What is the panning technique called..

chips · Post by **chips** » Fri Apr 03, 2009 3:54 am

Hi, I was wondering if there was a name for the panning technique/ mixing style used on mainly on songs from the 60's and 70's where instruments are generally placed right or left ? For examples drums are panned right and drum room mic left. Bass, guit and vox are panned left. (instead of the more normal drums and bass down the centre).

Thanks
C

roderick · Post by **roderick** » Fri Apr 03, 2009 8:18 am

If it doesn't yet have an actual name, I nominate calling it the "here, there, and everywhere" technique.

RefD · Post by **RefD** » Fri Apr 03, 2009 8:37 am

the "quick, hard pan every other track and lets get it out to the mastering suite!" technique.

back in the mid-60s not alot of stereo records got sold and the stereo mixes were often an afterthought.

Babaluma · Post by **Babaluma** » Fri Apr 03, 2009 8:43 am

L-C-R

curtiswyant · Post by **curtiswyant** » Fri Apr 03, 2009 8:44 am

it's fun at parties

darjama · Post by **darjama** » Fri Apr 03, 2009 8:54 am

I thought this was done so the discs would be more easily compatible with mono record players, does anyone know if that's true? My dad had told me that when I was a kid, but he was never a techie kind of person, and might be a bit of a closet audiophile. (gasp!)

Jeff White · Post by **Jeff White** » Fri Apr 03, 2009 12:34 pm

4 tracks back then (in Britian).

If you bounce the whole band to one track, and have a guitar solo on another, main vocal on another, and background vocals on the forth, all recorded for MONO, which was the standard (stereo was indeed and afterthought), then when it comes time to take the multitrack tapes and create stereo mixes, you don't have a lot of options. This is why you have the band on one side, vocals on another, etc.

I actually like records recorded in mono and then panned "creatively". I also like modern records with a normal stereo field of listening. If it fits the song to mix all of the drums in mono on one side, well, awesome!

Jeff

cleantone · Post by **cleantone** » Wed Apr 08, 2009 6:15 am

Wasn't some of that when albums were being "remixed for stereo" by non engineers? To answer the question I would say "hard panning".

DupleMeter · Post by **DupleMeter** » Sat Apr 11, 2009 1:23 pm

It really happened because of the limits of the technology. Keep in mind that those old desks had a pan switch with 3 positions: center, left or right. So you only had those options for panning a track. It wasn't so much a deliberate decision to avoid those "in between" settings...they simply weren't there to use.

sonicdeath · Post by **sonicdeath** » Sat Apr 11, 2009 2:15 pm

The actual term for this is called "Cardinal points panning"

drumsound · Post by **drumsound** » Sat Apr 11, 2009 3:18 pm

I believe it's referred to as LCR.

Dakota · Post by **Dakota** » Sun Apr 12, 2009 11:06 pm

DupleMeter wrote:It really happened because of the limits of the technology. Keep in mind that those old desks had a pan switch with 3 positions: center, left or right. So you only had those options for panning a track. It wasn't so much a deliberate decision to avoid those "in between" settings...they simply weren't there to use.

+1

And that transition period when studios had originally mono boards, then added on a second mono output bus and added switches for LCR as above. A lot of the early stereo boards were hand modified, it was a new thing.

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What is the panning technique called..

What is the panning technique called..

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