Panning & Fader Philosophy

[mobius.media]

What is your general style when it comes to panning? eg. Left/right/center with little between or is it more all over the place? Particularly with stuff like Garbage where there's so many elements going on, how do you tend to organize all the hats, cymbals, guitar fills, and background vocals?

Also, how do you approach fader riding and automation? I know you said you ride dynamic singers like Davey from AFI. Do you do a lot of riding on other elements like drum/bass/guitar? What aspects do you tend to most focus on, and what are you usually trying to accomplish when you do?

Thanks as always.

[ButchVig]

Originally Posted by mobius.media

What is your general style when it comes to panning? eg. Left/right/center with little between or is it more all over the place? Particularly with stuff like Garbage where there's so many elements going on, how do you tend to organize all the hats, cymbals, guitar fills, and background vocals?

Also, how do you approach fader riding and automation? I know you said you ride dynamic singers like Davey from AFI. Do you do a lot of riding on other elements like drum/bass/guitar? What aspects do you tend to most focus on, and what are you usually trying to accomplish when you do?

Thanks as always.

I tend to like things pretty wide if they are panned...hard left and right, or down the center. It's not a hard/fast rule, but if something is slightly panned, like a shaker, I find it distracting. For some reason, i always put hi hats down the center....it bugs me if they are panned wide...

When mixing, I do a LOT of rides...mostly on vocals, but also on drums fills and downbeats of sections if you want to have more impact.

I do what I call "tiering" where sometimes I will take the whole mix at the start of a quiet section and boost it 2 or 3 db on the sub groups...then over the course of 16 bars or 32 bars, whatever the length is, I lower it back down to 0 db where it started, so when the chorus hits I can pump it up 3 db, then ease it down, and pump it up for the next change where you need impact. If you looked a a WAV file, it looks like steps...and the dynamics are usually pretty extreme, way more than you hear on the final mastering because I don't use buss compression.

[pazl]

Like a 2nd part of intro(with drums) in Smells like Teen Spirit?(first 2 bars are a little bit louder in guitars)

[msquared]

How often do those level and pan decisions make it to the final mix (assuming you are working with a different mixer and not mixing it yourself)?

[ButchVig]

Originally Posted by msquared

How often do those level and pan decisions make it to the final mix (assuming you are working with a different mixer and not mixing it yourself)?

The level and pan decisions I use in a rough mix are generally used in the final mix.

The whole "tiering" process of a mix is just trying to make each section sound louder than the previous section, which of course is not possible unless you can get some headroom each time a dynamic change is coming...that's why I try to ease the levels back without noticing it's happening...

[MTStudios]

When you do this tiering process, is there any instruments that you often choose to keep static?

Otherwise I imagine if the entire mix is moving up and down then it's just going to change the relationship with the limiting/compression in mastering?