Recording vocals in stereo?

[JamEZmusic]

As long as you have a strong center then you're good to go. Stereo FX can add interest in the L/R but that strong center is very important.

Dual miking/double taking a vocal and panning hard L and R seems like a terrible idea to me. You got any references of any good sounding songs which do this?

 

[LazerBeakShiek]

taking a vocal and panning hard L and R seems like a terrible idea to me. You got any references of any good sounding songs which do this?

Panning hard is fine for delays. It can eliminate the need for a 'room'.

 

[rob aylestone]

Getting a singer close to a pair of mics in a conventional stereo array is plain silly. They move their head and the image shoots from centre to the side then back. Make you feel ill on headphones. Back in the 70s we did two mics taped together for live PA and recording - and sometimes the singers got them mixed up, suddenly singing into the other one on their lips and the quality was constantly changing from proximity enhanced bass to thinner. Thank god we discovered splits.

 

[JamEZmusic]

Panning hard is fine for delays. It can eliminate the need for a 'room'.

Not for a vocal! You don't want that hole in the middle, center image, intimacy, power, up front comes down the center. Pan hard for backings or rhythms.... why? So your vocal has more room in the center. Careful stereo widening/panning/washing out backing instruments with fx brings more attention to the center panned vocal, it can make it feel in your face while being down very low in the mix.

If you want room, keep the vocal down the middle and add a stereo room. Hard panning a vocal and delaying to the right is going to sound awful in a typical mix, you would lose all control. I would just end up panning closer and closer to the middle and end up mono anyway as I would inevitibly struggle to get it to sound right. The mix is generally built around the vocal, if it is in stereo what exactly are we building around?

 

[LazerBeakShiek]

Not for a vocal! You don't want that hole in the middle, center image, intimacy

There is no hole in the middle?

The original stereo tracks are mono panned 100% left and right. The effects would be panned 100% left and 100% right at like 10-15% mix. The original tracks spread would be retained.

 

[gecko zzed]

Agree with LBS above. There is no hole in the middle. If you record a vocal centred witin, say, an XY configuration, the vocal will remain in the centre no matter how narrow or how wide you pan the left and right channels. What will change is the sense of space on which the voice is recorded.

 

[rob aylestone]

I read JamEZ's post a bit differently - I thought he was talking about putting an X/Y in really close, so the singer is singing into the null of both mics - this kind of 'hole in the middle'.

 

[LazerBeakShiek]

- I thought he was talking about

Hmmm.

keep the vocal down the middle and add a stereo room

Ok. Sounds good.

Hard panning a vocal and delaying to the right is going to sound awful in a typical mix, you would lose all control.

Not at all. You can use delay to make your own room. You have total control. It is stereo. The tracks are panned to make the field. There is sound in the center.

I would just end up panning closer and closer to the middle

Huh?

and end up mono anyway

Umm

if it is in stereo what exactly are we building around?

hahah, I dunno at this point, you tell me.

 

[grimtraveller]

Everything works at some point, depending on the song and how you, the mixer, decide to creatively use it.
OK lads, now that we've got that sorted, let's all go home and drink sherry !

 

[JamEZmusic]

I was talking about if you have a vocal panned left and you delayed it to the right to create that room that was mentioned above, this is a stupid choice to make for a vocal when you have so many other options, you create space in the middle, this is specifically the reason why it's done, but definitely not for a vocal.

Yes, delays can be used for a fake room, but not by panning a vocal left and a delay right. You'd keep vocal center, and use a slap stereo delay. Very common

Panning an XY hard left and right leaves little to no hole in the middle no, but you lose the center channel, ie: in mono your vocal would drop considerably in volume which is a problem in and of itself when trying to strike that balance of a vocal to sit correctly on all listening devices. a spaced pair will be wider and leaves more space in the middle but still a terrible choice, there is that volume drop in mono, the problem with the singer moving, potential phase problems, loss of center focus which is important to create contrast, nothing to gain, everything to lose.

that center vocal track is my anchor point to which every other mixing decision comes. You don't want to be losing that. If you think you are going to break new bounds by panning a vocal off to the side and creating a fake room with a delay then you are sorely mistaken, I assure you.

