'retro'/hard panning key elements in contemporary records?

[Dr Rubberfunk]

Hi all..

I'm doing a bit of a study at the moment in the use of what some may perceive as 'retro' panning techniques. By that i mean things like drums or bass or vocals being panned hard left or right at mix time.

I'm actually looking for some contemporary (last 10-15 years?) examples. Steve Earle does lots of this, and Buddy Miller a little too. Does anyone else know of others i can investigate? I've done it a lot, and love hearing it.

The crux of my argument is working out whether it's actually creatively a valid contemporary choice, or whether it is JUST a retro choice. I want it to be the former, but am concerned that my study is proving it to be the latter!

Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance..

HH

I'm probably not the best person to help your studies, if I'm not listening to old music, I'm listening to new music that sounds like old music

First couple of Lenny Kravitz albums (and the one he produced for Vanessa Paradis - check her on the boom bap!) all have plenty of hard panning. One track (I forget which) has vocals on one side and all the music on the other.
I suspect though that these fall into your retro choice category, but I suppose there is an argument that using previously used (retro) techniques is a valid contemporary choice - in the same way that having a band line up of bass, drums and 2 guitars in 2008 isn't automatically dismissed as retro or novelty. Neither is releasing 4 to the floor dance music, when house / techno is well over 20 years old...

The retro / contemporary delineation is a tricky one too - to one 16 year old, the late 90's are 'old school', another might consider 'new music' as anything they haven't heard before (as I continue to do as an ageing 30 something )

[jakeao]

I hard pan the shit out of damn near everything on the stuff I do. I think panning is a great "effect" that doesn't get used enough. I like to take stuff and pan it all over the place, then bury it in the mix so you don't even really hear it until you put on headphones. It's like this whole other experience that way

[Wilkesin]

Lots of spoon recording have hard panned gtrs, drums and vox. Especially the early stuff.

[joninc]

lanois does some pretty extreme panning on his solo album SHINE. kits way off to one side. i love that stuff.

sometimes (a lot of the time) you have to make some space in the center - how is that only a retro method?

[Brett Siler]

I would say most modern metal albums have very hard panning on guitars and drum overheads.

[joninc]

i think maybe he's referring to certain instruments being hardpanned - like the entire drumkit or lead vocal - as opposed to a stereo track (overheads - acoustic - piano etc...) that might be 2 tracks hard panned.

[Babaluma]

stereolab's "margarine eclipse" is all L-C-R, whole album, it's great!

[Harmony Head]

This is all fantastic stuff guys. Keep them coming.. lots to go and find and listen to.

I'm certainly talking about things like hard panning the drums as one instrument. I'm certainly talking about ONLY panning to LCR also.

I've now made 3 records for different artists where they have embraced the panning. (One is a band i'm in, which you can check out here ) The first time i panned the drums hard one way was pretty scary, but the more i did it the more 'right' (as in correct) it sounded. On my most recent stuff (not released yet.. though you can see the vid of one tune here ) has lots of hard panning. It feels like the most natural thing in the world to me now.

My attitude towards it is that the panning of contemporary music has (generally) become so standardized now that taking this production asthetic is almost a huge point of difference. It's starting to become a little 'signature' of some of the work i do, and i really like it a lot. It feels really natural, and i love balancing elements against each other, so the drums on the left are only as loud as the rhythm guitar and tambourine on the right.

I think Ray Lamontagne's stuff has a bit of this going on as well, now that i think of it, too.

(sorry for the self promotion btw.. a sound clip is worth a thousand words..)

[T-rex]

Two more things: One time we got into a rather heated argument with an engineer about this. We were just doing a knock off two song single to send to everyone on our fanlist for Christmas. On one of the songs we wanted to pan the drums and bass to either side. He absolutely refused to do it at first we argued for like an hour about it. Finally we said fk it, move over and we'll mix it and at that he complied. It would have been different if he was producing us or it didn't work for the arrangment, but this was a simple band financed two song gift to our fans and that's how we wanted it to sound.

Secondly, Delafaeyo (sp?) Marsalis mixes the jazz albums he produces this way, or at least he did and I hated it in that context. It would be Branford Marsalis in the middle and Jeff Tain Watts (drums) in the left channel and bass in the right channel for the BM Trio. It just sounds disjointed to me, whereas jazz trio records (I feel) should sound organic and intertwined.

[MoreSpaceEcho]

I'm certainly talking about ONLY panning to LCR also.

i've been mixing like this for a couple years now and i dig it.

[vvv]

Pearl Jam's 'Vs.' has lots of hard-panned guitars.

So does their latest, eponymous release. Like on The Stooges' The Weirdness, it can be a little disconcerting in headphones when one guitar plays constant and the other drops out for a verse.

The new Pretenders record, which I am digging a lot, has a hard-panned lead vocal (and opposite BV's) on the title song.

And I've been listening a lot to the awesome remasters of the JBG's Truth and Beckola; tons of hard-panned drums, bass and guitar. One interesting thing is, sometimes the drums are with the bass, sometimes with the guitar. (Note the way cool plate reverbs on that stuff, too!)

Another one I heard recently (I listen to headphones on my hour-long commutes) is the Temptations' Best of ... Some cool bleed there, too.

[rwc]

L-C-R panning doesn't sound blatantly "weird" or "retro" to me.

What one chooses to use it on, and the arrangement does.

vocals in the middle, some right, some left, depending on arrangement, will sound wide/full and modern.

putting them all left for half the song, will sound retro.

putting the kick left, snare right, or all left, will sound retro. putting the room middle, toms and OH hard left and right, IMO, will sound modern.

putting the rhythm guitar left, lead center, and overdub right, or putting the lead left, and stairway/plate/chamber return hard right a la glamour profession from steely dan will sound more modern than retro

but putting all the guitars on the right sounds retro

putting all the horns on the left, strings in middle, and guitar on right, with the reverb for them all panned center, even with the hard panning, could sound more modern than retro in my experience.

it's not so much in the panning decisions as it is the arrangement and production of the mix that makes the panning SOUND modern, or retro

I've never understood not hard panning stereo micing, when one could move the mics.

[Recycled_Brains]

The new Jenny Lewis has some cool hard panning going on. Tchad Blake, as others have mentioned, does it a lot. The Bad Plus (Give, Suspicious Activity) and Pearl Jam (Binaural) records that he produced, come to mind.

Most of the metal that I listen to has hard panned guitars.

I'm doing some hard panning on the album that I'm currently mixing. I like the way it leaves room for the vocals in the center. I also like to do it when the different instruments all have unique and interesting melodies happening. It allows each to stand out, rather than get cluttered together in the center.

I LOVE mostly mono mixes, that have very brief instances of hard panned elements. Like a quick little guitar lick or noise that just pops in and out quickly on one side.

It's not really even that obvious in a casual listening environment. Especially as the distance from your couch to your stereo increases. Always a fun listen in headphones though.

And, what about hard panning mono effects sends? I've been listening to the new Black Keys a lot, and there's a lot of wide panned delays happening. Especially on the vocals.

[thieves]

the past couple stereolab records have a lot of this. at least a couple songs they've done this decade have a drumkit in each channel.

[saint360]

Oh, Brother, Where Art thou by The Legendary Jim Ruiz Group is all about hard panning for retro effect (great album).

Most releases by His Name Is Alive feature hard panning, and sometimes it sounds retro, but more often than not it sounds contemporary.