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Why Are Most of My Panpots Centered?


Anderton

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Looking over recent mixes, I realized that most of my panpots were centered. I've gotten to the point where just about all the instruments are stereo, not "single-point" mono...even vocals are processed with stereo ambience and such. So I'll use panning to maybe "weight" instruments more toward one side than the other, but that's about it. What I'm also finding is that these recordings translate over other systems well, with one of the reasons probably being what Gubu (Adrian) mentioned in his article "Three Reasons Why We're Not Getting the Most out of Streaming Audio" - many times, speakers no longer produce a stereo image anyway.

 

One consequence is I'm doing a lot of checking for mono compatibility, but as the changes aren't usually phase-based, it doesn't make much difference.

 

Anyway, this may not be particularly earth-shaking, but it hit me just how many recording techniques have changed over time. At least for me, this is one such example.

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I mix in mono a lot. When I have everything where I want I go back to stereo. Stereo mixes always sound better that way to me.

 

Getting instruments to sit with each other is easier when mixing in mono as well.

 

However, I still prefer the sound of stereo. We naturally hear things in stereo. I never understood the love of mono recordings.

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I mix in mono a lot. When I have everything where I want I go back to stereo. Stereo mixes always sound better that way to me.

 

Getting instruments to sit with each other is easier when mixing in mono as well.

 

Agreed 100%. Except these days, even my mono signals are stereo :)

 

However, I still prefer the sound of stereo. We naturally hear things in stereo. I never understood the love of mono recordings.

 

Me neither. I will say, however, that I have re-discovered the joy of the occasional "panning as effect" - like a song where a bass slide occurs, and it goes from left to right as it slides. I haven't quite reached the "let's pretend sound is a ping-pong ball" (and hope I don't), but that technique has been in disrepute for so long it almost feels new.

 

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However' date=' I still prefer the sound of stereo. We naturally hear things in stereo. I never understood the love of mono recordings. [/quote']

 

Me either. Especially when it comes to IEM. If I had a dollar for every time some one questioned my desire for stereo in ear monitors... I have two ears for a reason. I hear in stereo. Can you imagine how awkward it would be if all of a sudden you were asked to do a highly visual task like driving a car really fast in front of 10,000 people, but now you have to do it with no depth perception, and in black and white?

 

Ah, the old stereo bounce effect! I'm still waiting for the flanged main mix to make a come back! I swear, the soundtrack to the original Heavy Metal movie should have had the word flanger in the title. Just about every track on that album had that effect on it at some point.

 

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I mix in mono a lot. When I have everything where I want I go back to stereo. Stereo mixes always sound better that way to me.

 

Getting instruments to sit with each other is easier when mixing in mono as well.

 

I agree it's a good approach. If you can clearly hear everything you need to when all the tracks are "stacked" in mono, it's only going to be that much easier once you pan them out. It's great for EQing things... you'll know instantly what blends, clashes, and whether there's room for something or not.

 

However, I still prefer the sound of stereo. We naturally hear things in stereo. I never understood the love of mono recordings.

 

Me too... but I think that a lot of that comes from the attention those mono versions of the 60s era mixes got from their creators. Brian Wilson is deaf in one ear, and he was a big fan of Phil Spector, who was a huge proponent of mono - so that's how he worked. The Beatles records were all mixed mono first (at least prior to them using 8 track machines) and the band was present only for the mono mixes - they thought of stereo as a fad at the time, and didn't put the same importance on the stereo mixes and left them to the EMI engineers do deal with. Of course, there was also limited tracks, and limited mixer capabilities in most studios (three-position L/C/R pan "switches" anyone?) and that severely limited what could be done in terms of the stereo mix.

 

Then again, I've heard some stereo recordings from the 50s and 60s that just knocked me out. Bruce Swedien has shared some things with me that he recorded back then that any modern engineer would be rightfully darned proud of if they recorded them today...

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Live concerts are pretty much a mono experience unless you are just right up front or it's some special venue and the stereo image is part of the intended experience.

 

Over time I've gradually drifted towards considering mono as the fundamental hearing experience for music. Stereo is wonderful, don't get me wrong, but the stereo experience of stereo recorded music is not more realistic if compared to actual live music listening most of the time. Very many of the stereo mixing conventions and experiments are patently unlike the real world listening experience - unless your guitar amp is on a jet pack sailing about the studio from mic to mic, or you are sitting in the drummer's lap (please, anything but that!) or you set up all the instruments in a nice semicircle, separately amped, no mic bleed, and you sit in the sweet spot as the audience.

