Real or Imagined Panning

[Brent Larimore]

So next step: thanks for all the replies! This was a very helpful discussion, and I got my pan worked out.
This little bit is to use at the end of a video to be posted on YouTube. So any thoughts will be much appreciated.
How does one make their music sound good on YouTube (and other digital platforms)? Is there a secret? Is it totally
necessary for example to use some audio compression? Any thoughts on this would be much appreciated!

 

[grimtraveller]

I teach my students the rules (as things that will basically always sound at least good)

I'm not one that believes in teaching the rules so that they can be broken, which some people say and it makes a good soundbite. Like you, I think the reason 'rules' {perhaps I should have used the word 'principals' or 'rudiments'} have developed, at least in musical arrangement and recording and mixing, is that by following them, things will sound at least good. Or to put it another way, the overwhelming majority of things will not sound bad if the rules are followed.
But the rules can be broken or expanded or ignored sometimes. For example, it's funny to me now, that there was a time when the idea of close miking a bass drum was against the rules and regarded by EMI as "abuse of equipment." Engineers could get sacked for putting the bass drum mic too close !

 

[Brent Larimore]

Did not know about that at EMI! But not super surprised. Did it have any effect on the longevity of mic life? Are mics
now more durable in general and able to take more direct attack?
Don't know the answers, but I agree, sometimes it's good to pretend you know nothing and dive into something!

 

[Pinky]

So next step: thanks for all the replies! This was a very helpful discussion, and I got my pan worked out.
This little bit is to use at the end of a video to be posted on YouTube. So any thoughts will be much appreciated.
How does one make their music sound good on YouTube (and other digital platforms)? Is there a secret? Is it totally
necessary for example to use some audio compression? Any thoughts on this would be much appreciated!

Like with everything else, the louder it is the less likely it's going to stick out or sound 'thin' to the average passerby. The loudness wars are still in full effect, just now the tools for making things loud are better than they were in the late 1990s when it started so mixes can sound okay (note: not great) despite being pushed.

I would at least do some mild compression as a final mastering step before publishing.

 

[Brent Larimore]

Like with everything else, the louder it is the less likely it's going to stick out or sound 'thin' to the average passerby. The loudness wars are still in full effect, just now the tools for making things loud are better than they were in the late 1990s when it started so mixes can sound okay (note: not great) despite being pushed.

I would at least do some mild compression as a final mastering step before publishing.

Thanks, Pinky! I know it's been a while since I've checked in; life has been insane lately. I will put a little compression on it, ty. Does that do something more to a recording than just eliminating some annoying peaks?

 

[Pinky]

Thanks, Pinky! I know it's been a while since I've checked in; life has been insane lately. I will put a little compression on it, ty. Does that do something more to a recording than just eliminating some annoying peaks?

From the listener's standpoint it makes the audio "louder" by leveling the average sound being output so everything is clearly heard versus some items being more easily heard than others. Sometimes (and often in music) dynamics are welcome and desired, but for spoken word/dialog it's important that it's all heard and at a consistent output level. For videos with music on streaming platforms, it just can't be significantly lower compared to the other audio/music available.

 

[rayc]

Use a pair of mics and you get stereo...no matter how slight there'll be a difference.
Panned hard you'll get the closest to what you captured. Panned & any other way is you deciding what sounds best to you...all win.

 

[rob aylestone]

In audio production, for as long as I’ve been doing it people have searched in vain for rules but what we have are just sensible suggestions for things that might work, depending on the song. If you wrote two songs that used identical sound sources, recorded in the same room, your mic placement, mix, effects, balance and blend would be different. The magic compressor setting cannot just be slapped onto a different song. As you record more and more, you sort of get a feel for what will work and what wont. Any attempt to break it down into rules fails every time. Think about the EMI history. They had rules, and engineers broke them because they realised the rules were restrictive and stagnating the evolution of music in different genres. In the 70s we had magazines with circuits for building things. I remember fuzz boxes being really popular things to build. Loads of people were amazed musicians wanted to distort audio, because the rules had always been about purity. Distortion was bad. Big time bad. Gradually it changed.

 

[spantini]

In audio production, for as long as I’ve been doing it people have searched in vain for rules but what we have are just sensible suggestions for things that might work, depending on the song. If you wrote two songs that used identical sound sources, recorded in the same room, your mic placement, mix, effects, balance and blend would be different. The magic compressor setting cannot just be slapped onto a different song. As you record more and more, you sort of get a feel for what will work and what wont. Any attempt to break it down into rules fails every time. Think about the EMI history. They had rules, and engineers broke them because they realised the rules were restrictive and stagnating the evolution of music in different genres. In the 70s we had magazines with circuits for building things. I remember fuzz boxes being really popular things to build. Loads of people were amazed musicians wanted to distort audio, because the rules had always been about purity. Distortion was bad. Big time bad. Gradually it changed.

