pan left, pan right, what the heck???

[ernstinen]

"Panning" is my middle name! I've experimented with panning since I got my first good board, a Soundcraft, back in the 1930's. It's really an artform in itself. There really are no rules, but most engineers pan lead vox, bass, kick drum, and snare pretty much around the center. But guitars can be in stereo (hard left & right), and every other instrument can be a variation on hard L & R. It's VERY important to spread the audio spectrum around for a big, clear sound, i.e. don't have ALL the bassy instruments (except bass & kick) or the bright instruments panned in the same area.I like panning a drum kit as the drummer would hear it. Toms from left to right, ditto cymbals. A good tom tom fill should pan all around the stereo spectrum.Mono rhythm guitars and keys can be panned somewhat left and right. Same with horns and percussion.I personally like a wide stereo spectrum rather than a narrow one. Plus, if you have a good stereo keyboard sound, it makes sense to use that effect by panning them hard L & R.I've never had a mastering engineer complain that I pan things TOO much! HTH,Ern

[davekershaw]

Jul 18, 2008, 9:01am, ernstinen wrote:"Panning" is my middle name!

[Mark Kaufman]

I've never tried what Casey said about duplicating a track and splitting it. Does that really help? Part of me keeps thinking that one track panned to the center would sound the same as two identical tracks panned evenly...? I'll have to try that one...Feaker, Ern speaks the Wisdom. Keep the drums, bass and lead vocal toward the center (although you will achieve more clarity and separation by panning them ever so slightly to their own little niche close to center). A lead vocal too much to the right or left might never get heard by someone with a poor stereo speaker set-up, so keeping it toward center is pretty much the norm.One cool thing: you can achieve a very full and blissful sound with acoustic guitar by playing the part twice (not duplicating the same track, but playing the same part twice) and panning one to the left and the other to the right...the slight difference in sound from having it played two different times gives it a great "wall of sound" effect.Panning definitely helps delineate each part. EQ can do the same thing in another way: if each instrument "owns" a little piece of the EQ spectrum, even more delineation will result. Example: bump the low frequency on the bass track but lower the other frequencies somewhat on that bass track. Do the same with the other tracks, only with a different section of the EQ spectrum...let on acoustic have plenty of high end, give another more middle....maybe a vocal "owns" more of the higher middle, etc..Play around with it. Hopefully your EQ plug in shows you virtual faders to help visualize this concept. But that concept, along with panning, should really widen your stereo field and enhance all the separate parts of your mix.Good luck fumbling about like I have been for the past several months!

[Casey H]

Jul 18, 2008, 9:29am, lyle wrote:I've never tried what Casey said about duplicating a track and splitting it. Does that really help? Part of me keeps thinking that one track panned to the center would sound the same as two identical tracks panned evenly...? I'll have to try that one...Beats the crap out of me!! I'm the novice here... Warning: Listening to me about this stuff is dangerous!!

[feaker]

AubPlease tell me you had that on file and just pasted it.Man that is a lot of information.I have everything printed out now to put by my lazyboy for evening study sessions.Yours will be in the "advanced" section.Will have to look up things like "roll off" Tomorrow I am going to take the plunge and try implementing some of these tricks.Might have to use the ole "undo" command. Can't get into too much trouble. Brain is starting to go ito "overload" now.Thank you for all of your timePaul

[aubreyz]

Jul 18, 2008, 11:07am, feaker wrote:AubPlease tell me you had that on file and just pasted it. Nope. Was having a double quarter pounder from McDangers and felt like I needed to pay it forward a bit to make up for my indulgence Quote:Man that is a lot of information.I have everything printed out now to put by my lazyboy for evening study sessions.Yours will be in the "advanced" section. Don't worry about understanding it all. Just saturate yourself with information. It's like learning a new language-- pretty soon all the mystery words will start making sense.Quote:Will have to look up things like "roll off" A quick google of EQ roll off and this was the 2nd match. Good stuff:http://www.practicalpc.co.uk/computing/ ... e:Tomorrow I am going to take the plunge and try implementing some of these tricks.Might have to use the ole "undo" command. Can't get into too much trouble. Brain is starting to go ito "overload" now.Thank you for all of your timePaulI want to just say this, IMHO this whole game is not so much about HOW to do something as it is knowing WHAT you want to do. That may not make sense, so here's a real world example. My 19 year old son has been playing and writing since he was about 12. The last couple of years he wanted to get into recording and we got him a small Pro Tools setup. I taught him the basics and then just pretty much let him experiment. I tried to teach him not "how to do this" but rather how to learn how. Essentially there are not that many basic principles to learn in sculpting sound-- EQ, compression, effects, panning-- I've probably left something out but most tools are just combinations or variants of these things. So you do need to know how to use and EQ, but the reason why is what's important.So my son recently asks me, how do I get a better guitar sound. I went over the options of micing techniques and direct signals, then told him to find some examples of what he wanted it to sound like. Listen carefully to how it's panned and effected in a recording you like, get that kind of tone from your amp and experiment with the things you know to do until you get the sound. He spent several weeks playing with sounds, learning how to get big fat wall of sound guitars and small thin but in your face clean leads. The thing is, I could have saved him some time, but the results were much better than if I had showed him how. He learned the process of learning and ended up with some guitar tracks that are more unique for his sound than what i would have probably recorded.All that to say this--- find a sound you want to emulate and figure out how to get it. You found the pan nob-- are learning how to use it, now the fun part of figuring out WHAT to do with it begins. Listen closely to stuff that is in you genre. How is panned used? What do you like and want to emulate? It's a fun game and even though I've been doing this for many years, I still listen and play that game a lot.What do you want it to sound like? That for me is the key to all things production.Aub