 

I did buy a pair of the modern equivalent of Auratones, the Avantone Mixcubes, after reading Mike Senior's Mixing Secrets for the Small Studio where he pounds the pulpit over the advantages of mono mixing on a midrange-biased playback setup. I don't think such an emphasis on mono mixing is for everyone, but it works for me - really works. And actually, the Avantones don't sound so bad, either - they are not really Horrortones to my ear at all. And midrange is not ugly, no more than low sounds and high sounds are instrinsically ugly. But midrange is where most of what needs to be said gets said. As is the centered channel in stereo, i.e., mono.

 

I think I can go as far as to say that nowadays I think of stereo as enchanced mono more or less. Stereo treatments can mess up a good mono mix - introduce distractions and more information than is needed musically. Sure, the stereo experience is "bigger" - which, notoriously, is not always better.

 

nat whilk ii

 

 

 

 

 

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Nat has a good point. I didn't actually own a "Stereo" until 1970. All the records I listened to and loved I heard on a monophonic record player. Didn't have a FM radio in my car until 1970.

When I first heard "Ticket to Ride" in stereo it kinda threw me for a loop.

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Live concerts are pretty much a mono experience unless you are just right up front or it's some special venue and the stereo image is part of the intended experience.

 

Agreed. I would surely welcome a listening experience at live venues that were built for surround sound. I was watching a presentation just yesterday at the American Museum of Natural History here in NYC, at their Hayden Planetarium and the sound system was great. Planets flying through the air and the sound racing from left to right and seats shaking… then I started thinking how great it would be to see a concert in a circular room such as the one I was in. The screen was on the ceiling so you had to look up a bit but the sound was all around us. It was really amazing. We could make music an event again if we got away from the standard concert and actually put people into a room specifically designed for listening. At least thats my dream...

 

I think I can go as far as to say that nowadays I think of stereo as enchanced mono more or less. Stereo treatments can mess up a good mono mix - introduce distractions and more information than is needed musically. Sure' date=' the stereo experience is "bigger" - which, notoriously, is not always better.[/quote']

 

Agreed. Working within the context of a stereo format for my entire musical life, its so easy to forget that mono is an option. I`m not dead set against, I just enjoy the sound of stereo much more. But to get to that point, I made an interesting observation about my own style: I`ve been mixing in mono a lot lately but I have also minimized my approach to mixing.

 

Less plug ins on individual tracks, less stereo tracks as well. Ironically, when you can minimize a tracks sonic footprint by often making it smaller, it make the overall mix sound larger because now each track has its own space and there is a dynamic play between parts… when you use less instruments, you`re sort of forced to give each instrument its own voice with, (its own sonic footprint), and just that makes the stereo mix pop a little more.

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Me too... but I think that a lot of that comes from the attention those mono versions of the 60s era mixes got from their creators. Brian Wilson is deaf in one ear, and he was a big fan of Phil Spector, who was a huge proponent of mono - so that's how he worked. The Beatles records were all mixed mono first (at least prior to them using 8 track machines) and the band was present only for the mono mixes - they thought of stereo as a fad at the time, and didn't put the same importance on the stereo mixes and left them to the EMI engineers do deal with. Of course, there was also limited tracks, and limited mixer capabilities in most studios (three-position L/C/R pan "switches" anyone?) and that severely limited what could be done in terms of the stereo mix.

 

Then again, I've heard some stereo recordings from the 50s and 60s that just knocked me out. Bruce Swedien has shared some things with me that he recorded back then that any modern engineer would be rightfully darned proud of if they recorded them today...

 

I have a mono copy of "Sgt Pepper's Lonely Club Band" I bought at the records section at JC Penney when it was released. I'll look forward to listening to it when I finally buy a turntable. My memory is that every time I acquired a stereo copy, or in some cases a CD copy of a stereo vinyl album I owned, I always heard new details that I'd not heard in the previous version. Of course part of this was acquiring better playback equipment over the years.

 

 

 

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Unless the guitar has Hex pickups where you can pan strings left and right you're only getting pseudo stereo, not real stereo. You can apply stereo effects to a mono track to stereoize them various tricks with effects and comb filtering, but the instrument is still essentially a mono source.

