guitar recording sound great.

Then I pan the voice right down the middle. It comes through nice and clear surrounded by beautiful guitar.
 
if you double the track and pan 1 hard left and the other hard right, won't you get the same result as having the original dead-center? (unless you introduce a slight delay in the duplicate)
 
thats correct bdemenil! thats why Im not sure that the term "doubled" is being used correctly...Ive seen this alot around here lately
 
You're both right - see what Sjoko said in this thread, for example. But I think Tdukex was talking about panning them, and then making each one sound different somehow - EQ, delay, reverb, that kind of thing.

I've got a beautiful recording by Bert Jansch called Rosemary Lane. The voice and the guitar are panned ever so slightly off center - maybe 11:00 and 1:00, maybe slightly less. I'm wondering if the engineer did this to make it sound better, or just because he wanted it to sound stereo for the sake of sounding stereo. Voice and acoustic guitar (played in position one a lot of the time) share a lot of the same frequency range, and if the recording is just voice and guitar, the levels have to be right up there on both of them - I thought maybe panning them helped reduce sonic conflict between them. I don't know.

Tdukex - thanks for the idea - I'll try it.
 
Okay, here's what I tried and what I found out:

1 Simply panning the vocal and the guitar didn't seem to do much.

2 Because I track both voice and guitar simultaneously, problems crop up with doubling tracks due to the spill between mics. I tried doubling the guitar track, and then shifting one of the doubled tracks a few microseconds - nice sound on the guitar, but it made the vocal sound ugly.

3 The best result was doubling the guitar track, and changing the EQ on one of the tracks. Nice, full big guitar sound. But again, it changed the vocal track in a way I didn't like.

4 Here's something that happened I don't understand at all, that has to do with simple panning of doubled tracks. When both of the doubled guitar tracks were panned center, the guitar sound was really loud. As I panned each of the guitar tracks further out, the level continued to drop, until the point when they were panned hard left and right, and I had to boost each of them about 6 dB just to get the guitar up to its original level. What's all that about?
 
Interesting about the level drop - probably design of the panner has something to do with it.

I've found that when recording voice with acoustic or classical guitar, if i take some of the low end out of the guitar, particularly around 250 hz, it clears the voice up. I also tend to pan guitar and voice slightly off-center - not more than 10/15 degs. Something to keep in mind, is that if you're recording a singer/guitar player with an acoutic intrument, you're going to get bleed between your mics. This could introduce phase problems which might also result in a muddy/ weak overall sound. Best thing would be either to mic as close as possible, or use a single stereo mic array further off.

Ben
 
dobro said:
Okay, here's what I tried and what I found out:

1 Simply panning the vocal and the guitar didn't seem to do much.

2 Because I track both voice and guitar simultaneously, problems crop up with doubling tracks due to the spill between mics. I tried doubling the guitar track, and then shifting one of the doubled tracks a few microseconds - nice sound on the guitar, but it made the vocal sound ugly.


3 The best result was doubling the guitar track, and changing the EQ on one of the tracks. Nice, full big guitar sound. But again, it changed the vocal track in a way I didn't like.
Was that because of the bleeding?

4 Here's something that happened I don't understand at all, that has to do with simple panning of doubled tracks. When both of the doubled guitar tracks were panned center, the guitar sound was really loud. As I panned each of the guitar tracks further out, the level continued to drop, until the point when they were panned hard left and right, and I had to boost each of them about 6 dB just to get the guitar up to its original level. What's all that about?
Click to expand...

1. It won't

2.Why don't you just play and not sing? then sing and not play?

3. Was that because of the bleeding? If yes - see 2.

4. Its called cancellation. A phasing problem - 2 waves running opposite from each other - think 2 graphs with waves, one peaking up, the other peaking down, at the same points - now draw a line at the average, which will be zero. If this happened as a result of delaying one track, move the track forward or backwards slightly. If you are working on a DAW - bring up and enlarge both tracks in the edit window and you will be able to see the effect.
 
"2.Why don't you just play and not sing? then sing and not play?"

This is they way most music is recorded these days, but it may sound less natural this way. I favor live recording whenever possible.
 
Overdubbing is something that has been going on for years and not just these days. I simply disagree when I heard it said that the music doesnt sound natural when its done this way..

Does it also mean that ..a musician..particularly a rythem instrumentalist who has impeccable timing , would be considered not good?

The best drummer I have ever heard ..who is a full time studio musician..is often referred to as the "human drum machine" and do you why? because his timing is impeccable, he understands the importance playing a smart drum arrangements, meaing not wailing and flailing rolls at every opportunity, although there might be times when this works, and maintaining consistent velocities on his drum hits which is important in the recording environment.
And by the way the human drum machine comparison doesnt bother him at all but rather keeps a smile on his face.

Dobro, back to your issue. I think overdubbing as was suggested is the way to go for your situation. All you need is something even a recorded click track to help you keep your timing and record everything to that time reference.
Heres something Ive been toying with lately as far as doubling is concerned . I am using it the way I understand the meaning to fatten a sound in its place in the stereo field. As was your original question why pan anyway? Well if you have decided that you want that rythem guitar at 10 ..i would take a "clone" or " copy" of the guitar pan it right beside the one at 10 oclock say 10:10 or 9:50 adjust delay on this dupe until it gets fatter which might equate to loudness. You are gonna hear phasiness at the points where you should here it 2ms- 8ms but even that could be a welcome sound depending on what you are looking for, after all , flanging is simply moving two sounds in and out of phase of each at a set time rate. I think you will find some interesting possiblities with this method. Nothing stops you from adding a third either :) And of course theres no restriction as to what effects you can use on one or both copies compression, eq,reverbs etc etc..keep in mind though if you are gonna be performing this stuff live ..you will have to be able to duplicate it somehow :) This of course should always be an consideration when recording anything. :)

Something to consider though...remember...that you have part of your signal from that rythem guitar on the right side of the stereo field..try to avoid placing another instrument or elememt on top of it the right side version...find a new home for it that doesnt overlap your rythem guitar in the left field either ....Try this
and see how you like it..holla back let us know how it goes!
 
