while listening to trance through headfones, i have picked up on tricks.

a lot of tracks have stuff like percussion/hi-hats coming from ONLY one side (L or R).

i have heard a MIKE track where he has the bassline alternating left to right. L,R,L,R etc. so if you put the balance fully left or right, then you would only hear half of the bassline pumping. (every other bass)

you dont notice it when listening over the speakers. is there advantages when doing this in production?

heard some old oliver lieb tracks which done this and brand new electronica tracks. and even the beatles - the end. this does it more than any trance track i've heard. bongo's at one ear and snares on the other, even swapping around and panning L to R.

any thoughts?

dont do it

quote:

Originally posted by rubez any thoughts?

only one.


















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ive started doing this with some elements. the kick and bass always go down the middles in mono tho.

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If you plan to play out your stuff in a club, be careful. Some club PAs are mono, so if you used too much panning, things will sound weird or sometimes even disappear.

Even if you play your stuff on a stereo PA, the most dominant elements should still be mono, so they are equally powerful on every side of the club/location. In larger places, the phase shifting can get quite noticeable because unless you are standing right in the middle of the 2 speakers, sound will take different time to travel from the left speaker to you than it will take to travel from the right speaker. The dominant elements should be heard by all people at the same time at the same volume.

Panning in your bass is usually a big no-no, unless you know exactly and 100% what you're doing. Theres stereo phase shifting and a lot of ugly stuff like that. With stereo FX, in 99% of the cases the sub range loses a lot of its punch.

If I want a "wide" sounding bassline, I usually just keep it mono, and add some wide, panning delay just on the >200hz range of my bassline.

If I am making a percussion set with some stereo width, I stick with the rule that I can pan everything but kick, snare/clap and open hihat. Adding a soft stereo phaser to a closed hihat line is usually a good way to widen things a bit without losing the punchiness of mono.

With FX, anything goes. Spacy Intro FX usually work best when panned wide. I like the effect of a sweep that moves from left to right, this sounds awesome especially when listening on headphones.

Not exactly a tip on panning, but vocals, guitar lines and midrange leads are often duplicated, with one instance panned hard left and the other panned hard right. I honestly dont know why this is done, but I feel like this improves presence.

In general, from my personal experience: if you feel that a mid/high range element needs more movement or space, try to add a stereo delay, or a chorus/flanger/phaser on it, instead of just panning this element to one side. While the first option makes your element sound more "alive", the second option will monst likely just make your mix worse, by unbalancing the levels of left and right.

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The Bassy elements go in the centre, the kick and bass pref in mono. The reason is that the human brain have a harder time picking up on where the lower frequencies come from anyway. And it sounds better.

But with high freq, fiddle about, I always put stereo seperation on hihats and that.

There was a good thread about this a few months back, which likened a track's stereo seperation as an upside-down pyramid, where the lower freq's are the bottom and the higher are on top. And that's how you want your track to be. The higher up the frequency-scale, the wider the stereo-image should be.

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quote:

Originally posted by cybernetica If you plan to play out your stuff in a club, be careful. Some club PAs are mono, so if you used too much panning, things will sound weird or sometimes even disappear.

You can however check the track for mono compatibility, this tool is very handy to do so, in that way, you can make sure your tracks sounds wide on stereo, but still good in mono.

quote:

Panning in your bass is usually a big no-no, unless you know exactly and 100% what you're doing.

You can use mid-side mixing to do this, while there still is mono (it phases the side out, keeping the mid) compatibility, you are able to really widen sounds. Most of the time I use a stereo bass, it's not a big problem. You have to keep the low frequencies in the middle though, you can do that easily with this tool.

Kick and bass should not be panned indeed. But it's no problem to use a stereo kick, I always do that, sounds somewhat nicer. You can widen your bass from aprox. 150Hz up. [/QUOTE]

quote:

Not exactly a tip on panning, but vocals, guitar lines and midrange leads are often duplicated, with one instance panned hard left and the other panned hard right. I honestly dont know why this is done, but I feel like this improves presence.

This is done to get a huge stereo effect, you however missed one thing. You have to offset them with a couple a miliseconds (to your taste ofcourse), if you have them panned dead center, you will probably get phase cancellation, but when you pan them hard left and right, it's really awesome. You can also do this on claps and snares, try it out!

I always try to make a track sound wide, you are not only producing to get your track played in a club. But the most important thing is the keep mono-compatibility at all times, so you should really check out the tool I gave above, it works a wonder!

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Thanks for that tool, I'm sure I'll use this one a lot... and some very useful knowledge mate!

If you want to tame the stereo spread of your bass range, I know another (free) tool that works very well for me: OtiumFX Basslane

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Make it as wide as you want but then MSED the ******.

Or split the bass down two channels, one with MSED>M and the other MSED>S and boost the side by +1/1db.