 

If you track with dual mics then the room acoustics may have stereo effects but again its still a mono instrument within those room acoustic because the strings and pickups are mono.

 

I have plenty of channels to record with so I always track my guitars to dual channels and dual tracks instead of a single stereo track. Live I use a pair of amps miced separately and when I record direct I used hardware preamps and with pseudo stereo effects like chorus and reverbs they provide a wide field. I don't always need to use both tracks but I usually do in one way or another.

 

This has several advantages over a single mono or stereo track. The most important is you can apply separate effects to each track and if those effects are stereo and the tracks aren't hard panned you can get a quazi quad effect happening. I may put a dry chorus on the right track panned 66% and reverb on the left paned the same, then do just the opposite with the second guitar part.

 

As I pan the reverbs up the center fills with room sound and the mix remains mono compatible. This leaves a hole in the center for vocals, drums and bass but the guitars still wrap around those parts like they are in a different part of the room. You can also apply effects pre or post fader and drive them at different levels.

 

I also buss my instruments separately and can apply stereo effects in the Buss and find some work better there. If the two channels have equal volumes I can also pan form the Buss.

 

I've tried to use stereo tracks, but I normally reserve that for things like stereo Keyboards, drum machines etc where you really don't need to apply separate effects to each side. Vocals and Bass are almost always mono tracks unless I'm doing something like tracking bass direct and miced or using two mics on the vocals and want the two separated or use the two to create different blends. That's pretty hard to do with a single stereo track.

 

I haven't used mono guitar tracks in a real long time in the studio. I've done live stuff with single mics but even then I usually have boundary mics to play with. Even if I did I'd likely copy the mono track and apply separate effects. I rarely use more then 5 or 6 instruments including vocals so having the additional tracks can be used to fill in space. If I had more complex recordings I'd need the extra space so having narrow mono tracks would be a much better option.

 

You'd think a mono track panned center would be the same as two mono tracks panned left and right but the panning laws do affect the sound and the feed levels to the effects plugins in different ways depending on what they are. Plus like I said, I usually have a pseudo stereo feed tracking and may want to alter one side or the other when fine tuning the mix. If I get it wrong tracking to a stereo track I have fewer options available.

 

The one thing I should do is play with the panning laws in Sonar. I know they're there and it may be worthwhile messing with them to see how it affects the stereo effects.

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I have a mono copy of "Sgt Pepper's Lonely Club Band" I bought at the records section at JC Penney when it was released. I'll look forward to listening to it when I finally buy a turntable. My memory is that every time I acquired a stereo copy, or in some cases a CD copy of a stereo vinyl album I owned, I always heard new details that I'd not heard in the previous version. Of course part of this was acquiring better playback equipment over the years.

 

 

 

Having bought the US stereo release right off, I've been intrigued by the original mono Sgt Pepper's mixes. I have to say, I think I prefer the stereo mixes. That's not always the case for me with 60s stereo mixes/remixes (and, of course, many times the stereo versions were actual re-recordings, sometimes better, sometimes worse, but always different. And, let's face it, when you bond with something...

 

That last said, though, I've found myself all over the map. Sometimes I still prefer the familiar mixes and sometimes I prefer the version I hadn't bonded to. A buddy gave me a copy of the contemporary stereo remix of Help! -- I have to say, overall, they did a great job. I compared familiar mono versions with the stereo versions and -- defying all my expectations -- I really liked the stereo mixes. Go figure. ;)

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I've looked and looked. I can't find any panpots anywhere!!!!! I mean, sure, I see them when I open Pro Tools, but they're not real. I reach over to the monitor to turn them, but they don't turn!!!!!!

 

I either need a real Harrison console or a Wacom so I can do something with the panpots!!!

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FWIW, I went through a period when, on the basis of glowing recommendations from grand old man of the recording world, Bruce Swedien, I experimented with stereo miking of acoustic instruments and amplifiers and even vocals.

 

Bruce's work, of course, pretty much has always sounded great. But he has been able to work in mostly best-case-scenarios in large part. When he stereo mics something, it's usually a fine instrument (and amp where applicable) being played by a top class player in a great room. And, I'm thinking, usually going into a pair of first class mics.

 

In my bizarro version of that world, these days I'm typically recording myself, a crap singer, playing a cheap guitar of some kind, going through a noisy Fender amp where applicable, in a compromised live room (that's typically my mix room, too).

