how far left or right?

[cjac9]

http://www.moultonlabs.com/more/princip ... _image/P0/

[sonicdeath]

First rule: You dont talk about fight club.


There are no rules to panning. And dont forget a mix is not just left and right.

I always start my mix the same way MONO at 0db. I normally place kick center, then pan my OH's until the kick is dead center in the OH's... I move on from here. I always take a mental picture of how a drum kit was set, and adjust according to drummers perspective, or audience perspective.

When I get to the point where i put on a pair of phones and I feel as if im playing the drums or in front of them... then im there.

From that point on I just visualize the rest and place to taste. There are always exceptions to all mixing.

Find your own style, and make every mix better than the last.

[dennisjames]

What I am criticising is the quality of attention which is brought to the listening experience when music becomes omnipresent. I'm speaking as someone who owned an iPod for several years, and for many months made daily use of it during my commute, until I realized I wasn't really listening at all, but merely trying to fill in an experiential gap, to keep my mind endlessly bombarded with sound, lest I be left, horror of horrors, alone with nothing but my own thoughts.

Barely a hundred years ago, music was a rare and precious experience, requiring the immediate presence of the artist, and (except among the most decadent aristocracy) commanding the full and undivided attention of everyone present (whether sitting in rapt silence or dancing and singing along).

What does it mean now that you can't walk into a shop or a restaurant or a hotel men's room without hearing music, loud enough to distract, but too quiet to demand a real audience? I'm not sure, but I feel it's something we ought to be thinking about when we're not thinking about what mic to put where.

I'm sorry for straying so far off topic, but these are thoughts I wanted to share with the board. If anyone wants to reply, perhaps we can create a new thread.

Galen

Amen.

I used to live next door to this couple in Seattle and one of them was from Australia. She told us her experience growing up was that - when music was on the stereo, music was what you were doing. So much so that when her father called long distance from Australia once and heard music in the background as she answered the phone, he replied "I'm sorry. I'll call you back later."

Further off the topic but I felt it merited comment.

As for the panning, I like what was said about the headphone listen. I found that I changed the width of my mixes based on referencing different environments. Check the car. Check the earbuds (if you must). Check the stereo, jambox, mono, whatever you can and let that guide the process too.

[Anthony Caruso]

I remember being in a bar a few years ago, and if I remember correctly, a Beatles song came on (don't remember which song, doesn't matter). What I do remember is that all I could hear were the drums and bass...the vocals and a lot of other stuff were coming out of the other speaker, way on the other side of the bar.

I don't think I'd ever give this scenario heavy consideration when make mix decisions, it was probably a "stereo as an afterthought" mix, but I did notice it, it happened.

I guess there are worse things to hear than Paul jamming out with Paul. Oh snap, the secret's out!!!

[JamesHE]

Yeah there are no hard and fast rules, to me that's the perfect reason to make your own rules!

I went LCR a few years back and I really like it. I track with it in mind, recording mostly with stereo setups, with sometimes intentionally "imperfect" stereo images, especially on acoustic instruments. Consciously making "panning" decisions during tracking can lead you to different ideas.

I break that rule a bit, but justify it within a LCR context. I'll pan close mic'd toms - but I'm bussing that to stereo - before it hits the drum buss - so it's still within the rule... lol

If I mic two different speakers in a guitar cabinet - maybe I go L, R with those signals - maybe I go L, C. Or take a stereo effects signal and mix the channels to be C, R instead of hard L, R.

It's really just a different way of achieving the same thing as panning, but you think about the sources in a different way.

Yeah, sometimes I do end up panning something and it's amazing what it does for that one signal when everything else isn't panned all around the stereo spread. (like those tom hits not really being in the same space as anything else!)

(really overthinking this here)
I can break down stereo sources (or dual mono, like double tracked guitars and vocals) ) into 3 zones, L-R, L-C, and C-R. And mono sources into 3 zones L, C, R*. And you can create front to back in each of these zones. that's a lot of space!




* I have to admit that I really never pan anything mono hard L or R, boring I know... maybe one of these days...

