Suggestions for panning stereo tracks

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jdk90042
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Suggestions for panning stereo tracks

Post by jdk90042 » Thu Aug 27, 2015 3:18 pm

Especially virtual instruments. Would love to be an all live tracking purist but schedule often doesn't permit. Most VIs are stereo, and panning them doesn't really work as pan (at least in Pro Tools, where stereo tracks don't pan, they just have volume for each channel, which is not the same). There's either stereo processing on the instrument or it is arranged in stereo field - say, low to high piano keys, or a 20-violin section spread out so if you pull down the right volume you lose half the section...

Anybody have good ideas about how to pan these kinds of things so they'll sit in mixes better?

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A.David.MacKinnon
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Post by A.David.MacKinnon » Thu Aug 27, 2015 5:21 pm

Depending what they are I'd say make them mono and then pan them where you please. In a real instrument session there are very few sources that I want to hear as stereo - drums (sometimes), occasionally piano (but not that often) and occasionally acoustic guitar if its the main instrument.
You'll get a much more realistic mix if you make the VIs mono and then send them all to a stereo reverb or room simulator. Pan the reverb sends to help create a realistic space.

Injured Ear
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Post by Injured Ear » Sat Aug 29, 2015 6:19 am

Somewhat related? Maybe this has something to do with your issue?
I have had plenty of tracks given to me to mix where there was a stereo recording of a mono sound. Folks were assuming that because their synth has 2 outputs that all the sounds coming out were in stereo. I'd get 20 stereo tracks of mono sources, which takes up plenty of DSP and playback bandwidth on my Pro-tools. I would throw a phasescope across my master and listen to each set of tracks to see if they were true stereo (or just invert the polarity of one side and sum to mono and see if there was anything that didn't cancel out) and pretty soon it was 18 mono tracks and 2 stereo tracks left over.

Also, on Pro-tools you can pull the stereo width in and pan that around a bit. Check this tutorial.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCLFfvoTYOM

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farview
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Post by farview » Sat Aug 29, 2015 3:52 pm

In Nuendo/cubase, there is a a panner mode that gives you a separate panner for the left and right sides of the stereo file. This lets you do anything you want with either side of the stereo image.

I can't imagine there isn't something in protools that accomplishes the same thing. It might be a panning plugin, or just some hidden panning mode.

Injured Ear
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Post by Injured Ear » Sat Aug 29, 2015 8:40 pm

farview wrote:In Nuendo/cubase, there is a a panner mode that gives you a separate panner for the left and right sides of the stereo file. This lets you do anything you want with either side of the stereo image.

I can't imagine there isn't something in protools that accomplishes the same thing. It might be a panning plugin, or just some hidden panning mode.
It totally does the same thing in Protools. The link I posted before explains it all.

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tjcasey1
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Post by tjcasey1 » Fri Oct 16, 2015 7:13 am

In Digital Performer, it's a plug-in called "Trim", which is nothing more than level and balance (if it's a stereo track). When I started using DP, I thought "What a stupid plug-in! I want reverbs! Delays! Flangers!". But wow, does that plug-in come in handy, especially when mono-ing a stereo track.

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Nick Sevilla
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Re: Suggestions for panning stereo tracks

Post by Nick Sevilla » Tue Oct 27, 2015 1:02 pm

jdk90042 wrote:Especially virtual instruments. Would love to be an all live tracking purist but schedule often doesn't permit. Most VIs are stereo, and panning them doesn't really work as pan (at least in Pro Tools, where stereo tracks don't pan, they just have volume for each channel, which is not the same). There's either stereo processing on the instrument or it is arranged in stereo field - say, low to high piano keys, or a 20-violin section spread out so if you pull down the right volume you lose half the section...

Anybody have good ideas about how to pan these kinds of things so they'll sit in mixes better?
If you are trying to mix a 20 instrument orchestra, then you'll want to bounce out every single instrument onto it's own track, in order to pan each one individually.

If you are trying to pan a piano, well, that is different. try using the panning by reducing the amount of each channel as well as it's pan position, in Pro Tools you do this by splitting a Stereo track into mono. for this to be done to a VI instrument, you first have to bounce it down into a new Stereo audio track, then split than into dual mono, and un-group them.

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