 

When I was doing more electronic/club influenced music, I would DI stereo synth pads and such straight into the mix.

 

But as I moved more to roots and more acoustic/real world instruments and sounds, I found myself -- despite some misgivings -- moving increasingly toward 'relaxed' LCR mixes -- mostly channeling to the classic '3 virtual channels' but 'relaxing' the spread of the drums a little from straight mono to maybe a 10 to 2 spread.

 

The more crowded the mix, the more 'channeled' I keep things, as a rule.

 

But if the mix is limited to a small combo, I'll let things spread out more. I basically 'visualize' the band across the virtual proscenium of the speakers. If it's a big band, I 'see' them as spread across the stage. The drummer's kit, of course, occupies a smaller percentage of such a virtualized layout than, say, it would with a small combo -- in the latter case, I'll let the drums spread out a little to fill the space created by a minimal arrangement. But if there are horns and multiple keyboards and guitars and such, I'll tuck those drums in some. (It's not a linear process, mind you, more suggestive of the relative spacing.

 

I'll do same with stereo pianos -- even in a minimalist arrangement. I'll narrow the spread to taste. I don't go for that 16 foot wide keyboard vibe. ;)

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Just a reminder here - "two tracks" is not automatically "stereo." If you mic an acoustic guitar with one mic around the 12th fret and another mic over the bridge, or mic an amplifier with one mic against the grill and one mic several feet out in the room, even if you pan one of the mics left and the other right, you don't have stereo, you have two different guitar sounds coming from different places.

 

When you "pan" sources like this to the center, or to the same position, you get a blend of the two sources, which is pretty much what you're after. If you pan them to different places, you get two sources, not one wide source.

 

If you have a pair of mics over a drum kit, then you have stereo, or something resembling it.

 

"Stereo" comes from a Greek word that means "solid," as in three-dimensional. It doesn't mean two sources.

 

Now we return you to your regularly scheduled philosophies.

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Just a reminder here - "two tracks" is not automatically "stereo." If you mic an acoustic guitar with one mic around the 12th fret and another mic over the bridge' date=' or mic an amplifier with one mic against the grill and one mic several feet out in the room, even if you pan one of the mics left and the other right, you don't have stereo, you have two different guitar sounds coming from different places.[/quote']That's how it typically sounds to me... I hear two mics on two parts of a guitar in two places. I guess it's from miking a lot of guitars. wink.png I suspect 'naive' listeners -- including a huge number of people talking about the topic in recording forums -- hear it as a sort of 'stereo' image, not as separate sounds.

 

(Much, I suppose, as different people hear phase shift cancellation to different extents at different delays. As one becomes more attuned to dealing with extremely short delays, one's perception of them increases rather profoundly, hearing separate sounds where at one time you may have heard 'phase cancellation.' I mean, there was a time when I didn't think a second was a real long time. But it is. For many of our purposes.)

 

If you back off that miking, moving back several feet and using matched mics, you can get a nice coherent stereo image but it won't have the 'curb appeal' (for some) that the close-miked version will.

 

When you "pan" sources like this to the center, or to the same position, you get a blend of the two sources, which is pretty much what you're after. If you pan them to different places, you get two sources, not one wide source.

 

But, you're also going to unavoidably get phase cancellation anomalies, even if you try to make the mics 'equidistant' -- because a guitar, of course, doesn't put out sound from just one spot (and, of course, the sound emanating changes fairly dramatically based on aspect angle -- which does diminish phase 'interference' to some extent).

 

If you have a pair of mics over a drum kit, then you have stereo, or something resembling it.

 

"Stereo" comes from a Greek word that means "solid," as in three-dimensional. It doesn't mean two sources.

 

Now we return you to your regularly scheduled philosophies.

wink.png
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Clarification for some, although for many of you, this will be pedantic.

 

Mike is simply describing what is actually considered "stereo". There's nothing necessarily wrong with two microphones in two places that are panned. It's just that it's not actually stereo.

 

I've done tons of different kinds of two-microphone setups with acoustic guitar. And a few years ago, I gravitated back to one large diaphragm condenser about 2-3 feet back from the guitar, right in front of where the body meets the neck. Simple, sounds great, forgiving on string squeaks and player/guitar movement, done. I don't do it all the time, of course. It depends on the need of the song. But most of the time, yeah.

