The Art of Panning

[rids]

I've not quite understood panning to it's fullest. So I was wondering what do you really accomplish by panning instruments?

Well I just wanted to hear some other peoples ways of panning and what kind of technique you use to pan different instruments. When do you choose to record things in stereo and when to do it in mono? Do you feel recording in Mono can work better than having stereo tracks? Do you find panning some instruments make mixes not sound as good compared to if you don't pan? Do you feel panning to a 'certain' side, left or right, is better suited for some instruments? Does it ever sound weird to just have a track panned hard left or right only coming out of one speaker?

Basically, how do you use panning and what effect does it have in your mixes?

[Thumper]

It totally depends on what the final product is going to be.

Solo vocals with solo acoustic guitar? Record the guitar in stereo, to make room in the middle for the vocals, and also make the soundstage more interesting.

Loud rocknroll? Track the same guitar parts twice. EXACTLY the same. Pan 1 hard left, the other hard right. Sounds HUGE!!! Same thing with background vocals.

Drum kit room mics are great in stereo!!! Make some space around the kit so everything isn't right up the middle. I like kick snare and hats right up the middle, though... Some guys pan the hats/toms/OH mics from the drummers perspective, others do it from the "audience" perspective. It's up to your personal taste.

Listen to some records... NOT with headphones, but just good speakers that are set up in the equilateral triangle style. 2 points on the triangle are the speakers, pointing at the other point, which is where you sit! Close your eyes. Most of the time, the vocals should sound like they're coming from right in between the speakers, even though there isn't a speaker there!!! Listen to what is going on to the left and the right of the vocals. Some stuff is panned hard, some stuff is barely off center.

Listen, and get an idea of what other guys are doing, and then experiment with it yourself!!! It's fun!!!

If you're recording a jazz trio in a big room, pan stuff to where the are in the room. If the sax player is off to the left in the "audience" perspective, pan it a little left. If the piano player is to the right, use stereo mics and pan the right one hard right, and the left one hard left. Pan the left mic more towards the rightt until it sounds like the piano is more on the right... (that was confusing...)

Experiment!!!

[MrVelvet]

Thumper is right, experimenting is the key... Find out what you like and what works for your mix...

Generally speaking, it is easier to pan sounds with more hi-end focus (e.g. it sounds mostly uncomfortable for the listener to hear a bass drum or low bass guitar panned out of center...) - but that rule (if it's one...) is also meant to be broken sometimes!

"Hard" panned stuff on pro records bugged me when I was starting out... It sounded so much more intense than what I achieved with my digital setup, where a hard panned sound was unpleasant and thin... Didn't melt nicely into a tasteful stereo image...

Well, outboard summing can help here, but I also liked Bob Katz' approach to record the instrument in stereo and then pan the left channel into the middle and add it to taste... Helps widening the image while the focus stays on the right channel - and sounds more intense!

[rids]

I should also mention that I record a lot of analog and digital synths and samplers along with all the other usual traditonal suspect instruments. With synths I find that listening to them in stereo adds a lot to tracks, but then I thought "Does it have to be recorded in stereo?" Couldn't one take Mono tracks (different takes) just pan one left and the other right to achieve a stereo-like field (if even stereo is needed)?

So Mr. Velvet, you found that you weren't able to make your Hard panning sound as good as you've heard on pro records? Why do you think that would be?

[Thumper]

The whole 2 takes panned hard thing. Yeah, that would be cool. Just don't try to do it with midi, that would be stupid. But analog synths? Hell yeah!!!

About the panning in digital... I have no idea what Velvie's talking about, but there should be no difference, unless the panning law is different. Panned center is 6 db, 4.5, or 3db quieter vs panned hard left or right. That's what the panning 'law' is. Different consoles have different laws, and most DAWs can be adjusted. I think SSL is 4.5, most fake Neve (not stuff that Rupert designed... such as V stuff) is 3 db. Don't quote me, but I think...