I agree, and I would add that the same recording will be perceived differently at different times of the day. This might just be me, but I would venture a guess this probably applies to most people. I've spent whole days listening to one particular mix with no changes - just replaying the same mix with no changes in settings. I wasn't listening continuously back-to-back, I would listen once then walk away, come back an hour later for another listen.. repeating this throughout an 18 hour period.

I find that I hear different things with each pass. Sometimes I can hear the panning clearly, even when less than 25%. Other times, I find it difficult to hear the panning or it appears to be closer to center than previous listens. Other times, I hear one instrument louder or softer than before. Even something as slight as my posture or just the way I hold my head changes my perception. Maybe that last bit has more to do with physiology than actual mental perception, but it's still different.

 

[Brent Larimore]

From the listener's standpoint it makes the audio "louder" by leveling the average sound being output so everything is clearly heard versus some items being more easily heard than others. Sometimes (and often in music) dynamics are welcome and desired, but for spoken word/dialog it's important that it's all heard and at a consistent output level. For videos with music on streaming platforms, it just can't be significantly lower compared to the other audio/music available.

Thanks, Pinky. I wish a lot of the shows would keep that dialogue hearable lol Seems like there's always a critical line that is basically inaudible.

 

[Brent Larimore]

Use a pair of mics and you get stereo...no matter how slight there'll be a difference.
Panned hard you'll get the closest to what you captured. Panned & any other way is you deciding what sounds best to you...all win.

Thanks, rayc. Is the difference in the timing? One mic picks it a up a millisecond later than the other?

 

[Brent Larimore]

In audio production, for as long as I’ve been doing it people have searched in vain for rules but what we have are just sensible suggestions for things that might work, depending on the song. If you wrote two songs that used identical sound sources, recorded in the same room, your mic placement, mix, effects, balance and blend would be different. The magic compressor setting cannot just be slapped onto a different song. As you record more and more, you sort of get a feel for what will work and what wont. Any attempt to break it down into rules fails every time. Think about the EMI history. They had rules, and engineers broke them because they realised the rules were restrictive and stagnating the evolution of music in different genres. In the 70s we had magazines with circuits for building things. I remember fuzz boxes being really popular things to build. Loads of people were amazed musicians wanted to distort audio, because the rules had always been about purity. Distortion was bad. Big time bad. Gradually it changed.

Thanks, rob, I should build a fuzz box someday. I think the same is true of so many things in different areas of culture and the arts is an area it is easy to spot, at least after changes have happened in styles and so forth. Knowing how to use limitation can be very helpful (example, the motive for Beethoven's 5th), but also realizing there is a freedom of creativity that can open up doors not yet opened.

 

[Brent Larimore]

I agree, and I would add that the same recording will be perceived differently at different times of the day. This might just be me, but I would venture a guess this probably applies to most people. I've spent whole days listening to one particular mix with no changes - just replaying the same mix with no changes in settings. I wasn't listening continuously back-to-back, I would listen once then walk away, come back an hour later for another listen.. repeating this throughout an 18 hour period.

I find that I hear different things with each pass. Sometimes I can hear the panning clearly, even when less than 25%. Other times, I find it difficult to hear the panning or it appears to be closer to center than previous listens. Other times, I hear one instrument louder or softer than before. Even something as slight as my posture or just the way I hold my head changes my perception. Maybe that last bit has more to do with physiology than actual mental perception, but it's still different.

Very good point, spantini. At some point we have trust we have an acceptable recording and let it ride. Very hard to do being the writer when you were hearing it a certain way in your head but just can't quite get it there.

 

[rob aylestone]

For a very long time I never used compression, because I didn’t own any. Then I bought one and had real trouble making it fit in, and now I admit to using one almost automatically for certain things.

 

[JamEZmusic]

Thanks, rayc. Is the difference in the timing? One mic picks it a up a millisecond later than the other?

It's any differences in the mics, it could be timing, it could be what frequencies the mics pick up.

You're aiming for a 0ms difference in timing ideally to keep the mics in phase. The mics have to be quite far apart for there to be a 1ms timing difference seeing as sound travels 34cm per 1millisecond. Your phase would probably be miles out if you had over 1ft distance between the mics.

It's practically impossible to record 2 mics hard panned that is not stereo, the mics are going to pick up differences, for a start you're placing the mics in 2 different spots no matter how close you get the mics to each other, sound bounces around the walls and back into the mics at different rates, and mics capture sound differently, even if you are using a matched pair.

 

[rob aylestone]

Do you have a stereoscope type plugin that shows you stereo width? If you use one of these you immediately see if there is any width or not. A straight line indicates mono - but I'd bet that you will see some divergence from mono. Not much, but not mono.