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If you back off that miking, moving back several feet and using matched mics, you can get a nice coherent stereo image but it won't have the 'curb appeal' (for some) that the close-miked version will.

 

Every conceivable mic setup is right for something. But we can't be right all the time. ;)

 

But, you're also going to unavoidably get phase cancellation anomalies, even if you try to make the mics 'equidistant' -- because a guitar, of course, doesn't put out sound from just one spot (and, of course, the sound emanating changes fairly dramatically based on aspect angle -- which does diminish phase 'interference' to some extent).

 

The amount of phase cancellation diminishes significantly when there's little in common in what the two mics receive. The "three-to-one rule" (which, when using cardioid mics becomes the "two-and-a-half-to-one rule" pretty much works. But you need to be sensible about it. Those rules apply to nominally close-miked setups. With one mic over the bridge or lower bout and another up near the neck joint, with both 4-6 inches from the instrument, you just aren't going to get a significant amount of phase cancellation. Sure, the sound of one mic will change when you add the other mic to it, but it'll be because you're adding different amounts of the same set of frequencies at whatever time they arrive at the mics.

 

There's usually no point in miking the guitar with two mics six feet away, one pointed at the neck and the other at the bridge. What arrives at both mics will be substantially similar and you will get some phase cancellation. You could treat them as a spaced stereo pair, taking advantage of the phase shift between them if the room sounds particularly good. Or you could move them close together and treat them as a coincident pair (again, if the room sounds good) with less "phasey" sound. Or you could say to heck with the room, because it doesn't sound very good anyway, move the mics in close, and pick your favorite ambience out of a box or plug-in.

 

 

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Once you're past the triangulation point of an even sided triangle using two mics on an acoustic guitar, any stereo effects coming from the pick vs fret noise is likely going to diminish quickly, even with highly directional mics. What you capture at a distance is a combination of the direct mono signal and room reflection. If the room is padded and all reflection is absorbed its only going to be mono with whatever phase differences the mics produce.

 

Its the reflections in a room that give the mono instrument a pseudo stereo effect. This can be important in a mix from a placement aspect, front rear or side to side but its still a single instrument producing single tones. True stereo requires two or more independent sources of sound. They can be the same instrument, but the human qualities of playing the instrument with varying tempo, dynamics and techniques is heard by the listener as two different individuals separated by space.

 

What the mind interprets is the key here. There's allot of things you can do to trick a stereo effect, detune, reflect, delay or move a sound within a field, but they are all tricks most trained ears can detect as being tricks. Its not that they're bad, in fact they are used all the time. But unless the actual notes have physical distance from one another its really not stereo.

 

I guess a guitarist running around on a stage between two mics with an acoustic guitar or amp strapped to him would create a stereo effect, just not a true stereo image unless he's ambidexter and is able to play one in each hand at the same time.

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Once you're past the triangulation point of an even sided triangle using two mics on an acoustic guitar, any stereo effects coming from the pick vs fret noise is likely going to diminish quickly, even with highly directional mics.

 

Pick noise and fret noise aren't stereo effects. They're mono sources radiating in several different directions, just like a guitar. The thing is that a guitar, in fact just about every instrument, sounds different when you hear it from different directions, even in an anechoic environment.

 

What you capture at a distance is a combination of the direct mono signal and room reflection. If the room is padded and all reflection is absorbed its only going to be mono with whatever phase differences the mics produce.

 

If you want to place two mics so that they pick up pretty much the same sound but out of phase and use that as a "stereo effect," that's fine. But recording the room sound is really stereo, because the sound is coming into the mics from all directions. As the mics move away from the source and further into the room, you get less direct sound and more reverberant sound. Getting the right balance to suit the purpose of the recording is what you should aim for. Forget the "stereo effect" or phase differences. They'll take care of themselves.

 

Its the reflections in a room that give the mono instrument a pseudo stereo effect. This can be important in a mix from a placement aspect, front rear or side to side but its still a single instrument producing single tones.

 

What is this "mono instrument" of which you speak? Different harmonics go off in different directions and, assuming there's a room, reflect at different angles, and through different paths before they reach the mics. I think that you're confusing "mono" with "direct sound."

