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Author Topic: Panning tricks  (Read 17360 times)

JohnTravis

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Re: Panning tricks
« Reply #15 on: March 05, 2011, 12:41:06 PM »

Okay dumb question that kind of needs to be asked. Do other peoples mixes sound good in your headphones? Say for example you listen to a successful record that was done recently (Meaning not something from the Beatles or Doors era where panning ran rampant like Charlie Sheen on a bender) does it sound right or does it bother you?

If it does bother you, you shouldn't be listening on headphones and nothing you do is going to make them work. Sure you can bring your mixes up on two channels and then pan them at 3 and 9 o'clock, but that's not really a solution.

If other peoples mixes sound fine to you, then maybe you aren't panning enough other things, so that everything you pan seems like it sticks out. There's a great interview up somewhere on the web where Andy Wallace is talking to Michael Barbiero that I highly recommend reading. Andy talks about how almost everything in his mixes except the Kick drum is panned even the lead vocal is slightly off to one side.

I hope this helps.

JT
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P.M.DuMont

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Re: Panning tricks
« Reply #16 on: March 05, 2011, 06:17:52 PM »

Correct John, panning is entirely subjective... however,
depending on the instrumentation and the over all presentation, certain parameters work better (or to the point, more easily) than others.

Depending on the genre, mood, etc, left-center-right only panning can certainly convey the exact cohesive "picture" that is necessary to the production.
I feel L-C-R panning helps facilitate focus, makes one work with limited choices (usually sonically beneficial),
and in a lot of cases reduces the chance for phase issues.

That being said, sometimes, I love a production that can clearly utilize the whole field .

In the end, I don't feel headphones are a rewarding way to listen to music.
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Philip  (formerly Fiasco)

Taylor Phillips

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Re: Panning tricks
« Reply #17 on: March 06, 2011, 05:02:58 PM »

Do other peoples mixes sound good in your headphones?
Yes, they sound great.  That's why I asked the question in the first place.
Quote
In the end, I don't feel headphones are a rewarding way to listen to music.
Headphones might not be a rewarding way to listen to music, but that's what everyone listens through these days - thanks to the iPod.
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P.M.DuMont

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Re: Panning tricks
« Reply #18 on: March 06, 2011, 06:46:15 PM »

Headphones might not be a rewarding way to listen to music, but that's what everyone listens through these days - thanks to the iPod.

And most folks who genuinely care about audio realize that there are many things happening these days to audio that truly do not benefit the listener.
McDonald's is pervasive, but does that mean that it is the best hamburger?

As for your panning issue, are you mixing on monitors or headphones.
If on monitors, have you tried mixing on headphones to see if there is a difference?
You may have issues in your space causing you to over emphasize the "outsides" without hearing what is being done to the stereo image.

In my opinion, there has to be a strong (balanced) central image to anchor anything that is traveling outside the middle, and not be distracting.
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Philip  (formerly Fiasco)

JohnTravis

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Re: Panning tricks
« Reply #19 on: March 07, 2011, 03:30:06 AM »

Taylor,

To answer your original question, I think it comes down perhaps you are dealing with something that is essentially a mono mix where a few things are panned and so they seem stick out like a sore thumb. You may want to try something like taking a pair of tracks that make up a major part of the sound, hard panning them and then eq-ing them differently from each other. Once you have them balanced in the mix you may find your stereo imaging on the other sounds is a lot more fun to play with.

Next time you are mixing, why no get really adventurous with your panning and if something seems to be too far out on one side, instead of bringing it closer to the center, try to find another sound to pan into the opposite speaker that makes it sound balanced.

JT
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Nikodemos_T

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Re: Panning tricks
« Reply #20 on: March 07, 2011, 09:41:46 AM »

I don't think "panning" is a thing that can be viewed on it's own....IMO we should aproach panning desicions based on a few other things like instrumentation, tracking methods used (mono, stereo, dual mono etc), our space positioning requirements , a complete view of the stereo imaging etc....

Afterall panning itself is just a volume dependant busing to 2 individual tracks.....

So, i strongly believe that what matters the most is the ability to create the proper phantom image regardles if we are talking about stereo spread or hard panned mono....ambient and room mics  are a very crucial factor (as it is the artifiacial reverbaration) and also i consider multimic tracking an important factor too....sometimes is easier to emphasize the directivity and mono placement of a sound in just one part of the stereo spectrum using stereo or multi miced material than just a mono signal.....in other words i believe we should aproach panning the way our own hearing works...we just don't hear something from one ear only (well, some of us might  ;D) , we hear it with both ears but differently (regarding time-phase, freq response and ofcourse percieved loudness).

...please excuse my poor english  :-\

touchsounds

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Re: Panning tricks
« Reply #21 on: March 10, 2011, 11:45:10 PM »

I'm in love with the stereo field.  Don't ask me why, but I don't really care for 5-channel sound.  Give me a good 2-channel mix and I'm happy.

Try panning a guitar one way, then panning it's effects the opposite.  Sometimes that makes an 'off-balance' mix sound more uniform until the 2nd guitar comes in.

Check out an old Van Halen recording
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Keith Saunders
TouchSounds LLC

drkoosh

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Re: Panning tricks
« Reply #22 on: March 13, 2011, 11:45:27 PM »

Hey guys, i know Rob and others have covered using the "haas effect" to create stereo width in some daws such as protools, but i thought i'd describe how i do it in ableton live as its a very handy little trick to use:

Drop a "simple delay" plugin (from the stock ableton plugin folder) onto the track you want to widen. Right click on this plugin and click "group" to turn it into an "audio effect rack". Click the "show/hide" chain button on the left of the rack. Right click in the "drop" area and select "create chain". You have now effectively split you original track into two identical copies of itself that you can manipulate as you please! All thats left to setup is drop a "simple delay" plugin into the new chain also.

