Real or Imagined Panning

Hello everyone:
So, I have one short bossa nova guitar track recorded (there will be no vocals
or any other instruments).
I recorded it onto tracks 1 & 2 on my Tascam DP-03SD simultaneously. So tracks 1 & 2 are totally identical.
When I pan track 1 to 10 o'clock and track 2 to 2 o'clock, it actually seems more spacious
to my ears than when they are both left at 12 noon.
My question is: Is this some type of stereo-ish effect I am creating or is it just in my head?
Thanks!
 
If you can legitimately hear a wider stereo field, there is something different between the two tracks (other than volume). If there is nothing different between the two tracks, you're imagining it.
 
What microphones did you use and where do youi place them?

I expect you have recorded the guitar in stereo, andwhen you pan left and right,you recreate the stereo image.
 
Is this some type of stereo-ish effect I am creating or is it just in my head?
It's an interesting question, but I'm wondering if it matters ? I think sometimes, science isn't all. There may be things that technically "shouldn't" be happening, so we are reliably informed, yet, one's ears can still pick up. There are still mysteries !
 
It's an interesting question, but I'm wondering if it matters ? I think sometimes, science isn't all. There may be things that technically "shouldn't" be happening, so we are reliably informed, yet, one's ears can still pick up. There are still mysteries !
Yes. I think this may fall into the area of psychoacoustics.
 
It's an interesting question, but I'm wondering if it matters ? I think sometimes, science isn't all. There may be things that technically "shouldn't" be happening, so we are reliably informed, yet, one's ears can still pick up. There are still mysteries !
Thank you, grimtraveller. Yes, there are mysteries and what matters most is the sound! If it's good, go with it. Sorry just getting back, I was expecting my email to let me know someone responded.
 
Yes. I think this may fall into the area of psychoacoustics.
Ha! Yes, spantini! I think my ears definitely hear things sometimes that may or may not be imagined. Sorry just getting back, I was expecting my email to let me know someone responded but it never did.
 
If you can legitimately hear a wider stereo field, there is something different between the two tracks (other than volume). If there is nothing different between the two tracks, you're imagining it.
Thanks Boulder! The tracks are identical, so it is probably just lowering the volume, correct?, as I pan outwards? And yet I for some reason like the sound better with Track 1 panned to 10 o'clock, and the identical track 2 panned to 2 o'clock. Can't explain why. Maybe my pans are slightly off, so either right or left is slightly louder or something like that. *Sorry just getting back, I was expecting my email to let me know someone responded but it never did.
 
What microphones did you use and where do youi place them?

I expect you have recorded the guitar in stereo, andwhen you pan left and right,you recreate the stereo image.
Great question, gecko zzed, and that is what I probably should have done. I just used one Audio-Technica Condenser Mic aimed somewhat towards the 12th fret of the guitar. I wasn't shooting for stereo with the recording, but this caught my ear and wanted to explore and get some feedback. TY! *Sorry just getting back, I was expecting my email to let me know someone responded but it never did.
 
Keep them panned dead center and flip the phase on one, if you hear silence, you're imagining it.
Thank you for the suggestion JamEZmusic. It is a bit over my head. Do you know if the Tascam DP-03sd has a phase? I'll admit, I am not exactly sure what you mean... *Sorry just getting back, I was expecting my email to let me know someone responded but it never did.
 
No worries.
I don't know anything about Tascams, I was under the assumption you was working within a DAW and you had 2 identical guitar tracks.

My suggestion was just to confirm without a doubt that the 2 tracks are identical because if they are, if you was to flip the phase on one of the guitar tracks then you should get dead silence, and this would mean that hard panning those 2 tracks away from each other would not create a stereo image (because they are identical). If you do hear something then you are hearing the differences between the 2 guitar tracks meaning that if you pan them out then you would be correct in your judgement that you are hearing the guitars in stereo.

I'm sorry I can't help you with the Tascam stuff.

edit: Just to clarify, your guitar tracks must be panned to the same position (Just keep it center for the quick test), and they must be the same volume. How you flip the phase on 1 of the tracks is different from DAW to DAW. In my DAW I need to insert a specific plugin and hit the phase invert button.

I do this test quite often in pre-mixdown. Sometimes I get stereo tracks of say.... a kick drum. If I am unsure if there are stereo effects printed on the track and is intentional then I insert a phase plugin on the stereo track in dual mono, then flip either the left of the right (in mono) I am checking to make sure I hear silence, if I do then I can throw away either the left or the right track. I COULD! keep it but I am just a bit anal about that kind of thing. It bugs me out, and it just cuts down on the megabytes and CPU usage a bit

Oh also.... there is a possibility your 2 guitar tracks may be a few milliseconds out of time with each other, so it will sound really wide when you hard pan them, but will probably sound pretty poor when both panned back to center. Flipping the phase will confirm this aswel. If you hear silence, you're good to go, if you hear stuff going on, your guitar tracks are not identical, or they are out of time. (assuming they are the identical level and pan positioning)

Hope I didn't confuse you further
 
Last edited:
Hello everyone:
So, I have one short bossa nova guitar track recorded (there will be no vocals
or any other instruments).
I recorded it onto tracks 1 & 2 on my Tascam DP-03SD simultaneously. So tracks 1 & 2 are totally identical.
When I pan track 1 to 10 o'clock and track 2 to 2 o'clock, it actually seems more spacious
to my ears than when they are both left at 12 noon.
My question is: Is this some type of stereo-ish effect I am creating or is it just in my head?
It appears you've recorded the same track on both tracks.
 
No worries.
I don't know anything about Tascams, I was under the assumption you was working within a DAW and you had 2 identical guitar tracks.