Digital might have less channel crosstalk I guess, but it should be so low that there's no way that you could hear it. Please expand, Senor Velvet... If it's just a "digital sucked until i spent $6000 on a summing mixer" thing, I personally don't want to hear about it, though....

Cheers, and someone should drink a beer for me.

[rids]

Do you guys find panning a track hard right or left sounds unnatural. When I listen to records with hard panning, sometimes it sounds good, but other times I think it can stick out like a sore thumb.

[MrVelvet]

Hey Thumper and Rids,

For me, that was sort of the "digital sucks" issue at that point... You're right - the panning law is just the same, but the coloration of big trannies makes it sound tighter...

I was used to the coloration of big outboard summing, so it didn't sound "wide" (put in your favourite adjective here...) to me anymore.

As soon as better converters came out and when I started using colored pre's in digital to achieve certain things, it started to work for me.

If I had a choice. I'd still prefer the color of big console outboard summing, but what I achieve in digital is just fine. I DO use outboard gear to pimp the sounds, but it's not like "whoa digital will never do it for me, no matter what" anymore.

The panning problem I mentioned (...just felt "hard") wasn't only due to the panning of single tracks, but also how reverb, delay etc. melted into the space of a mix (listen to Dire Straits "Communiqué", for example). They mostly felt "attached" instead of blending together with the source. As a result, the source stood out more than I wanted... A nice workaround was to the approach of Bob Katz that I mentioned. I also record additional room ambiance tracks these days that I use instead of artificial reverb - sounds great, too.

Velvet

[MrVelvet]

Hey Rids,

hard panning depends on the song, source etc. I like stuff with two guitars that are interacting with each other (think Stones stuff, or some Lou Reed) and I tend to pan them L-R... I recently did that with some acoustic recordings... The same setup all the time, but it only worked for some songs to put them L-R, on others they both had to be dead center or anything inbetween.

It depends on the mood of the song, as well as tempo, balance, even key...


Sometimes I record bands live in the studio and I'd like to put the guitars left and right, for example, but the amps stood in the opposite directions and the drum mics picked up enough bleed to make it sound strange if I pan 'em like that. If the other way sounds way more natural and comfortable, I'd of course go that route instead of doing something the opposite way just because I intended to.

[Samplecraze]

Velvet, your sig link goes to Oral B........

Just thought I'd mention it.

[Yiannis]

Do you guys find panning in a DAW been(feels) the same as panning on a console?

[rids]

So how do you figure out what tracks to pan where? Is there any general rule used? I know most of it is just using your ears, but sometimes you don't hear things right away as to whether it sounds good or bad.

[Glenn Kuras]

Originally Posted by rids

So how do you figure out what tracks to pan where? Is there any general rule used? I know most of it is just using your ears, but sometimes you don't hear things right away as to whether it sounds good or bad.

Pretty much what every one is saying, it depends on taste. You need to experiment with the song to see what sounds best. To start off I always put the snare a little left with hi hat, over heads hard left and right and kick slightly opposite the bass guitar. At that point I mess with the other instruments and vocals to see how things are going to sit in the mix. But I must say that I end up changing all kinds of things depending on what drives the track.
That is the great thing about mixing, NO RULES!!!

Glenn

[willythekid]

It is strange how modern recordings are so sparse when it comes to playing with the stereo image and the panning. I listen a lot to 60s music, and in old Beatles and Hendrix records they really use panning as a way of musical expression. Listen for example to Hendrix' "Axis bold as love" with headphones. It sounds like the guy responsible for the panning is working as hard as the musicians! Also I like the way the 60s recordings don't have a constant symmetrical stereo image. They created an exciting dynamic by sometimes letting left side be dominant, sometimes letting right side be dominant. Listen to the Beatles "Taxman" for example, the right side of the stereo image is almost silent until the guitar solo in the middle of the song. I would like to hear more daring stereo work in modern recordings.

