LCR panning.....

[CHuckmott]

DOes anyone make regular use of this technique or use it as a first go to method of panning? For the uninitiated, states that everything in the mix is either panned hard left, dead center or hard right. Barry French made mention in response to one of my posts that he pans his rhythm guitars extreme right or left as I recall. And I suspect his melody/lead dead center.

[6bq9]

I've been listening on headphones to a wide variety of music at work lately and I really noticed that technique jump out at me on Buck Owens, Dwight Yoakum, Dave Gleason's Wasted Days and other Bakersfield Sound recordings. Hard panned pedal steel to the right, rhythm guitar to the left, vocals and lead guitar down the middle.

Also noticeable on Steely Dan when listening with headphones.

I've just started fiddling with using more hard panning. I grew up on mono, so this stereo fad is still a little new to me.

[markjsmith]

Beatles, Pink Floyd, Led Zep, Van Halen, etc....and even a lot of more modern artists use this technique (maybe not ALL the time but certainly on some of these artists biggest hits). Personally I think if you've got a decent amount of instruments to mix and you're not panning anything hard right and hard left you're doing it wrong. Just my opinion, and I'm sure there are tons of exceptions out there.

[mojobone]

William Wittman is noted for the technique; (Relish-Joan Osborne) he and some others don't believe in pan knobs, and I agree that panned stereo isn't true stereo, though I personally never met a knob I didn't like. I like the idea of combining Mid-Side microphone technique with LCR mixing; it's way more organic than using ganged volume pots to simulate a stereo image, and it reduces phase difficulties to nearly nothing.

[AlpacaRoom]

Rules are made to be broken, but "as a rule," I only pan LCR. I make a few exceptions--close drum mics, mostly--but by and large, in-between pan positions don't exist for me. If I put something hard-left and the mix sounds unbalanced, I'll usually put a complementary part hard-right (or send it to a reverb, either mono-to-stereo or hard-panned to the opposite side).

(Actually, that's the other thing about working LCR--almost without exception, all my reverb sends are mono-to-stereo.)

I did work on a track recently that was dense with both guitars and organs where this all went out the window, but it was the exception rather than the rule.

[eeoo]

I'm sure there are reasons like phase issues and such but why not just pan things where they sound best?

eo

[mojobone]

It's a matter of discipline in mixing; an arrangement needs balance, but if it doesn't have it, something's got to give at the mix stage, because of frequency masking. (frequencies need as much management as levels, imo) I start every mix in mono (save for the drums, which are on a stereo sub bus, unless I'm doing some special kick/snare effects) Then after treating/carving out unnecessary/clashing frequencies in various channels/instruments that may otherwise interfere with each other using subtractive EQ, I'll pan LCR and listen. If I can still hear everything and the balance feels good, I might not do any further panning. If you EQ your various instruments while listening to everything together in mono, as described above, you end up with a more spacious stereo mix that's more mono-compatible, which is important on TV and Youtube.

[eeoo]

I guess what I'm wondering is does LCR panning literally mean that you pan everything either 100% left or right or straight down the middle? It seems unnecessarily restrictive to me but again, I'm sure my ignorance is showing...

eo

[richmstudios]

Yes, eo, LCR panning means the track is either panned 100% far left, 100% far right or dead center - no percentages in between. While I find it tempting because I love a wide stereo field, it always seems to sound a bit too much in my mixes so I've strayed away from it. I usually do have a few things panned this way but not the entire pallet of tracks - just my preference.

[andygabrys]

I think that LCR is a derivative from the old consoles when stereo was first invented. there were (to my knowledge) 3 busses - one center, one hard left, and one hard right that you could assign a track to. so no in between.

in my mind, I am trying to figure out how you would pan drums using LCR. okay fine, one OH hard L, and one OH hard R. Assume you also have close mics on the toms and the hihat. Isn't there going to some slight phasey weirdness between your hi-hat and tom close mics and your overheards if you slam all the close mics hard L and R? just a little?

I guess if you do the Glyn Johns method of 2 kinda OHs and just a snare and kick you don't have to worry about it. maybe that is part of that method. hmmmmm.

seems like most tunes these days have something pinned to the far L and R to establish the width of the song, and a lot of stuff between as well. I'm with EO on that one. you have the real estate, why not use it?