Panning Check

B

BTMM

Born To Make Music
Is there a way to check panning of a song that you like?

I was listening to a song just a moment ago and there were some solo parts (Leads, Drums, etc) within the track.

I was wondering if I can turn a plugin on (I use Logic Pro) that can help me see how the professionals are panning them?

Is there a way?

Thanks!
 
BTMM said:
Is there a way to check panning of a song that you like?

I was listening to a song just a moment ago and there were some solo parts (Leads, Drums, etc) within the track.

I was wondering if I can turn a plugin on (I use Logic Pro) that can help me see how the professionals are panning them?

Is there a way?

Thanks!
Click to expand...

By checking the relative loudness between the sound source in the M component vs. the S component, furthermore by then locating the sound source in the stereo field, like roughly where between hard L/R and center the sound source sits, the combination will give you a pretty good idea on roughly how it was panned. With very good monitoring and lots of experience you will learn to translate this pretty automatically with high precision. If you for instance pan a whole drum kit on a stereo track with the L panner at C and the R panner at R, then it is as if you are splitting the stereo field in half and get the drums to occupy the right half of the mix. Since it is not that nice to have such a divider line in between the listener's eyes, these kinds of pannings can be improved by adjusting the C panned panner some towards either side. It can improve the separation.
 
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Nice!

DarkRed said:
By checking the relative loudness between the sound source in the M component vs. the S component, furthermore by then locating the sound source in the stereo field, like roughly where between hard L/R and center the sound source sits, the combination will give you a pretty good idea on roughly how it was panned.
Click to expand...

Sounds awesome and thx for your reply. How do I locate the sound source in the stereo field?
 
BTMM said:
Sounds awesome and thx for your reply. How do I locate the sound source in the stereo field?
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You need to learn the stereo canvas of your particular monitors. You can for instance play a commercial track on one stereo track and pan that 100%L and 100%R, then add for instance a guitar track on top on another stereo track, roughly at the same fundamental, panned the same way. Then you loudness normalize the two with an integrated LUFS meter so that they are at the precise same loudness level. The contrast in their tone/key creates tension between the two tracks which makes the brain able to focus more on the two sounds separately.

Now what you can do is to hard pan the guitar track hard L. That is the L edge of the stereo canvas on your particular monitoring system. Now you sweep both panners at the same setting towards the center and notice where it sits on 75%L, where it sits on 50%L, where it sits on 25%L and where it sits on C. That will give you a pretty good reference point about roughly where a sound source is located in the stereo field.

Be aware that sound sources in the stereo field are not 100% stable at their positions. This has to do with the fact that each speaker has its own frequencies and there might be more masking of a sound source's frequencies on one of the sides, making the sound source fluctuate left or right in the stereo field. Many mixes out there have that issue, it tends to degrade the separation of the sound sources in the mix.
 
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There's no such thing as a plugin that can determine the stereo position of a thing in a track for a couple of reasons. Firstly there is no way to tell it which part of the music you are interested in and more importantly stereo position is a matter of human perception that hasn't been reverse engineered into any software yet (let alone a plugin).

Where a signal is in stereo is a meaningless concept because unless the sound is coming from one speaker it is coming from both speakers. For simple signals you can argue that its to do with relative volume but music isn't a simple signal. A signal that is perceived as coming from the left can be loud on the right. Even louder is some situations.

But really, why do you want to know? D'you think there is some secret in instrument panning you can extract? And then you can somehow reuse elsewhere? There isn't.

Panning of some instruments in a particular track is purely context sensitive. There's no variable you can extract from that that will help in any other track. The best you can do is a get a feeling of the intent of the mix engineer.
 
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You might want to look up Panman by Soundtoys (Found out about it today). Thanks for sharing tho.
 
I think i know what you're getting at. You need to apply a plugin that has a mono/stereo split capability, to your reference track. You'll be able to hear what's panned in the extreme left and right by turning down the mono signal. And then turn down the stereo signal to hear what's left in the centre. This will give you a quick insight into where things are panned in a track.

Blue Cat's Gain Suite is an awesome freeware plugin that will do this for you.
 
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I think i know what you're getting at. You need to apply a plugin that has a mono/stereo split capability, to your reference track. You'll be able to hear what's panned in the extreme left and right by turning down the mono signal. And then turn down the stereo signal to hear what's left in the centre. This will give you a quick insight into where things are panned in a track.
Click to expand...

No.
 
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