To pan or not to pan

[recordist87]

there are no rules...

 

[RAMI]

there are no rules...

You need to stop posting, shitball.

 

[Waltz Mastering]

there are no rules...

Maybe not ...but there are laws:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_law

 

[studioplayer]

You need to stop posting, shitball.

LMAO at Rami !!

 

[chewbacaface]

By not following any specific recipes. Producing music should be a creative art, not an assembly-line fabrication. Imagine the song in your head, listening particularly to the arrangement and whatever the main elements and hooks are. Start imagining how panning will make it sound the most interesting or will provide the panning "picture" you are forming in your head.

G.

I really want to hear some of your mixes because I love the idea of just panning and placing things in certain spots for the sake of being interesting. I have tried this and I always fail, but I'd like to get better at it because I think it adds another texture to the music, like the, (dare I say it?), Beatles albums. I love the way some of those are mixed. I am not a huge Beatles fan but when I really started getting into recording I started to notice how amazing some of their records are from a mixing standpoint. I have been listening to them a lot more with a careful ear. It is a major element of their music.

 

[Waltz Mastering]

I love the idea of just panning and placing things in certain spots for the sake of being interesting. I have tried this and I always fail, but I'd like to get better at it because I think it adds another texture to the music, like the, (dare I say it?), Beatles albums. I love the way some of those are mixed. I am not a huge Beatles fan but when I really started getting into recording I started to notice how amazing some of their records are from a mixing standpoint. I have been listening to them a lot more with a careful ear. It is a major element of their music.

For any album that wasn't mono, The primary panning for the Beatles was LRC.

Three places (hard left , center, hard right). Many mixers swear by that technique..some don't.

 

[noisewreck]

Oh boy... not another panning thread! Although, in all fairness the OP was several months ago. Who resurrected it anyway?

 

[witzendoz]

Oh boy... not another panning thread! Although, in all fairness the OP was several months ago. Who resurrected it anyway?

Our old pain in the backside recordist87 who else?

 

[chewbacaface]

For any album that wasn't mono, The primary panning for the Beatles was LRC.

Three places (hard left , center, hard right). Many mixers swear by that technique..some don't.

Even with just the three areas though, they made some odd choices on where to pan things. Some of them are not where you would expect the instrument to come from and it may happen for the entire song or for just a single part... at any rate, it adds a lot in my opinion.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Even with just the three areas though, they made some odd choices on where to pan things. Some of them are not where you would expect the instrument to come from and it may happen for the entire song or for just a single part... at any rate, it adds a lot in my opinion.

A lot of all that ha fairly mundane explanations.

First a lot of the early LRC mixing (and not just for the Mopheads) was not so much choice as it was technical limitation; some of the old mix consoles did not have pan potentiometers, they only had three-position pan switches.

Second, much of what we now think of as "weird" panning choices were made back then to accentuate the newfangled binaural experience. "Stereophonic" records (though technically, LRC is not really creating a stereophonic image) were rather a novelty for much of the public back then, and exaggerated use of the technology to show it off was in vogue for many.

G.