Panning the Stereo Drum Kit

[jbr]

(using PTLE)

 

I have 8 drum tracks bussed to an stereo Aux Input track for easy volume/mute/solo operations. The individual drum tracks are panned for the kit itself. FWIW I am a drummer & clearly understand where the individual parts sit.

 

I usually pan the stereo Drum Aux Track between 35-50, not hard L&R, as I picture a kit on a stage taking up about that much visual space.

 

Is this reasonable to sit in the overall mix?

I'm curious as to where are other people pan their drum kit?

And if you use a verb and/or room mics, do you pan those to the same spot?

 

Thanks for your time,

Jim

[philbo]

I agree, generally... Though it depends a lot on the music and what you want to do with it.

 

When I use a MIDI sound module for drums, I usually find myself narrowing the stereo image to about 1/3 of the pan range. Not always necessarily through the center, though.

 

Many people mix to try to recreate some sort of idealized sound stage, and spacially place the drums into an area of this imaginary stage. This can help create the illusion of a real band playing together in a real space.

 

On the other hand, I've heard lots of big prog rock bands live where the drum kit was panned wide across the FOH mains -- It can be pretty spectacular to have a drum roll through the toms create a pan sweep across a 150 ft stage! (Kinda hard to reproduce that on a home stereo, of course...)

 

The main rule is that there are no rules... Just keep playing with the knobs till it sounds good, and avoid relying on mix formulas too much...

[Headswitch]

I haven't worked with real drums a lot, but on a scale where 0 is center and -/+100 is hard L/R, I pan the OH's 50/50. This gives enough stereo image without sounding too wide.

 

 

 

Originally posted by jbr And if you use a verb and/or room mics, do you pan those to the same spot?

 

 

That's something I'd like to hear as well.

[jbr]

Thanks for your input!

 

And I'd really like to hear others comments as well.

[Lee Knight]

Panning the OH's 50 left, 50 right, is going to set the outer boundries of the actual drum placement... I'd pan the verbs wider in this case.

 

If you're standing in a room with a kit, the floor tom is hit, boom, there it is. The reflections though will be wider than the tom placement. Right? The wall is... how many feet off of the floor tom?

 

I frequently do this...

 

75/75 for the overheads

Reverb on overall kit, 100/100

Reverb on just the snare, 50/50

 

This sounds pretty natural... if you WANT natural.

 

 

On the other hand, what I try to do in tracking, is place the mics so I'll eventually pan the OH's 100/100. Move the mics to create the image you want while tracking. When I hear the OH's, I want the floor tom where it really is... not all the way over to the left, but pretty far. Then, in the OH's still, I want to hear the ambience of the room , farther off to the right. This sounds the best to my ears.

[where02190]

Typically if I add reverb to drums, I send the overheads to a stereo reverb in stereo (in otherwords, buss them to a sub so the L/R reverb inputs follows the OH panning). I pan the reverb hard L/R and thus the reverb panning follows the OH panning. Typcially I pan them (which is usually a Shure VP-88 stereo M-S mic) no more than 9-3 o'clock, and no less than 11-1.)

 

I'll occaisionally send the room mic (one, usually a Rode NTK or AKGC4000 in omni) to this same sub, and it is panned center.

 

IF I use only one overhead, I use two room mics, and follow the same guidelines.