Double tracking and hard panning leaves more space in the middle, double tracking with a different part in a different register with a different instrument leaves most. But I'm not concerned with any hole in the middle. I am concerned about losing power, intimacy, punch, in your face, dry sound that really needs to be placed down the center especially for a vocal. I am not trying to convince you LBS. struggle on.

 

[LazerBeakShiek]

not trying to convince you LBS. struggle on.

No, Im leaving my stereo tracks done 100% left and 100% right. I don't screw around with 80% and 80% or some ratio. If you do not stay 100% right and left you are summing the tracks.

 

[JamEZmusic]

No, Im leaving my stereo tracks done 100% left and 100% right. I don't screw around with 80% and 80% or some ratio. If you do not stay 100% right and left you are summing the tracks.

eh?

I don't care how much you pan, couldn't care less.

I'm out of here, I think you need to just carry on doing things your way and learn the hard way.

 

[LazerBeakShiek]

doing things your way and learn the hard way.

Feeling's mutual. Just don't matter.

 

[rob aylestone]

Recording is one of those things that needs rules and the courage to break them. Sometimes personal weirdness works brilliantly, other times we take the risk and it fails miserably. We have conventions to follow or disregard. If it doesn't work, your technique gets slammed as flawed. If it works you invented an exception. We have so many exceptions. We even use terms in bizarre ways.

I hate the word stereo. Well, hate it when used poorly or inappropriately. If we have a stereo recording - it normally has some link to live performance. You close your eyes and when you press play, you can point to where people or sound sources are. We get a clue as to who is closest, and who is furthest away. That (in my book) is stereo. If you stand in a pub and there is a guy playing the guitar, what you hear is the guitar at some position - usually dead centre - and you hear the pub. The slot machine to the right, the opening and closing of the door to the toilets to the left and the general hubbub of lots of people dotted around. The guitar is NOT stereo, it's placed where a real guitar would be - probably equal in both speakers or headphones. Unless you are very close in, you hear one thing, a guitar. Go further in and your left ear and right ear hear different things. Step back and they merge.

My view is that we should follow this when we create perspective. Close miked guitar with one mic, and a stereo 'pub noise track' would be damn hard to tell from a real pub recording, wouldn't it? Does it matter? I don't think so. A voice is a point source - far more than a guitar - one mouth, a very small point source. There is no point using two mics unless they are distant and you want them to capture the room and the singer in the right proportion.

All this stuff about panning - we lost the point. Let's not think about studio monitors or home hifi - let's think about a live event where the speaker stacks are 15m apart (45ft for the non-metric) If you mic up a bigger instrument on stage - let's use a grand piano, the last thing you want is bass left and table right - the hard panned L/R example. Somebody playing double handed strident boogie or rock and roll piano would have the people to the right totally unable to hear the bass, and the people on the left would never hear the tune. So live sound mixers run near mono, unless there is a reason to widen it - maybe for effect. Worse is Hammond organs and Leslie cabinets. two hard panned mics on a Leslie make the audience feel really uncomfortable with a 45ft Leslie cabinet!

That grand piano and Leslie might be panned 11 o'clock and 1 o'clock, but no more. In my recordings - most of the synth pad sounds are indeed 'stereo' but the reality is they are just not mono - there's no realism intended, just effect.

My rule (for me - not necessarily others) is that voices, guitars and small instruments are single channel, or two channel panned very close - maybe just capturing different elements off the sound? The bass warm sound hole and the zippy string noises from the fingers. I personally hate string noise, so I rarely mic up fingerboards. We follow convention unless we know better and deliberately do it differently.