Agreed on the live recording sounding more natural. A simple guitar and vocal recording by a single performer really calls for that approach. I would try an x-y pair somewhere out in front of the player. How far of course depends on your acoustic space and how it sounds. Have the performer play and sing and see where sounds best. This method, incidentally, jettisons your question about panning since the mic placement will provide your stereo image.
 
Overdubbing would definitely be the way to go if discrete sounds, assembled in the mix exactly the way I want them, was my main aim. But a higher priority for me is the performance of the music, playing and singing at the same time - having to pay attention to both singing and playing requires something of me that, I think, adds to the overall performance. I want to keep that. So I have to deal with mic spill. BTW, I don't think overdubbing is better or worse than simultaneous tracking, I think it's just a different approach - take your pick.

bdemenil - I *do* close mic. There are no phase problems because of a miking technique I picked up from Harvey Gerst, and the mics are far enough apart to prevent that now (guitar mic down below the bouts pointing upward slightly, vocal mic slightly above mouth level - loads of space between the two mics).

sjoko - I wasn't delaying the doubled track, so I don't think it's a phase thing - both tracks were exactly in phase. I'll write Syntrillium and ask them and report back.

elbenj - yeah, I'm gonna continue to play with the doubled track thing - like tdukex said earlier, it seems to open the guitar sound throughout the stereo field, with the vocal nestled in the centre of it - very nice.

knownuttin - I'll try that xy pair thingy, both as an addition to the close mics, and as the only mics. But I'm not in the best room in the world, so I might have to stick with close-miking.
 
"The best drummer I have ever heard ..who is a full time studio musician..is often referred to as the "human drum machine" .

If a drummer's ideal is to sound like a drum machine, why not use a drum machine - you can't get more perfect timeing than that. I'll tell you why - because a drum machine plays completely flat - no swing.

Also, when a group is playing together live - if they play well together - they react to eachother in a way that is impossible to duplicate with overdubbing.

I agree that overdubbing is convenient though.
 
What you say about swinging and live interactive chemistry is true, and I like recordings of that kind of music. But overdubbing is more than convenient - it can get you sounds you just can't get live. I like that too.
 
Doubling

Seems to be a little confusion in this thread when it comes to doubling guitar parts. It seems like some think that this ONLY means copying a guitar track, maybe applying EQ, delay or other FX, and panning the two opposite each other. bdemenil - If you copy a recorded guitar track to a new track and pan the two hard, you're right, that won't do anything. But I think what tdukex was talking about was actually recording the same part TWICE and panning the two takes. This will make the guitar much bigger when panned and since the two parts can't be played exactly the same, you'll get a fat chorus-like effect.

As far as the live vs overdub thing. For tracking drums, bass, guitar, etc. I agree that tracking live generally gives a better feel and more cohesive final product. However, I've found that for vocals, playing an instrument while singing is almost always a detriment to the recording. I don't know anyone (esecially not me) that can sing BETTER while playing guitar or play guitar BETTER while singing for that matter. I think that since the vocal is probably going to be the focus of the song, you should make sure you get it right and not have to worry about redoing it if you f' up the guitar part or visa versa. And I doubt you'll lose much of the 'live' feel by overdubbing a vocal part.

Further, I have another topic along these lines. I've found that I generally (as I assume most people do) record the vocal last - or nearly last. Then I have a hard time getting it to fit in the mix right and have to use a lot of EQ on different tracks to make some room. Well, on a recent track I did, I recorded a scratch track of the vocal very early on in the recording process (after the drums and one guitar). It wasn't a perfect take, but it had the overall sound I was going for. I then recorded all the other parts- bass, more guitars etc.- all while listening to the vocal while recording. I then redid the vocal using the same original setup to get it perfect (or as close as my flat voice can get). I had to use zero EQ to get the vocal to sit in the mix and the song felt more cohesive than most things I've done.
 
good post gnarled.
One of the tricks used very often is to double a part, then delay one of the parts by a fraction of a second, which gives a full 'pushy' sound
 
I think this idea was mentioned earlier...but maybe a pair of room mics panned hard left/right, or an X/Y thingie happening, would help to add some *realism* when gently "nudged" into your mix. Not a big change, probably from what you are getting, but just that little extra. Of course you could stereo mic your guitar too.
 
Getting back to the original question.

There are few things I try when I essentialy have a mono recording in the case of guitar and voice.

1. I use the Waves Stereo Imager plugin to widen the source. This works pretty well and in most cases it is all you need.
2. Sometimes I use the Sonic Foundry Accoustic Mirror plugin with a nice short distance studio impulse and check the box marked "Stereoize mono source".
3. If it not obtusive to the nature of the recording, either some stereo verb or a medium distance impulse in the accoustic mirror.

You have to try all of them to see what works for the recording.
 
* Simultaneous vs overdubbing: somebody once compared it to the difference between painting a picture and taking a picture with a camera. The first one assembles what you want bit by bit, the second one captures what's there at the moment. Both require skill. You get a different kind of product in each case. Take your pick.

* I tried more copying of an existing track, panning both of them hard left and right, and changing their sounds to create a stereo image - it just doesn't work for me because of the mic spill. The sound gets interesting and full, but muddier. Every effect I add to each of the doubled guitar parts necessarily affects the vocal spill on that track, so the end result is a main vocal, with two different mini-vocals as well. Mud. I'm gonna try the XY mic pair next, and reverb as well.
 
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