Panning

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wherebeerdies

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Newbie here. I need some help with panning. I hear over and over about trusting your ears and that it's and individual thing. I have done several demos over the years with different bands and although there continues to be improvements I don't think I utilize the stereo field good enough. I was curious where some people would start with the following set up. I will also post my starting point. We play modern hard rock that shows definately influence from the 60's on so at times we are using some older techniques including some pretty hard panning and for effect but for a starting point this is what we have done.

R - Overhead 100% R
L - OH 100% L
High Hat - 10% R
Kick -Center
Snare - Center
Small Tom - 10% R
Mid Tom - 20% L
Floor Tom - 50% L

Bass - Center

Lead Vocals - Center
Background Vocals - Hard Pan Left or Right Depending on how many
Guitar 1 (two different tracks separate cabinets) - 50 R
Guitar 2 (two different tracks separate amps) - 50 L
Lead Guitars - Center

Any suggestions would be appreciated. I know in the end I will trust my ears but I always worry that I play it to safe and miss something. Thanks guys.
 
That looks like a pretty standard mix but you may want to center the toms more. Put the center tom in the center and the others to each side.

You have a good starting point and just do whatever sounds good from there. Listen to albums you like and see what they are doing. Sometimes it's breaking the rules that makes a mix interesting.
 
It's all a matter of taste.

Personally, I pan the floor tom to the center and maybe pan the rack toms a little away from each other. Sometimes I leave the toms mono. I also pan the hat hard left (I do everything from drummer perrspective) and bring it up just enough to give it more direction than the overheads do.

I pan rhythm guitars hard right and left. But I tend not to double each part unless one it the chord bed and the other is some melodic part. In which case i would double the chords, pan them hard and leave the one melodic track somewhere where it didn't mess with anything.
 
As has been implied so far, it's a matter of taste, there is no one right answer, or no one right approach that's "better".

As far as the rhythm section, I personally am usually tempted to place the drum close mics to match and emphasize the stereo image that's coming from the OHs. One small exception is that I often will throw the kick and bass slightly off-center and opposite of each other (maybe only 5% off center, one L and one R). This often won't make much difference, but sometimes it does give just a bit more definition by not throwing everything right down the center. Either way, it'll rarely hurt ;).

Rhythm gits totally depend upon the genre and arrangement, but usually I am more concerned in how well they fit in the mix in frequency-wise and arrangemet-wise. I aalso agree with Jay in his comments about percussive vs. melodic rhythm gits.

Lead git and lead vocal revolve around each other in my book. Again, it depends much upon frequency and arrangemet. Often times, where there is shared responsibility (call and response, verse vs. git break, melodic vocal overliad with harmonic git, etc.) I'll pan the mildly left and right (say 25-30%). If it's mostly vocal with seperate lead git solos, I might throw them both center.

The backing vocals for me have to fit in with the vocal/lead git scheme. If the vocal/git are center, then I might pan backing vocals partially L/R. If its vocals with occasional lead git soloing, then I miight put the backing vocals near the lead got, especially if they backing vocals are not coincident.

But these are just a few of the dozen possibilities. It so much depends upon the feel and arrangement of the individual song.

G.
 
I would never hard pan OH's myself, but that's a taste thing. It sounds unnatural to me. I do drums from audience perspective, since that is who will be listening. Who cares what the drummer thinks???!?!? :D
 
Does nobody else avoid panning overheads 100%?
All personal preference and blah-di-blah, but I tend to go for 50-75% depending on what else is in the mix. I also tend to double track guitars and pan them left and right, again not all the way - I guess you just like a wider stereo image, what you list makes sense, just keep your bass, lead vocal, kick, and snare central and you're laughing.
 
My last mix, I panned OH's 100%, and you can still hear some hat out of the other side, and the ride was noticeable in the opposite...just alot quieter. And as Glenn mentioned, I've put my kick and snare 5% to the respective sides.....don't know if it makes a real difference, but they do tend to sit just slightly off center so I did it.
 
Choose a recording (or recordings) that you think is great, that is in the style of your song and has the sound you are looking for. Study it carefully, write down detailed notes on paper through many listenings, and then use that as your starting point. Then throughout your mixing process, listen back to that recording as a reference as long as you feel the need to.

That's what I would do.
 
Thanks guys. Makes me feel quite a bit better about my starting point. I learned a few things that I will be trying.

I had been toying with the kick and bass staggered to either side approach. Another technique I messed with was cloning the bass and placing one track on either side of center (kick centered) just a little ways out to take them out of each others way. Anyone else use this technique?

Again thank you.
 
wherebeerdies said:
Another technique I messed with was cloning the bass and placing one track on either side of center (kick centered) just a little ways out to take them out of each others way. Anyone else use this technique?
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All a center pan means is that you are getting equal volume out of the left and right channels, so when you send the exact same mono signal at the same volume the same distance left and right, it is the same as sending a mono signal down the middle. In other words, what you are doing with the cloned bass is no different than just sending it down the middle.

Now, there are things called "panning laws" in DAWs that mean that there may be a volume difference of a couple of dB louder when you do the cloned "dual mono" thing, but that volume difference is no different than if you put it mono down the midle and just boosted the volume a couple of dB.

(Those that have been around here for a while know that I learned this the hard way a few years ago :o)

G.
 
SouthSIDE Glen said:
I often will throw the kick and bass slightly off-center and opposite of each other (maybe only 5% off center, one L and one R). This often won't make much difference, but sometimes it does give just a bit more definition by not throwing everything right down the center. Either way, it'll rarely hurt ;).

.
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WOW - that's a simple, but great idea. :o

I'll give that one a try from now on.
 
NL5 said:
I would never hard pan OH's myself, but that's a taste thing. It sounds unnatural to me.
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It depends on how you record your overheads. XY will sound different than spaced pair. Also, the distance between the drums and the overheads makes a difference here as well.
 
I use EZDrummer in a lot of my stuff, and also a bass guitar. I always pan the kick 5% left and the bass 5-10% right. It just seems to balance better to me. And I also never EQ the bass or kick. That could be because the kick & bass naturally don't fight for room, but I never see the need to EQ either of them. Maybe it's just me.

(After advice I've read on here by rayc, I have boosted the bass in the 3K range and it helped bring it up in the mix without trouble with other instruments).
 
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