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Difference between panning/stereo separation
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| RobertAllen |
| Anyone know enough to help me out on this? I understand that panning makes the sound more left or right oriented, but stereo separation eludes me. I've messed with it but I don't know what it does or how it can help my mixes sound better. If anyone could give some examples of when/how to use it that would be great. Going to do a thread search but wanted to see if anyone had anything to contribute first. Thanks |
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| derail |
Assuming you mean stereo separation of a single sound, this makes that sound wider. Depending on the original sound, the tool used, and the amount of delay between left and right, it may sound very much like the sound is just panned to one side - our ears will react to the side which reaches us first, and this may totally obscure the fact that the sound is also coming from the other side, slightly later. You'll probably need to spend some time fine tuning the settings, and also check the sound in mono to ensure you haven't introduced any phase cancellation.
Choosing which sounds to make wider is a creative decision, and the best way of determining what you like is to try applying it to various sounds - I find it works well on mid /high bass sounds (low bass is usually mono, centred). Also lead sounds (layering a mono centred lead with a widened, lusher lead can work well) or pad sounds, it really depends on what you want. It's also fine to avoid them entirely, if a given song works better without them. |
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| DJ RANN |
I think the OP needs to clarify what he means;
Does he mean the widening effect, or is he talking about panning elements in the mix to give them separation from each other in the stereo field (i.e. stereo placement)? |
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| RobertAllen |
Thanks derail, you always have good knowledge to share. I was confused on if they were the same terms or exclusive, but now I see that panning is just one tool used to create stereo separation. I should have said that I was referring to a single sound being widened, but also to give the whole a mix a wider sound in the end. I plan on making my basses wider to give the layers more space, as well as my leads and pads. I've noticed a lot of my tracks sound "thin", and I usually try to add too many elements (frequency clashing), so I was wondering if stereo separation would help here.
Also, when you said making a sound wider may introduce phasing issues, how would you put the sound in mono to check? Really clueless on this subject of mixing, any info you have would be great. I am running FL and there is a stereo separation knob on the mixer which you can turn all the way right (merged) so I guess that makes it mono. I also use TP basslane on my master to mono out my sound below 200 hz. I just don't know how to spot any phasing issues. Thanks for all feedback |
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| DJ RANN |
I don't use FL so I can't comment on that but just be a little carefull widening your bass so much. The lower frequencies are the more powerful and they can end up dominating your mix.
The way to think of it is like you sounds being a placed in a V shape;
The lower the frequency, the more it should sit at the bottom of the V and the higher the frequency of a sound the more you can/should/may want to pan it to left or right.
The way I check mono compatibility in logic is to put the gain plugin on the master that has a mono button. This collapses the mix down to mono.
If your mix goes to and you lose too many elements, it means you need to rely less on stereo panning in your mix for your various sounds. If you mono check it and just lose a bit of width, that's fine - the priority is to mix for stereo but not forget about mono. |
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| derail |
Yep Rann, caution needs to be taken with low bass /main bass being widened. As I said, my main bass is usually mono in the centre, because there's a danger of all the low end power suddenly disappearing on the dance floor...
RobertAllen, I generally have a stereo plugin set up on my master channel, bypassed. Then I can quickly check the entire mix, or a solo'd sound, by enabling that plugin for a moment. It's set to make the mix completely mono, and extremely quiet. That, combined with some extreme filtering to remove everything except the midrange, is my best check for a good mix. In terms of being concerned about your mixes sounding "thin", the best advice I can give you is to focus on the midrange. Make sure you can still hear what your bass is doing if you cut out everything under 500Hz. Make sure your leads still have enough weight /body to them (that is, don't cut too much low end away).
If you can still hear all your sounds coming through when your song is in mono, at very low volume, and you've cut pretty much everything under 500Hz and everything over 2000Hz, your song's going to sound good in just about every situation. Get it sounding good (and thick and powerful) in mono before you start enhancing the mix in stereo. |
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| cryophonik |
The main difference between panning and stereo separation is that panning is something done at the track level to position it at the desired position in the stereo field. Separation refers more to the combined effect of panning all of the parts of the mix and how that energy is distributed across the entire stereo spectrum. Ideally, you want a good balance of energy across the stereo field in the upper frequencies, but a narrow width, or mono distribution, in the lower frequencies to reduce the potential for phase cancellation where all the low-end energy is concentrated. This is particularly important for music that is intended to be played on systems with mono subwoofers.
A few good rules of thumb:
- force everything below 100-200 Hz mono, or at least with a narrow width (check it for mono compatibility/phase cancellation)
- panning instruments that occupy similar frequency ranges to opposite sides by an equal(ish) magnitude will help balance the distribution of energy (assuming they have about the same volume)
- the farther apart you pan such instruments, the wider the stereo separation.
- m/s processing or stereo wideners can be applied to individual tracks, sub mixes, or the overall mix to increase apparent width, but watch out for phasey artifacts (esp. with some "stereo-izers") |
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