When mixing what are some ways you guys...

[wallace]

...pan hard right or hard left, but also keep a little bit of return in the other side? So many great albums have this, especially with guitars and percussion. The result is that it doesn't sound hard panned or out of place. What are some ways you guys do this? I use stereo sub groups, delays/aux sends, live bleed, or EQ, but I'm looking for more ideas!!

[thethrillfactor]

Originally Posted by wallace

...pan hard right or hard left, but also keep a little bit of return in the other side?

Other side of what????

[opentune]

Originally Posted by thethrillfactor

Other side of what????

Guess he´s talking about FX returns..... pan the guitar to the left and let some
reverb come back on the right side...something like that...

[af_analog]

I think he means that a guitar is panned hard left, but there is actually a bit of signal still in the right.

Are you sure the guitar you are listening to is actually panned hard left? Maybe its at 80 to 95% left? This would give you the effect you are looking for.

Also, depending on the style and the particular part of the arrangement, if I feel that a hard panned guitar is way out of context playing on its own, I will sometimes just send a reverb or delay of that signal to the other side somewhere...or just automate the pan to a more appropriate place in the image.

I would guess though that the material you are hearing isn't a HARD panned guitar, more likely it's panned at like 70 or 80%. just my guess...

CHEERZ

I see now that opentune beat me to the punch...cheerz...

[Cojo]

Suddenly the Beatles comes up in my mind...

Drumkit in left chanel, leak from the drums in the guitar mic in right. More hardpanned instruments to the people!

/Cojo

[jodyjfk]

Record every instrument on two tracks using MS mic technique. Do your "panning" by placing the MS mics appropriately.

[allaccess]

when mixing, hard pan the instrument and then send on an aux to a mono compressor panned to the center. or send a stereo aux to a stereo compressor and pan the send opposite. or send to an effect (delay, reverb, chorus) and pan that to the other side.

fwiw, even though I hate referenceing anything these guys do, the TLA brothers supposedly use left, center or right only, with nothing panned between those points. not to mention that many classic rock records were done before pan pots were commonplace. And then there's leakage as cojo mentioned... that can be the "glue" you're hearing...

Ryan Hewitt

[KungFuLio]

haas panning
hard pan a source to left put a very short delay (4-6ms) pan hard right. add a little of that delay into the mix until your source starts to feel like it's being pushed out of the speaker a little. check in mono. enjoy!

p.s. it's even more fun if you start to modulate the delay a bit. Lisa Loeb's "Firecracker" is a good reference of this in action.

[picksail]

I do this with short delays (Haas Effect) all the time. These days I find myself moving closer and closer to the center with various mono sources and sending the delay to the corresponding side to aid in 'filling up' the the spectrum.

It's not unheard of for me to also, put a 16ms delay on a hi-hit panned at one o'clock with the delay panned hard to the opposite side. I enjoy using pitched separate mono delays for a snare drum.

The possibilites are pretty limitless. Yet, phase anomalies continue to be a pervasive factor. So be very careful.

[wallace]

Originally Posted by allaccess

... not to mention that many classic rock records were done before pan pots were commonplace. And then there's leakage as cojo mentioned... that can be the "glue" you're hearing...

Ryan Hewitt

yeah, I'm talking about mixing like 60s and 70s records, basically...trying to have the widest stereo field while giving the other side (of the stereo spectrum) a little spice.

I love the intro guitar on "Brown Sugar". That's what I'm talking about.