Now you're ready to adjust settings:

Pan the first chain hard RIGHT, then click on "link" in the delay window, change the "sync" button to say "time" by clicking once, set the delay to 15ms, set the dry/wet to 100%.

Pan the second chain hard LEFT, then click "link" to link LR, change sync to read "time", delay 1-2ms this time an set the dry/wet to 100%.

Done! :)

Here are two pics to illustrate what each chain should look like:



I hope this helps someone!

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Mo Facta

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Re: Panning tricks
« Reply #23 on: March 15, 2011, 02:20:56 PM »

When it comes to panning questions I like to point people in the direction of this article by Dave Moulton:

http://www.moultonlabs.com/more/principles_of_multitrack_mixing_the_phantom_image/

Sums it up beautifully for me.

Cheers :)
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BobSchwenkler

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Re: Panning tricks
« Reply #24 on: March 16, 2011, 01:59:04 AM »

A couple ideas that I frequently use: As mentioned, a delay or verb panned opposite or somewhat opposite. I'll often use delay times in the neighborhood of 40-100 mS. I usually get a delay with some character at the end of my aux send, as opposed to a cleaner digital delay, which never sounds that great to me.

You might also try incorporating some more stereo micing techniques. I often stereo mic sources that I suspect would normally be mono mic'd by most anyone else, even simple things like a shaker or an overdub electric guitar part. Make the panning happen with your positioning, you can adjust it somewhat down the road as well.

My sense of why you're not liking the sound of these hard panned sources (and I can fall into the same camp as well) is simply that is sound unnatural for a sound to literally be hear by only one ear. Creating a stereo image or counterpart is the general approach I take, whatever method it takes to get there.

Michael Brauer

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Re: Panning tricks
« Reply #25 on: March 16, 2011, 01:34:35 PM »

a couple of the posters on here got a little testy by getting personal. Don't go there guys. I left gearslutz because of this kinda stuff but i'm on here as a moderator and I can do something about it. So just a friendly warning, if you go off topic and start attacking each other, you'll find yourself deleted with a warning that you'll be thrown off. We are not going to do personal attacks on this forum.

michael brauer
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studjo

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Re: Panning tricks
« Reply #26 on: March 22, 2011, 04:14:09 PM »

 :D Michael while you're here spell the beans how you make those wide tracks  :D :D :D

I tried some stuff you guys suggested. That delayed signal to one side never worked for me. I hate the comb filter effect in mono and can't stand the sound in stereo ... so I just pan hard. My console could live with a 3 position pan switch (ok ok almost). When I'm producing and mixing and I know I wanna have an instrument slightly to one side I record it in true stereo (copyright by Bruce Swedien).
Btw DrMS is a nice plug for widening tracks - watch out for mono compatibilty ...
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Federico Acosta

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Re: Panning tricks
« Reply #27 on: March 24, 2011, 02:07:41 AM »

Taking in count the hass effect and the real diferences of sound when the source moves side to side, I took a few days and developed a windows vst, it adjust delay, eq and level (all in the same knob). Far away more realistic than a regular pan-pot (level only).
It obviously works on stereo channels only, but you can route mono signals to stereo mixing channels in most of the programs.
I also added the posibility to name instances to get a clear workflow using multiple instances.
As someone wrote in the forum, be aware when you use it and then convert to mono, it can add Hi frequency comb filter but not much. All the way to one side adds 0.4 ms to the opposite side, at that point the level diference doesīn let you hear the comb, so the comb filter itīs going to be generated from 0.3ms to 0 increasing the effect as sides equals  level (in case you take your stereo mix to mono later). 
For windows users of the forum:


Link:
http://www.federicoacostasonido.com/software/Panning.dll

For install just paste the panning.dll file in to your vst folder.
(hope not to be breaking the forum rules posting this!!)
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cmikk

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Re: Panning tricks
« Reply #28 on: March 25, 2011, 10:47:19 PM »

if i only had a windows..  does anyone know of any other plugin/workflow to make delay panning a little easier? 
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jdier

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Re: Panning tricks
« Reply #29 on: April 14, 2011, 04:30:39 PM »

Note from my sig I am just a home recording hack, but here is my deal:

Due to my lack of computing power and the drain that nice sounding reverbs have on my CPU it is a necessity that I use delays in place of verbs.  And, I pretty much pan stuff 100% L-C-R. 

I set up delay busses that are sync'ed close to the BPM of the song (slower on slow materials and a bit ahead on faster material (typically.))  I usually have an 1/8 note one and a 1/4 note one.   I tag the busses with an EQ that, depending on the material, usually has a high cut around 2k - 5K.

If something is sticking out on one side I will throw it to both of those busses and center the 1/8th return and thrown the 1/4 return opposite the signal.

I set the return levels really high (so it sounds like a grateful dead solo gone horribly wrong) and then, with the rest of the tracks up, I back it off, off, off until I think I cannot hear it.  Then I do the other one like that too.

I struggled with the dup and time shift and short times some of the other guys are working with here because it always wound up sounding too much like a plate or a phase problem.   Maybe I wasn't doing it right.

Hope that helps some.
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Jim Dier - Home Recordist

Almost everything I have recorded is here: R. Mutt and DW

I blog some here: Jim's Sound Lab
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