proper amount to each track

[PoorBoyRecordings]

HI guys, back with another question. I haven't time to do any recording for the last several months, and b4 that not a lot of recording. Don't know how to ask, but will try my best to be understandable. I am using my ol' Teac A-3340S and record only 4 instruments ( would do more but 4 is all I know how to play ). I play drums, bass, limited lead, and rythm and was wondering how much of each should be panned down to stereo. You know, like 80% lead to left and the other 20% right channels. And the same with the other instruments. I have played around some but just cant seem to get a good mix. Thx.

 

[lo.fi.love]

This is more a matter of taste than anything else.

Ideally, I think, to get a good mix, the instruments should be separated in the mix by timbre. If you have two or more 'voices'/instruments competing for the same section of the frequency spectrum then you're going to get a very dull, unintelligible, inarticulate sound. Say for example, you have a cello and a guitar panned close to each other in the stereo field: you might want to cut some of the low mids out of the guitar and trim some of the upper mids from the cello. That way each voice will be more distinguishable and the recording will sound a lot cleaner / more precise.

There's no standard way to mix, it's really about the effect you want to achieve and whatever personal statement you'd like to make.

 

[briank]

HI guys, back with another question. I haven't time to do any recording for the last several months, and b4 that not a lot of recording. Don't know how to ask, but will try my best to be understandable. I am using my ol' Teac A-3340S and record only 4 instruments ( would do more but 4 is all I know how to play ). I play drums, bass, limited lead, and rythm and was wondering how much of each should be panned down to stereo. You know, like 80% lead to left and the other 20% right channels. And the same with the other instruments. I have played around some but just cant seem to get a good mix. Thx.

I think you're asking where to pan your tracks during mixing, is that right?

The thing is...none of us can tell you where to pan. There aren't really any rules to panning. You play around with it until things are seated where they sound good. Also there is considerably more to getting a good mix than simply setting your pan pots (gain staging, equalization, signal processing are all critical elements) so you're really asking a loaded question. The idea is to use these techniques to get your instruments "separated" from one another while occupying the same soundfield--at the very least, you use pan to position in the stereo field, and EQ to "carve out" space for each in the frequency spectrum if necessary.

Take a listen to a handful of different recordings and you'll probably notice that the positioning of various instruments in the soundstage varies wildly. You'll also notice some continuity in panning schemes--for example, it's pretty common to have things like lead vocals, bass and kick drums panned center, but even then, there's certainly no rule saying you have to do it that way.

I suggest you read a couple books on the subject or recording and mixing. I can recommend Bobby Owsinski's books The Recording Engineer's Handbook and The Mixing Engineer's Handbook as these will give you a comprehensive look at the complex and creative world of recording and mixing multi-track projects that are understandable to the novice but still useful for the experienced engineer.

 

[jpmorris]

Traditionally, very bass heavy instruments are panned centre to prevent it throwing the cutting lathe (and people's turntables) out of whack when the vinyl is cut. Or so I've heard, anyway.

 

[PoorBoyRecordings]

Traditionally, very bass heavy instruments are panned centre to prevent it throwing the cutting lathe (and people's turntables) out of whack when the vinyl is cut. Or so I've heard, anyway.

LOL. I'll have to remember that.

 

[grimtraveller]

I have played around some but just cant seem to get a good mix.

This is almost standard for me. But perseverence is the key. I keep playing around and eventually, I get to where I want. None of my songs seem to have identical instrumental elements so it's a mission. I do tend to put the bass in the centre, mainly because when I listen to music on headphones, panned bass feels really weird. But everything else goes wherever it will go !

 

[lonewhitefly]

you could also try mixing in mono while you are learning. this makes mixing a bit harder but you can put each element in focus with frequency and volume instead of stereo spread.

 

[PoorBoyRecordings]

thx guys

Thanks guys. As always a big help to me

 

[briank]

you could also try mixing in mono while you are learning. this makes mixing a bit harder but you can put each element in focus with frequency and volume instead of stereo spread.

That's a good method. Personally I raech for the mono switch periodically when mixing. Panning around in mono, you'll often find a "sweet spot" where the source becomes a little more present--that's a spot where it'll seat in with fewer phasing issues due to frequency overlap. Just remember as you move and tweak other tracks, those relationships (and sweet spots) change so you'll want to go back and check. Personally I like to get things ballparked in stereo before going mono. The other nice thing about doing this is you'll keep your mixes mono-compatible in case they wind up being played on mono sources like cheap TVs or clock radios.

And yeah, I also understand that putting bass instruments in the center was to benefit the cutting, must have taken some time for them to figure that one out...listen to early stereo mixes and you'll hear some pretty wacky panning schemes...vocals hard right, rest of the band hard left anyone?