[zarembo]

Originally Posted by willythekid

I would like to hear more daring stereo work in modern recordings.

hear hear

[rico52]

Originally Posted by willythekid

It is strange how modern recordings are so sparse when it comes to playing with the stereo image and the panning. I listen a lot to 60s music, and in old Beatles and Hendrix records they really use panning as a way of musical expression. Listen for example to Hendrix' "Axis bold as love" with headphones. It sounds like the guy responsible for the panning is working as hard as the musicians! Also I like the way the 60s recordings don't have a constant symmetrical stereo image. They created an exciting dynamic by sometimes letting left side be dominant, sometimes letting right side be dominant. Listen to the Beatles "Taxman" for example, the right side of the stereo image is almost silent until the guitar solo in the middle of the song. I would like to hear more daring stereo work in modern recordings.

In the sixties people's heads were in a different place!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Tom Dowd had a program about his work with some of the artists he engineered for and had an interesting approach to using stereo imaging. He wanted to create a stereo field where the ears perceive where the instuments are placed in the stereo field. Not just left or right but to create depth in the field as well. I like that concept as it draws you into the recording. That said there are no hard and fast rules. It depends on what you are trying to achieve. Let your ears be your guide

[dbbubba]

You are opening a whole different area up when you talk about '60s panning because the Beartles stuff that we heard as americans was different than the British and even european mixes. Much of the Beatles stero stuff in the U.S. was not really mixed by the Beatles (George Martin) to be that drastic. They were working largely in mono.
The Hendrix stuff was different because it was recorded in the U.S. and the studios had more tracks.

When you are working on four track and doing lots of bounces which pop music required you are just going to have pretty drastic panning no matter what you do. A good example is the Beach Boys Pet Sounds stuff. The band was recorded on four track and bounced to eight track as one track leaving seven tracks for vocals. Previously they bounced to another four track with three tracks for vocal work. Two BG vocal passes which were then bounced to one track (mono) which left two tracks for a doubled lead vocal.

You have a bunch of submixed tracks living on each of the four tracks, so how do mix them with much panning and not sound drastic?

In the '60s stereo was a novelty and the drastic stuff was exciting! I can recall demonstration LPs that had silly panning stuff to show off the stereo. People liked how the Beatles stuff was so drastically panned. You could turn the balance way over to one side and hear the individual parts! Hell, I still do this!

Generally, the tracks should easily fall into place where they should be panned if you use common sense. Like sounds can be panned hard L/R like two double tracked GTRs. An acoustic GTR could be balanced on the oposite side by a percussion instrument like a shaker or even the hi-hat. If you had say a heavy GTR and a Hammond B-3 they would be panned opposite. This is all common stuff on records, so listen.

If I had the track space and the proper room to record in I would want EVERY track in stereo! About the only thing that I rarely track in stereo is bass (I do record at least two tracks of it though) and vocals. That and solo percussion stuff.

I HATE TRYING TO MIX A BUNCH OF MONO TRACKS AND HAVING TO ATTEMPT TO CEATE A BELIEVEABLE ACOUTIC SPACE FOR EVERYTHING TO LIVE IN! The worst situation for me is a bunch of mono synth and drum machine type tracks! I hate that!

I must admit that it is hard for me to like a mix when I have panned GTRs and it drops down to one for a section like a lot of metal stuff does. That is always a delimma for me. I hate to turn instruments up and down once they are set in a mix! I'll mix for a long time trying to get things where the instruments remain at fixed levels. I have tricks that allow me to do this which I won't divulge. I also don't like any instrument to move in a mix. If I need a strong GTR at a point I want it to be a different GTR than the one that was playing off to one side. I almost NEVER change drum levels. I rarely have ever needed to do it either.

Here's a question: When you have two drummers playing at once (it used to be very common) how do you pan them in stereo? Back when it was common to have two drummers ('60s) almost everything was in mono. They can be on top of each other in mono and it's not too bad because everything else is on top of everything else. It's a different story in stereo! Listen to live Zappa stuff with two drummerss (Chester Thompson and Ralph Humphries) like Roxy and Elsewhere to hear a great way to do it.
I have only had to record two bands in twenty years that had two drummers!

Listen to records. It's all their for you. It is one of the easier things to figure out by listening to other productions.

Danny Brown