My suggestion was just to confirm without a doubt that the 2 tracks are identical because if they are, if you was to flip the phase on one of the guitar tracks then you should get dead silence, and this would mean that hard panning those 2 tracks away from each other would not create a stereo image (because they are identical). If you do hear something then you are hearing the differences between the 2 guitar tracks meaning that if you pan them out then you would be correct in your judgement that you are hearing the guitars in stereo.

I'm sorry I can't help you with the Tascam stuff.

edit: Just to clarify, your guitar tracks must be panned to the same position (Just keep it center for the quick test), and they must be the same volume. How you flip the phase on 1 of the tracks is different from DAW to DAW. In my DAW I need to insert a specific plugin and hit the phase invert button.

I do this test quite often in pre-mixdown. Sometimes I get stereo tracks of say.... a kick drum. If I am unsure if there are stereo effects printed on the track and is intentional then I insert a phase plugin on the stereo track in dual mono, then flip either the left of the right (in mono) I am checking to make sure I hear silence, if I do then I can throw away either the left or the right track. I COULD! keep it but I am just a bit anal about that kind of thing. It bugs me out, and it just cuts down on the megabytes and CPU usage a bit

Oh also.... there is a possibility your 2 guitar tracks may be a few milliseconds out of time with each other, so it will sound really wide when you hard pan them, but will probably sound pretty poor when both panned back to center. Flipping the phase will confirm this aswel. If you hear silence, you're good to go, if you hear stuff going on, your guitar tracks are not identical, or they are out of time. (assuming they are the identical level and pan positioning)

Hope I didn't confuse you further
JamEZ, Well, you have done more mixing and mastering than I have I can tell. But thanks for the further explanation. Someday, if I am further along it may come in handy. But one thing you said made me think of something. I guess if you use two mics, one performance, but two tracks, the sound may hit the second mic slightly (like milliseconds) later than the other which may create a bit of a stereo sound too. .? Maybe a light flange, or phase, sound?
 
Hey guys,
Having one other issue. I played one bass note slightly late. As I use the track editing to cut a tiny portion of the ringing of the chord out (the chord is pushed and the bass note follows the chord on this harmony), the unit seems to remove part of the recording but it makes a BUMP sound.
Any way to eliminate that?
BTW, I have decided to pan 10 o'clock and 2 o'clock cause it sounds better to my ears (even if I'm only lowering the volume:) Thanks for the help!
 
Cut it out and crossfade back, or steal the bass note from another part of the song and carefully crossfade that in. I use logic and I can pencil draw it out in audio editor. There are plugins that can take pops and clicks out like Izotope de-click. But just do it manually if possible, senseless spending money, maybe you can get away with muting that little pop and the other tracks will disguise the edit?

Yeah that's it. when using 2 mics we try to get them in perfect time to each other the best we can, we want to avoid the mics being out of time because phase issues can arise and frequencies can get cancelled out or multiplied. Shifting the mics out of time is not a good idea, we will shift 2 identical tracks out of time with a duplicate copy inside the DAW because this is all we can do to create differences between the left and right, along with some other processing like pitch shifting to make them as different as we can without altering the sound too much so there is less of a mono issue, but this is always a last resort and far from ideal. When using 2 mics you're pointing the mics at different parts of the guitar even if they are 0ms out of time from each other (ideally) they will still sound different enough to get a nice stereo spread when you pan them apart.

I mic generally coincident pair (a wide stereo configuration is mostly innapropriate for my mixes), either X-Y with a matched pair or just straight on with an unmatched pair if I just want to record in the vanilla position (12th fret 4-10" away) without worrying about placing the second mic anywhere nice. The different frequency responses of the mics vary enough to get a nice stereo image. But single mic recordings played twice sound sooo much better. But it's more difficult to play, harder to mix and more time consuming.

Edit: oh yeah... "always" cross fade your edits to avoid any bumps/pops/clicks and check quickly in solo
 
Last edited:
When I pan track 1 to 10 o'clock and track 2 to 2 o'clock, it actually seems more spacious to my ears than when they are both left at 12 noon.
My question is: Is this some type of stereo-ish effect I am creating or is it just in my head?
I discovered a while ago that some of the rules don't seem to apply to my ears. For example, I've listened to people talk about wide panning double tracked guitars for a huge sound, but when I've tried that, it doesn't sound huge, just very wide and sometimes, unnaturally so.
What I do now is I just pan things in a way that "feels right" when I listen in headphones. A vocal doesn't always feel right dead centre. I rarely, if ever put the kick and snare dead centre, I want a little separation of the two so I pan one a few notches left and the other a few notches right. But when one listens, they both sound "in the middle." As ever, it depends on the song {and what is happening at specific points in the song} where things go. Observing the rules is generally a good starting point....until it isn't.
 
I discovered a while ago that some of the rules don't seem to apply to my ears. For example, I've listened to people talk about wide panning double tracked guitars for a huge sound, but when I've tried that, it doesn't sound huge, just very wide and sometimes, unnaturally so.
What I do now is I just pan things in a way that "feels right" when I listen in headphones. A vocal doesn't always feel right dead centre. I rarely, if ever put the kick and snare dead centre, I want a little separation of the two so I pan one a few notches left and the other a few notches right. But when one listens, they both sound "in the middle." As ever, it depends on the song {and what is happening at specific points in the song} where things go. Observing the rules is generally a good starting point....until it isn't.
Very well said, GrimT! The rules are good as grounding and consistent quality. But when you want something a little bit more, or a little bit different, it's good to experiment and try what works for what you are working on. I am more of a songwriter, teacher, music theorist, and I teach my students the rules (as things that will basically always sound at least good) but also teach them to reach outside of the boundaries and experiment. That way the person comes through eventually. And God only made one you! So no one else can be you. Thanks for your great replies on my post!
 
Back
Top