I made a great bassline using three mono versions. the hard LR panned has slightly different pitches (few cents) and slightly diff blend of saw/square to subtly make a difference and open the sound up. I then had a light reverbed mono version in the middle

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quote:

Originally posted by cybernetica Not exactly a tip on panning, but vocals, guitar lines and midrange leads are often duplicated, with one instance panned hard left and the other panned hard right. I honestly dont know why this is done, but I feel like this improves presence.

I believe that what you meant to refer to is double-tracking. That's a lot different than duplicating/hard-panning (which, as mentioned, is generally not recommended due to phasing issues). Double-tracking (or, multi-tracking, if more than 2 takes are used) is when you record the same line twice as identical as possible, then pan the two tracks opposite each other (or, to different places in the stereo field when more than 2 tracks are used). The natural variability in pitch and timing between the tracks will thicken up the overall track - a natural chorus effect, while avoiding the phasing that occurs when a duplicate track is used. It's very effective when done right.

As far as panning goes, I generally keep kick, bass, and lead vocals dead center and everything else gets panned around the stereo field to avoid too much clutter. But, I rarely pan anything beyond 50-60% (aside from double-tracked vocals). Even percussion lines panned 30% in one direction will usually sound like it's coming out of that side when heard with the entire mix through headphones, although the overall distribution of energy will be more balanced.

Also, I tend to counterbalance when panning to keep the overall (average) balance of energy in the middle. I do this by panning elements in similar frequency ranges roughly the same distance apart. For example, if I have a shaker and a hi-hat line playing simultaneously, I may pan one 25% left and the other 25% right. Sometimes, one of those elements has more frequency "weight" to it, so the panning may be 15% left/35% right. Similar approach for synths, guitars, etc. Ultimately it comes down to what my ears tell me, not what my L/R meters are telling me. But, that's just my general approach. YMMV.

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quote:

Originally posted by cybernetica If you plan to play out your stuff in a club, be careful. Some club PAs are mono, so if you used too much panning, things will sound weird or sometimes even disappear. Even if you play your stuff on a stereo PA, the most dominant elements should still be mono, so they are equally powerful on every side of the club/location. In larger places, the phase shifting can get quite noticeable because unless you are standing right in the middle of the 2 speakers, sound will take different time to travel from the left speaker to you than it will take to travel from the right speaker. The dominant elements should be heard by all people at the same time at the same volume. Panning in your bass is usually a big no-no, unless you know exactly and 100% what you're doing. Theres stereo phase shifting and a lot of ugly stuff like that. With stereo FX, in 99% of the cases the sub range loses a lot of its punch. ....

I've heard this and similar statements a lot when reading about mixing etc... I'm interested if this still applies to today's age,, because I don't think I've ever been to a club that had mono PA and I don't think I have any devices at home that only have one speaker (I might have a really old TV with one speaker).

And, yes I understand how frequencies/speakers/sound pressure works (at least I think I do); Both speakers playing a kick simultaneously (i.e. mono) should provide higher energy -> more sound pressure -> higher volume.
But I've heard so many tracks that don't have mono kicks - right off the top of my head Tiesto - Ten seconds before sunrise, Tiesto - Love Comes Again, Tiesto - Do you feel me, (and I think also, but I haven't checked) Tiesto - Flight 643. I've named those tracks, because I like Tiesto's production (sound wise) so I check out his tracks in Audition with analyzers and stuff to see what's happening.
For example 'Love comes again' has a very distinctive stereo kick which is achieved by delaying one side of the kick by only a few miliseconds/samples (Haas effect). Now that's a track from 2004 and it doesn't have a mono kick. Same for example 'Dallas 4 PM' which doesn't have a mono bass. And I think some tracks on the new album from Cosmic Gate also don't have mono kicks. And I think I heard a lot of "stereo kicks" in Sied van Riel productions. That's just the top of my head though.
I've also watched a video from a respected producer who says to it's a good thing to check for mono compatibility if you plan on your music being played on TV, because some poor bastards in Ethiopia probably still have only mono TVs.

I've read a lot of interviews and stuff on Tiesto's team and he and Dennis have a whole team mixing his tracks on Dynaudio Air surround speakers (40,000 euro a piece) so they know what they're doing.


So my question is how much does this rule apply to today's standards? I'm guessing it was a good thing back in the 80s and early 90s, but nowadays almost everyone has a stereo TV, hifi, headphones etc... And as I said, I've never been to a club, concert, event that had mono PA.

I do agree about the vocals, though. Because they just sound strange when not in mono, especially if you listen through headphones.

Some times, especially during break beat sections of a track I'll pan a part of a kick to either side. Just to be subtle, not sure if anyone recommends it though.

This thread has helped me a lot with stereo width and the many techniques for it.

http://www.tranceaddict.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=498378&highlight=Stereo+Width

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