Panning when mixing down?

[PTS]

I wanted to get advice on how certain instruments should be panned in stereo when mixing down, to really give the recording space so everything can be heard clearly?

For example, the best example for a good guitar panning are the Guns N Roses albums, where lead guitar is panned hard right, and rhythm guitar is panned hard left. Or was it the other way around? Anyway, any common tips on vocals, keys, bass, and drums would be great too.

Thanks!

[Moo]

Lead right and rhythm left always sounds awkward to me.

Lead guitar often trades off with vocals in the sort of music I do, so having sound in the left speaker constant and the right intermittent gives you a weird feeling, which is amplified if the listener's wearing headphones.

There are no hard and fast rules when it comes to panning, but I try to showcase whatever's playing the lead part by keeping it in the center (or panning it towards, if it started out on left or right).

Generally, it's a good idea to record two rhythm guitar tracks, pan one hard left and one hard right. It adds a certain fullness to the guitar sound, as well as anchoring the rhythm to the center. Ideally they'd be identical, but I like to improvise differences here and there because it sounds more interesting.

[skodt dePram]

The trick is mixing first in mono & then panning to color the recording. as a rule of thumb, drums should be somewhat in the middle, but there are exceptions (hard-panned toms are a tried & true thing in some songs).

I pan everything a little, other than sometimes leaving drums dead center. We mic the room when we record drums, so having that to work with, I often try to bring them out a bit on at least one side without killing the other tracks. Sometimes I like rhythm gutar & bass around 10:00, with the lead guitar at 2 or 3:00 or the opposite of that. If you pan everything at least a bit, you don't have to overdo the vocal levels b/c the vocals come to the front at a lower level.

I don't think right versus left is better or worse, it's more about achieving balance.

If you have two different guitar lines, hard-pans to opposite speakers can be a good thing. If you add, say a delay a/o reverb to a single guitar track (or 2 or three all panned hard one way), it's cool to hard-pan the effect to the other speaker (a la LZII). It's also a cool effect having basically the same guitar or vocal performance on 2 tracks and hard-panning them to opposite sides (like the Lennon 'Plastic Ono Band' remaster).

just play with it -- listen to your favorite recordings on headphones for ideas ...

[iaresee]

One approach I've used to great effect where I want to give the lead a really wide feel but I don't want it focused like a laser down the center is to pan the lead track hard left and add send the track to a reverb on another channel that's 100% wet and panned hard right. I usually push the reverb version of the signal up pretty high. Maybe 75% of the original lead.

And I also tend to mix in mono first and then move things around in the stereo space after I've got all the levels set.

[skodt dePram]

or just moving that hard-pan to about 75% and raising the volume a notch. That can also create the effect of the solo being 'punched-in' from another track when it's not.

[ben_murphy]

i've always come from the classic two guitars/bass/drums school of rock bands where you have one guitar hard right, one hard left, and bass and drums more or less right down the middle. that being said one of the bands i'm in now has three guitars and with our virgin recording session just a few weeks away i'm begining to realize that i may have to completely rethink my approach to mixing guitars.

[skodt dePram]

It all depends on what each guitar is doing.

If you can find it, Green Magnet School's "Bloodmusic" (SubPop, circa. 1992) is a great example of a sweet 3-guitar mix.

[hot_rats!]

some beatles songs have drums and vocals panned all the way right and guitars/piano all the way left. something you never hear from a proffesional sounding mix. as long as its a well written song you can even run mono.

[Moo]

Stereo sound was introduced to the mainstream while the Beatles were still together. This was before the basic standards of mixing that are now the norm. You'll notice this on a lot of recordings from the 60s - vocals left, drums right, stuff like that seems weird today. They were used to mono and only really experimenting with stereo technology.

[guitarose]

I quite dig a lot of zeppelin's hard panning on some of their stuff...soething that frusciante did a little of on stadium arcadium (having messed with it on his solo stuff)

[hot_rats!]

Originally posted by Moo
Stereo sound was introduced to the mainstream while the Beatles were still together. This was before the basic standards of mixing that are now the norm. You'll notice this on a lot of recordings from the 60s - vocals left, drums right, stuff like that seems weird today. They were used to mono and only really experimenting with stereo technology.
point is, the songs survived the outrageous panning choices.

[iaresee]

Originally posted by hot_rats!
point is, the songs survived the outrageous panning choices.
Well put. You can pan 'til the cows come home and it ain't gonna save a bad song.

[pop_n_fresh]

I try and make it as close to the live set up, in my band me and thettoher guitarist both play lead licks so I'd try and have it set up as though you were facing them on a stage and there was no PA.

So usually it would be

Left: Me
Right: Other guitar and bass (although I usually make that so that it's just off balance)
Centre: Vocals and drums (although I will put different mics slightly off centre to give an almost 3D sound).

I don't often tend to hard pan things, just push it more to one side.

Edit: I once heard a track where during the mixing he had doubled up a vocal track, put one hard left and one hard right and shunted one along a micro second so that it fattened up nicely. Might be worth a try.

[Moo]

Originally posted by hot_rats!
point is, the songs survived the outrageous panning choices.
Mmhmm. I didn't really notice until I listened with headphones.

[skodt dePram]

were the beatles also victims in the early days of the technology dictating each track went out of the deck automatically hard-panned one way or another ? ? ?

the beatles were also attempting to isolate the vocals in the early days, I believe. Everly Bros. recordings from that era do similar things.

the panning on 'Led Zeppelin II' is masterful. One of my favorite headphone albums.

Steve Albini also seems to know a thing or two about panning tracks. I'm specifically thinking of the Breeders' "Pod."

I put everything a *bit* to one side or the other and usually almost always hard-pan something. It's a good way to bring out the drums without muffling the guitars or vocals. gives everything room to breathe.

[guitarose]

Originally posted by skodt dePram
the panning on 'Led Zeppelin II' is masterful. One of my favorite headphone albums.

I put everything a *bit* to one side or the other and usually almost always hard-pan something. It's a good way to bring out the drums without muffling the guitars or vocals. gives everything room to breathe.

I'm yet to really mix much, but i think we share the same kind of aesthetic.