 

If you place a pair of directional mics somewhere near a guitar in an anechoic chamber, each mic will pick up something different. If you pan them left and right, you'll get a sense of width. But what you're hearing is a stereo reproduction of a stereo, not a mono source.

 

True stereo requires two or more independent sources of sound. They can be the same instrument, but the human qualities of playing the instrument with varying tempo, dynamics and techniques is heard by the listener as two different individuals separated by space.

 

I'm not sure what you're talking about here. Tempo, dynamics, and techniques have nothing to do with acoustical space. A stereo recording requires many, many sources of sound, all originating at the same time, though mostly arriving at the microphones at different times, and with different spectral content.

 

There's allot of things you can do to trick a stereo effect, detune, reflect, delay or move a sound within a field, but they are all tricks most trained ears can detect as being tricks. Its not that they're bad, in fact they are used all the time.

 

Well, of course. this is where "panpot stereo" comes in. We send a sound to a single speaker of a pair ("hard panned") and it clearly sounds like it's coming from that direction. Pan it so that its volume is the same in both speakers and it will sound like it's coming from a point between them. Panned somewhere in between one side and center so that the level is different in the two speakers and it will sound like it's coming from somewhere in the half of the room where the loudest speaker is.

 

You can do the same thing with delay. Send the same signal to both speakers at equal amplitude but delay the signal to one speaker. It will sound like it's coming from the speaker from which it arrives at your ear first.

 

But these basically move a sound along a horizontal line between the two speakers. True stereo doesn't really happen until you can get a sense, not only of left-to-right orientation, but-front-to back oritentation. Most of those cues come from the ratio of direct to reverberant sound, and to have reverberant sound, you have to record the room, or simulate it. More direct sound make it appear closer to you, more reverberant sound makes it appear further away. You get this distance sense even if the pan pots are centered.

 

Anybody can turn a pan pot for one-dimensionnal panning, adding the reverberant field gives you a second dimension. Today's multi-channel playback systems with speakers on the ceiling add the third dimension of height. That's where mixing gets tricky.

 

I guess a guitarist running around on a stage between two mics with an acoustic guitar or amp strapped to him would create a stereo effect, just not a true stereo image unless he's ambidexter and is able to play one in each hand at the same time.

 

Naw, you can do that with a quad pan pot.

 

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I think I can go as far as to say that nowadays I think of stereo as enchanced mono more or less. Stereo treatments can mess up a good mono mix - introduce distractions and more information than is needed musically. Sure, the stereo experience is "bigger" - which, notoriously, is not always better.

 

 

 

When all of your sound sources are "stereo" and you pan everything to the center then enhanced mono is really what you get. And a cool "stereo" keyboard patch or "stereo" effects return that may sound great on it's own often times loses it's character when it's mixed with a bunch of other center panned "stereo" tracks.

 

Another problem is that so many effects and keyboard patches seem to be designed to sound best when panned to the center. When you try to pan them to the left or right many of them seem to lose their character. It's like you are losing part of the sound or effect. I wish more VST instruments and effects had mono versions.

 

Many of my favorite recordings (especially recordings from the sixties and seventies) have mono instruments panned across a wide aural sound stage and many of them have a lot of hard panned left and right instruments. A lot of times I hear instruments that are hard panned dry on one side while the reverb or effects return will be hard panned to the other side. Yet they sound balanced with a lot of pan space between instruments while nothing sounds out of place.

 

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Most of what I record these days are instruments and processors that have stereo output, even when there is a monophonic source. When performing live, I use a Korg Kross to sequence music with stereo output to the mixer. I use a line 6 Amplifi FX100 for guitar processing and stereo output to the mixer. I use a Digitech Vocalist Live 3 for vocal eq, processing and real time harmony with stereo send to the mixer. The mixer has 3 stereo pair, all pan pots centered. These days, I find very little need to use pan pots.

 

Here is an example

 

 

 

 

In the studio, the arrangement is the same, except the lead vocal is recorded on a mono track panned center with a single LC mic, usually Neumann or Blue. To my ear, the results are similar to the live example. Perhaps the lead vocal is more focused centrally in the studio version, but there is very little difference, especially when the mono vocal track has plug ins for reverb and delay. Frankly, for my own recordings the stereo presentation is mostly pre-set in the source instrument or processor. If I am recording live music of clients, then the pan pots are used extensively. I will also record classical vocalists with an xy stereo pair much the same way Bruce Swedien did.

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