I've been struggling a lot lately with the whole concept of panning. I'm at the point in my current track where there are lots of sounds happening at once, so therefore I obviously need to pan them to let the track breathe and give it more of a stereo feel.

However, whenever I tweak the panning of a sound by even just 10 or so percent, I find that it is too easily noticeable that it has been panned and it then feels almost like it's only playing on the right or left speaker instead of just a bit more on one than the other.

So is just a classic case of not being able to separate myself from my own music, (meaning that it sounds weird to me because I have made the track and listened to it over and over again therefore any slight adjustment is really easily noticeable and strongly exaggerated in my ears). Or is there some trick that I am skipping, because all I ever use when doing panning work is that basic panning knob located next to every channel.

Any help on this would be great, cheers.

p.s. do you have any good panning/stereo plugins that you would recommend???

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You'll get over it. Listen to your favourite tracks, you'll find a lot of the higher spectrum percs are panned to one side. It gets noticeably less annoying, trust me

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You can try panning another element in the same frequency and volume range to the other side, so it sounds balanced, or you can use a delay or reverb with a slight panning to the other side. Also, just remember that this "problem" will be a lot more noticeable when you are in the early stages of a track, since you haven't got many sounds yet. It may end up resolving itself automatically once you have a fuller arrangement.

quote:

Originally posted by Vector A You can try panning another element in the same frequency and volume range to the other side, so it sounds balanced, or you can use a delay or reverb with a slight panning to the other side. Also, just remember that this "problem" will be a lot more noticeable when you are in the early stages of a track, since you haven't got many sounds yet. It may end up resolving itself automatically once you have a fuller arrangement.

Thanks, I'll try that out

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You don't have to pan everything really wide. You can pan it just so you get an extra bit of clarity.

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quote:

Originally posted by dj_alfi change your avatar for fucks sake.

You do know you can ask a question without 5-10 question marks/exclamation points, right? it doesn't actually make your post "louder" than the others.

i would investigate the different ways people do it. In particular, old-school LCR seems to be making a comeback. Not that i think it is a great idea in a world wear people listen to ear buds but understanding why it is good and bad is how you learn.

The main thing is balance. Don't have either side completely lacking or driving in any particular band. Also prioritize elements. Important things go in the centre, bass can go in the centre but you can do lots of stereo things where you just set a certain frequency highpass that can be distributed but the frequencies you would want to keep in the middle can still be there.

Try to group things. Like if you have 2 synth noises that sort of echo each other , pan those to opposite sides, if you have something doubled, you can have the main sound in the centre, the other sound using m/s on the side giving a nice mono compatible stereo image.

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LCR panning sounds weird to me. Guess I have been spoiled by the new era of mixing.

well there have been some great albums using that technique and there are certain genres especially in the electro realm that sort of mimic alot of the rock that it was used for. Like minimal instruments, distortion and a certain amount of rawness.

It is more common than you think. Not that i think people follow it 100% but the gist behind it. I agree that i think that sort of panning can sound really weird on headaphones which is your end format but i suppose the lesson is to learn different ways to pan. Then you will have a better grasp of what to do when.

The thing that helped me with panning was actually conducting which has nothing to do with mixing. But in a way, what you are doing as a conductor is mixing. But just understanding that field , and knowing what works, what doesn't.

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old stuff from days gone by (2001-2004)
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Actually, I keep forgetting about LCR and when I when I have a project that is not sitting right, the LCR method is a great way to reset your thinking. Then you just begin to pull it back to a normal pan balance and often it sorts it out. LCR doesn;t really work though when you've got a bunch of stereo effects on stuff with some dry tracks as well. Starts to sound all a bit weirdly separated.

Interesting point about conducting though, as essentially conducting is live mixing and arranging but you don't actually have control with pan as such as the instrument locations are fixed, but you can affect "pan" by making a section play quieter etc.

to the OP:

A simple and basic way of thinking of panning is to go by the V theory - the bottom part of the V is your low frequency (bass, lo perc etc) so that is in the center, then as you go up in terms of frequency you can pan the elements wider, until you get to the top of the spectrum and you're panning hard left and right.

Be aware this is the idiots guide to panning, as you can pan any element hard left and right (even bass) if you know what you're doing, but at least the V theory is a good place to start.

I kind of do it in a sequence:

1, get a rough balance of levels with everything panned center
2, Eq shelving to cut away the mud and extra frequencies (not creative eq yet)
3, Now pan everything so they have their own space
4, Now re-adjust levels
5, Do some creative Eq'ing.
6, Get your final level balance and automation done.

well conducting a work you did, and how that sort of melts into your brain. It is like being inside your computer. Like hearing all these sounds, knowing where they are .... There is also the actual placement of the orchestra which can depend on the work.

I would say alot of that traditional stuff really trained my ear. I remember robby saying a year or 2 ago, you haven't been producing , so you probably are as good as you left off but there is so much you can apply and in a way the training is better than anything else out there.

Well mixing, not producting. lol back to your thread about the terms and what not. But i would not consider myself a mixing engineer. I loath it. It is my least favourite part.

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"This is why Superman works alone." GC
old stuff from days gone by (2001-2004)
Mad For Brad's gay little contest