You and Panning and You

Matt Till · #1 11-09-2004, 03:28 PM

Does anyone beside me hate heavily panned bass and or drums? A lot of early rock recordings. Beatles, Cream, etc. They pan the bass and or drums heavily. It's not so bad when you are listening to it on a stereo, but with headphones it's like death.

This is just a pet peeve of mine. I like the bass drum dead center, bass maybe a little bit in either direction, guitar/keys/etc panned quite a bit as long as something on the other side to balance it. Vocals in most cases are fairly centered too.

Thoughts?

Benjamin Strange · #2 11-09-2004, 03:32 PM

Back then, most people were listening to recordings in mono. Stereo was a relatively new thing then. They also didn't have the luxury of multiple tracks for instruments, so they had to record all the drums on to one track. To help them sit better in the mix, they used hard panning. Sorry dude.

Stinsok · #3 11-09-2004, 04:09 PM

Absolutely hate it. When you hear music live it is not "panned."
When I first got married we live in a mobile home that had a built in stereo. If the Beatles came on, depending on where you were in the house, you could only hear vocals or music-not both.

Dave Grossman · #4 11-09-2004, 04:37 PM

I pan my drum mixes (we mike and record everything separately) so that the relative positions of each element in the sound field is the same as if I was standing right in front of the drums. It adds some depth to the sound. I do keep the bass drum and snare very close to center since that's where they are when I stand in the middle.

Check out http://www.unpronounceable.com/ for some examples of this.

I generally keep the bass dead center except when there is extensive looping. In that case, I pan the raw and looped bass slightly to the left and right. Sometimes I do pan the guitar slightly to the left and bass slightly to the right. Again, to mimic the sound of standing in front of the band.

I'm still experimenting though.

- Dave

Dave Grossman · #5 11-09-2004, 04:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stinsok

Absolutely hate it. When you hear music live it is not "panned.".

It depends on how close you are. If you're in a club, standing in front, you're mostly hearing stage volume which is definitely panned. Of course, nothing is ever panned 100%. I'm talking about variable panning.

- Dave