How to apply L-C-R-panning?

[pachakuti]

Greetings!
I've been reading Mixerman's "Zen and the Art of mixing" and now i am confused about panning. He is talking about LCR-panning (i.e. panning most of your stuff either hard left, center or hard right) but there are
two problems that often occur when i try to use LCR-panning in my mixes:
1. Stereo turns to mono when panned hard. This means i would lose all my stereowidth when panning a melody hard left or right.
2. The second problem is the balance between hard left and hard right. If i pan sth. hard left, i need sth. similar panned hard right, otherwise the mix seems unbalanced.

So it seems the best candidates for being panned hard right or left would be percussions that are already in mono. But then i would need two percussion elements so that one can be panned right and the other left for the balance of the mix.
But what to do if i don't have percussions in my track or only one percussion-element?

How can i make full use of hard right/left panning but still keep a wide stereo-panorama and still keep the mix balanced?
How would you pan these kind of mixes?

1. (drums, bass,) vocals, melody
2. (drums, bass,) vocals, two melodies
3. (drums, bass,) melody
4. (drums, bass,) two melodies

5. my current project: (kick, snare, hihat, bass,) pad, vocal sample (a oneshot with lots of reverb and delay on it; used like a pad in the background), two melodies and rap-vocals

I'd be happy to get some help from you! Thanks!

 

[bandcoach]

I think you are over thinking this, at least in part.

For classic examples of this type of mix go to the early Stereo Beatles albums and listen

How would you pan these kind of mixes?

1. (drums, bass,) vocals, melody

drums L
Bass R
Vocals C
Melody L R

2. (drums, bass,) vocals, two melodies

drums L
Bass R
Vocals C
Melody 1 L
Melody 2 R

3. (drums, bass,) melody

drums L
Bass R
Melody C

4. (drums, bass,) two melodies

drums C
Bass R
Melody 1 L
Melody 2 R

5. my current project: (kick, snare, hihat, bass,) pad, vocal sample (a oneshot with lots of reverb and delay on it; used like a pad in the background), two melodies and rap-vocals

kick C
snare R
hihat L
bass C
pad R
vocal sample L
melody 1 R
melody 1 L
rap C

many will have their own take on this but applying the basic rules as first used by George Martin and The Beatles it is hard to go wrong

 

[CPhoenix]

All I can say extra is... don't be afraid to hard pan.

All it is is a stereo field. That's it. Think about being at a concert... you're sitting in the center of the auditorium... there's a full band and the sax player is on thr far left of the stage. For all intensive purposes... the sax sound is going into just your left ear. (forget about any room reflections/acoustics, and forget about your head positioning for a second). That's it. So.. If i'm producing something.. and I want to through the sax hard panned left.... that's okay. Don't be sfraid to do it. Mixing becomes a lot easier when you don't worry about this so much, but just focus on the overall sound. I don't worry about a lopsided mix anymore... since there are no rules. If it soudns good w/ the sax on the left and nothing on the right to "balance it out", then dammit it sounds good and i'm going with it. You shouldn't be striving for everything to me balanced between L and R speakers necessarily... just care about the presentation your music is giving.

 

[City Beats]

Why would you ever pan bass, bandcoach? Bass is just low end energy that doesn't feel directional, so panning it is just going to make your mix sound incredibly heavy on one side and not the other

 

[bandcoach]

early Beatles stereo recordings have the bass on one side or the other (mostly left I seem to recall).

You are also confusing the concept of low frequency energy, i.e. bass frequencies, with bass guitar (or other harmonic rich bass source) timbre which is more than just the fundamental pitch. The upper harmonics will have directional cues within them and so panning a bass instrument L|C|R is a creative decision more than a passing nod to omni-directional perception of single low frequency sounds.

more bluntly - just because the many psychoperceptual studies say that bass is omni-directional does not mean that the studies are using rich harmonic content bass sounds - most are done with single freq sine waves - add second harmonic distortion and higher order harmonics and the sound becomes a directional beacon.

 

[City Beats]

I know it was a Beatles technique, but so was panning the drums hard left or right.....

I'm just saying, I know you can pan a bass guitar, and the higher harmonic frequencies can give it a little bit of a directional sound, but it will still sound extremely heavy on one side of your mix and not correctly balanced and would probably fatigue your ears pretty quickly.

 

[CPhoenix]

There's been times I've panned the bass a few percentages L (never R for some reason... hmm lol) to separate it from the drum track. Didn't realize the Beatles did it though... that's good company to be in!

 

[fataltone]

There's been times I've panned the bass a few percentages L (never R for some reason... hmm lol) to separate it from the drum track. Didn't realize the Beatles did it though... that's good company to be in!

are you right handed??
I think right handed ppl hear with their right ear more

I'm left handed and noticed the opposite or maybe it's just me????????????????




-Coach Antonio

 

[bandcoach]

I think that it is just you, tone: there is no basis in any scientific study or perceptual mechanisms to support the hypothesis that handedness affects which ear is dominant. In fact it is more likely that it is down to industrial deafness (long-term exposure to damaging noise sources without ear plugs/muffs/protection) in one ear or the other or even both to varying degrees.

There are studies that show you listen on the telephone with your your right ear if you are being creative and with your left ear if you are being analytical, this is based around the left-right hemispheres model of brain activity and function. It ignores those of us who are ambidextrous either by nature or through extensive nurture (any musician will develop a degree of ambidextrousness due to the ongoing need for both hands to act in a coordinated yet independent manner), where the hemispheres are acting in concert to control both sides of the body - I prefer to think of these people as middle-brained and characterise them as being both analytical and creative in equal measure.

@cphoenix: In the early days after WWII, EMI's studios at Abbey Road had 3 track recorders. the standard operating procedure was to record vocals to one track, bass and drums to another track and guitars and anything else to the remaining track. They also did not do drop-ins (punch-in-punch-out) or overdubs. When faced with making stereo masters, they simply panned hard left, hard right and center or partial left, partial right and center. They (Abbey Road) did invest in the first commercial multi-track recorders and as a result rewrote the rule book for mixing and pre-mastering.

 

[HERESY/KNOKK SHOPE]

Can you post the song?

 

[pachakuti]

Thanks for your answers!

Here is my current project for you to listen to.

The vocals are still missing.
In the verse it is: kick, bass, snare, hihats, pad, synth-melody and vocal sample. In the hook a second synth-meoldy is added. Everything is panned center.

Now, if i'd want to go with the l-c-r-approach, which elements would you consider for panning hard right/left?

 

[HERESY/KNOKK SHOPE]

You can add a delay and spread the hi hat that way. Or you can keep the hat up the middle and automate the vocal sample from left to right and right to left. The same can be done with the melody but I'd keep the lower notes to the left and the higher notes would get panned to the right. Another thing you can do is keep most of it centered and just pan the background vocals (assuming you'll have them) and use those to create some balance. Someone recently posted a question similar to yours and also posted an eminem track and that's what the engineer did on eminems record.

At the end of the day, make multiple mixes and do what is best for the concept of the song and the emotion you're trying to capture.