L____________________C_____________________R

[Snarl 12/8]

I've been getting really into panning hard l-r (sometimes not hard panned, but usually) when I have two different mics on the same source.

Like with my kick, I'll pan the D112 to one side and the Subkick on the other, then I'll put the Bass DI on the same side as the D112 and the Bass mic on the same side as the subkick. I feel like that balances out the treble and the thump on both sides since the BassMic and D112 are both clickier than their counterparts. You get this feeling, with the kick at least, the the sound is moving across the soundstage from D112 side toward the Subkick side. Somehow the Subkick registers with the ears later even though I try to align the diaframs, with the D112 slightly outside the kick head hole.

I'll also hard pan the top and bottom snare mics. That's more subtle, but on some hits it kinda sounds like you're inside the snare, which is a good thing, right? I used to love panning both kick mics when I had an intact resonant head and no muffling inside. The D112 would be on the beater side, right next to the beater and I'd usually have a tapeop omni or something on the other side. Freakin' huge.

Then hard pan two guitar takes and the xy drum overheads and you're starting to get a very wide and interesting (to me) stereo image. I like to put a tamborine (lately) or a fuzzed out guitar part on one side or the other to add a little more interest.

Put the focal point of the song right up the middle.

[Theo_Karon]

One cautionary note, since nobody's mentioned this yet. This will only matter if you're going to vinyl. Bass heavy instruments, like bass, kick and snare (depending on the kind of snare, how it's tuned, and how you record and process it) take up a lot of physical space on the groove, and if panned far left or right will make a really hot cut impossible, and can cause mistracks on playback. Other than that... happy panning.

[A.David.MacKinnon]

The greatest thing you can do do to improve your mixing chops is to try working in mono. Mono doesn't allow you the luxury of hard panning sounds that would otherwise mask or muddy each other (ie: 2 tracks of guitars that sound too much like each other). All you've got to work with is front to back and EQ.
One of the first things you'll learn is that a really good arrangement makes a really good mix. The two things are 100% related. If you can't get an element to fit well into a mono mix it is usually because it's the wrong part or the wrong sound.

[A.David.MacKinnon]

The greatest thing you can do do to improve your mixing chops is to try working in mono. Mono doesn't allow you the luxury of hard panning sounds that would otherwise mask or muddy each other (ie: 2 tracks of guitars that sound too much like each other). All you've got to work with is front to back and EQ.
One of the first things you'll learn is that a really good arrangement makes a really good mix. The two things are 100% related. If you can't get an element to fit well into a mono mix it is usually because it's the wrong part or the wrong sound.

[vvv]

Awesome, dual-mono posts there, junkshop !

[A.David.MacKinnon]

I must have really meant it.

[vvv]

You can say that, ...


... eh, ...


... again.

[grockvt]

do LCR mixes lose front to back depth?

a good engineer friend seemed to think so...

how do you get depth in LCR mixes?

how do you pan a leslie that was recorded in stereo if you want to "place" it non-center?

[Nick Sevilla]

no, not a political discussion, ha ha.

i am just curious as to when and where and how far apart you pan stereo tracks when mixing? are there different sounds and feelings brought about with more space between the L and R?

i have my drums and vocals in the middle, no bass added yet, and our GUITARS on the left and right tracks. i began with them barely shifted L and R and am now playing with them at different degrees of panning L / R.

my questions are:

where do you usually default position your L / R to?

any pros / cons about panning entirely to the L and R extreme ends?

and why?

thanks!!

Here's one for ya :

Mix one of your songs.

Then have a three year old come in an fuck with the mixing desk for a few minutes, while playing back the song.

Rule #1 : do NOT tell them what ANY knob or button does.

Rule #2 : ENCOURAGE THEM to press / touch something. They love encouragement.

Rule #3 : You cannot tell them what to press / touch. They get FREE REIGN.

Rule #4 : You CANNOT say the word NO during the entire time they are working.

Record the entire mix the whole time they are mucking about.

You will get interesting results. Maybe no Grammy, but very cool ideas you would never in a million years think of doing to your music.

Cheers