Why should you even pan?

[Chartburst]

Any semi-serious producer should have some form of switching to a single central mono speaker to check the sound in mono/stereo on the fly. It's gotta sound good in both formats!

[Fifth__]

To Increase the stereo image, and to allow every instrument to have its own space in the mix. Having everything centre can make it differcult to distinguish sounds. However it depends on the music your going for.

[Chartburst]

Having everything centre can make it differcult to distinguish sounds.

Very true!

[Khan88]

Awesome. Thanks Yuno and others. Lots of good info.
The title of the thread is a little bit obviously "dumb" but hey just wanted clarification! I still don't really gethow panned instruments won't mask again when switched back to mono, but regardless; I can conclude to make sure it sounds good in mono and for all listeners

[Yuno]

Np man!

[1oakproduction]

Panning is important because in order for a mix to be considered GREAT it must sound GOOD EVERYWHERE and it is true that most people will hear your music in mono anyway however that is not a reason you should not pan.

If someone listens to your song in a quite setting using a pair of earbuds your mix will sound very narrow. this ideology alone defeats the purpose of mixing. Panning is one of the most important tools in mixing, the pros understand this, and they make GREAT use of it.

[CANNABIS]

You get a loss in sound

[BIGfoot BEATs]

I really believe good use of panning can separate pros from everyone else. it can give a fuller sound

[iOSMusicProducer]

Despite the fact that panning is a valuable process to create space and texture in a mix...

If you didn't do any panning at all in a stereo interleaved file I'd expect you'd be far more likely to encounter phase issues and frequency cancellation if the file was summed to mono as each channel would be identical!

[Georgia_Boi]

I get your question, but I'm unable to answer.