Panning: Best/Most Interesting Examples

[rlm297]

I was reading articles on Sound on Sound about Mixing and I was left with this impression that while everyone uses panning for tracks, there are many schools of thought on what constitutes smart panning.

 

Some have even said to over emphasize stereo and only use three panning points to lock the tracks into: dead center, hard left, and hard right. This seemed interesting.

 

What are some albums with the Best/Most interesting examples of panning? Are there any albums where the panning works on levels that audio dynamic range cannot?

 

I'm kind of bored with the usual drums/vocals dead center, bass a little off center, and guitars left and right and texture in between the cracks.. Where have artists deviated from this other than the Beatles throwing all instruments left and all vocals right?

 

Have any rock albums been viewed as having "great panning" or is that something neither here nor there?

 

"The Downward Spiral" seems to do this well, but there have to be some in the rock realm, not mixed for surround systems.

[chris carter]

I pretty much only pan L/C/R. About 99% of the time at least. I don't find much need for the other crap inbetween; it doesn't serve a lot of purpose. I like purpose

[UstadKhanAli]

T-Bone Burnett has done some of the most extreme panning while sounding very natural and unnoticeable. The guy is truly an amazing producer, one of the best ones working right now, in my opinion.

 

I like the panning / placement with "Kind of Blue" (Miles Davis) as well.

[zack]

Taking Back Sunday's "Tell All Your Friends" has a lot of vocals and guitar panning that's all over the place in a good way, but the Beatles are the only ones I could think of that used weird panning.

[Instrospection]

The Flaming Lips do this alot on all of their records, they're one of the biggest bands that do it to as an extreme enough level.

 

One trick that you can do is put the dry sound in one channel, then the wet (reverbed) channel in the other, creating this interesting ping pong effect. Since there's such a difference in the textures, it makes it sound bigger than it actually is, I think. Autopanners can be useful, but I find that in a large mix, they often get lost.

 

A good way to make the best of the stereo field, is to record similar performances, but with different tones or harmonies or textures. You can sort of co-ordinate things ahead of time that way to be interesting in the mix. That way, it sounds sort of like the same thing, but maybe there's a clean guitar in the left channel, and a fuzz guitar in the right; maybe the lead vocals are in the right channel and the backing vocals are in the left channel. Or in doubt, something can be hard panned in one channel, and then an octave higher or lower in the other one.

 

Some sounds don't work as well on too much separation (I tend to like mixing vocal harmonies or guitar harmonies or strings into one channel, as they sound more cohesive and the slight timing/ phrasing errors all seem to cancel each other out for a heightened chorus/ choir effect), but for some things--especially percussion--you can separate things to give the sense of there being more there than there actually is. The space, reverb and room sound can all create different harmonics and textures--i've found some individual parts and performances in songs to have been liberated when they're hard panned, as you can hear them better and they're kind of doing their own thing against the song, but in a good way. Drums in one channel and bass in the other is a pretty effective thing, because you're getting different rhythmic parts that drive each channel.

[samtrips]

Bad Example - The Small Faces, Song Of A Baker - hilarious drum pans.

 

Good Example - Jimi Hendrix - Electric Ladyland LP. Headphones are your friend. or Buffalo Springfield - Expecting to Fly - at one point the mix just shifts sides with great effect.

[samtrips]

And The Beatles crappy stereo on the early mixes tends just to be because of the newness of their using stereo - most were mainly mixed in mono and then re-stereo'd later by splitting the tracks - 2 or 4! - into the left and right.

 

It's not particularly intended - they didn't visit during the mixing in the early years, and when they did have more control they still tended to work in mono - even Revolver and Sgt Peppers were mixed in mono by the Beatles and the stereo was an afterthought. They didn't even stereo mic a drum kit till Abbey Road I think.

[Instrospection]

 

And The Beatles crappy stereo on the early mixes tends just to be because of the newness of their using stereo - most were mainly mixed in mono and then re-stereo'd later by splitting the tracks - 2 or 4! - into the left and right. It's not particularly intended - they didn't visit during the mixing in the early years, and when they did have more control they still tended to work in mono - even Revolver and Sgt Peppers were mixed in mono by the Beatles and the stereo was an afterthought. They didn't even stereo mic a drum kit till Abbey Road I think.

 

 

No kidding. The worst was when the labels released stereo recordings of mono mixes--just copying the mono on both sides.

[BushmasterM4]

Just listen to any classic rock, hell any music before the 90's. The Doors were great at mixing it up. There really isnt any rules when it comes to panning or recording/mixing in general. Put on any Led Zep. album and every song is different. So mix it up The average listener will not notice, just us fellow recording guys. And we dont count. But, it would be kind of nice to know, where that notion you had to place stuff in certain areas of the mix came from. But most music from 1990's and on, uses that Im watching the band, panning law. Throw it away !!!! Do what you want !!!!

[WRGKMC]

I'm one who actually liked the way the beatles albums were mixed. It was cool having the drums and bass on one side, guitars on another and a split on the vocals. I've mimicked those tempelate as well as many others many times and its taught me alot. Its not easy to do though unless you have good tracks and good EQing to begin with. saying the beatles werent there for stereo mixing is not a big deal. Most musicians in those days werent. They werent mastering engineers. By the results of how many albums they sold I think the engineers did a dam good job. of course they had great tracks to work with.

 

I think the L/R/C is probibly the most basic and easiest mix. Its easier to bury faults if they exist, but I can say its boaring as hell too. Not much effort has to be planned into it for sure.

 

Mono is actually a bigger challange for many who never tried it. If you can get a great mono mix its pretty easy to get any kind of panning you want because the instruments are already within their proper tonal ranges. The challences of changing a mono mix to stereo does have its challanges too. Clumping all high or low frequencies would obviously sound unbalanced so grouping complementary instruments to each side is the trick. Most keep the drums centered because there isnt alot that can compete with the high frequencies as a counterbalance on the opposite channel besides crispy vocals. it is worth experimenting with though. You can get a bigger instrument sound on one channel if it isnt competing with cymbals kick or bass. cross reverb can be used to fill alot of gaps too if it still sounds off balance. if the drums are on one channel, the reverb sizzel on the opposite channel can fill frequency gaps to give the sound decen stereo balance.