[ibanez468]

Hey Feak!Here's an exercise ta' try out. Plug in somethin' to your Mackie so you can play around, somethin' like a CD player that you can plug-in like you would your guitar. See, you can hit the play button on the CD player while a CD is playin' and then you can manipulate the board and actually hear how all the knobs affect the sounds that are comin' from the CD player. See, it's harder to be playin' the guitar, and tryin' ta' turn knobs on the board at the same time, and listening to the differences in the sound and how it changes. If ya' plug in somethin' and let it play automatically, then your hands are free ta' try things out on the board. See what I'm sayin'? Then you can try out the eq section of the board, and then try out the panning knobs, etc...Likewise, if you can plug that same sound into your computer (or import any .wav file into your DAW) you can do the same thing. Just play the .wav file while you tinker around and turn knobs & press buttons on your DAW. That's how I learned what did what, and how this works, and oooh, what's this do? Once ya' figure it all out, then you can apply ta' real world situations. But it does require you ta' play around for a bit (or however long it takes) in order ta' learn what everything does. And some reading of manuals or anything you can find on the internet, can be of great help. Use your HELP menus for your Sonar program. When I want ta' know how ta' do something in any DAW, I always go to the HELP menu of the program. I usually can always find an answer there. Patience & especially Persistence: the 2 key ingredients! Have FUN!I-468

[ibanez468]

What I always do is ta' test the waters with something I don't mind screwin' up. I mean with all of these new programs that I've purchased over the last few months, doin' some testing first, is always in order. I test, tinker, terminate. Once I've got enough information on how the application works, then I get down to the real business at hand.But I always do my testing with files that I don't mind destroying or deleting, or I make a copy or a "dummy" file ta' work with so that no harm comes to the original. Just some things ta' think about. You don't always hafta' work with an original file. You can always work with a copy and spare your original works any trauma. Learn on the computer how ta' make copies of your original files so you can feel free to "muck" up the copy if need be. There's nothin' worse than deleting a file by accident after all of the work that you put into it, and it was the only one. Total heartbreaker.I-468

[ernstinen]

Jul 18, 2008, 10:28am, aubreyz wrote:Guitar With only one recorded mono take:• To get a wider sound, duplicate the track and pan each hard L,R. Add 10 to 20 ms of delay to one track and it will widen the pan. For even more variety, add a tube, amp, or other coloration plug to one side. Great stuff, Aub!Yea, the delay trick is a good one. I've used that a lot. Plus, I agree that double-tracking guitars is a good idea, or using two amps for electric guitar and panning them in stereo.One studio gig I had was to remix a rock band. The guitar part was played well, but sounded TERRIBLE! So I took an output of that track and ran it into my Soldano guitar amp. After some tweaking and effects, I re-recorded it and voila! Sounded like Eric Clapton (almost ).Also, using a bit of stereo chorus on mono guitar tracks can do wonders if you don't overdo it. Using that and some short panned delay, and double-tracking the guitars can make an acoustic guitar almost sound like a bunch of guitarists are playing together in the room, like Jeff Lynne's productions or Tom Petty's "Learning To Fly" (which probably IS about 10 guitarists playing together in the same room! ).Ern

[ernstinen]

Jul 19, 2008, 10:33am, mazz wrote:The best tool for understanding the aesthetics of panning is a good set of headphones and a collection of your favorite music.Another great post, Mazz! Headphones are THE tool for learning panning.Listen to "Cry Of Love" by Hendrix. Talk about wild panning!Also, "Her Majesty" at the end of The Beatles' Abbey Road is REAL interesting on headphones. Of course, most of the later Beatle stuff is headphone material!One of my favorite hard rock CDs is "Moving Pictures" by Rush. The drumming and panning is outstanding on that album.Ern