Y
Yuno
Loudness Warrior
Hello friends, this is first thread I've started so we'll see how this goes. I plan mostly to post threads on the topic of the technical/mixing/mastering side. Hopefully we all can learn something.
Anywho, I sometimes feel like I have a huge inferiority complex when it comes to my tracks. I always let my raving, PLURing, EDM-loving friends listen and they say its really good stuff but when I read more and more mixing and mastering manuals I feel like I can do so much more with my mix. I always feel after a song that I didn't spend nearly enough time mixing, probably because I usually mix as I produce meaning the final mixdown is a lot shorter than would be with an actual band handing me unmixed material to work with. To get to my main point, I started noticing some neat tricks with panning while doing my final mixdown through hours and hours of trial error and messing with everything from going completely mono to panning everything hard different ways. Some of this stuff might sound very obvious and others maybe not so much. Anyways, here's a few things I think might be useful to someone:
1. Kicks; never pan them. It's common knowledge that you don't want to pan your anchor so-to-speak. I would even say you should put it pretty narrow in the stereo field but that really is a track to track option.
2. Claps/Snares; very generally do not pan. I personally put them somewhat narrow in the stereo field but widen the reverb on them.
3. Hats; these can seriously vary. Because you can have so many hat items going it's very case by case. If done strategically, you can make it seem like your hats are shifting in the soundfield if you pan a closed hat a bit to one side of an open hat. Sometimes it's necessary to pan hats because of the simple fact that they can get buried in the mix if there's a lot of dense leads on top.
4. Pads; if you have a pad holding down the bass/sub freq range it generally should be put towards the center. Pads can sound wider if panned opposite to a sound with similar freq range and loudness. Whenever panning pads use caution. I can't tell you how many times I feel I am going deaf because of a pad hard panned through the whole track.
5. Basses; in most mixing manuals basses are considered to be a part of the same element as the drums or more specifically the kick drum since they share a similar freq range. Generally basses should be centered. Subbass should always be mono in the stereo field. There's a bit of debate over the wideness of non-subbass basses. What I've found is that if your song is driven by a rolling, grinding, dirty, nasty, or wobbley bassline you could find some benefit from widening where if you have a simple bass holding the track down you might find some use in narrowing.
6. Percussion/loops; these all depend on the role of the perc loop. Currently I'm working on a trance mix of another song I produced and I use a perc loop to hold things together in a breakdown. I kept it narrower in the stereo field and kept it centered. If you have a section of a song where you want your audience to notice your perc/loop I find it best to have it a bit wider.
7. Vocals; there is a lot of things you can do with vocals but generally they should be narrow or mono in the stereo field and almost always be centered. Backing vocals you can get a little more creative with perhaps reverbing into a different speaker, widening, narrowing, automated panning. In regards to panning, it's the little things with vocals and backing vocals that make a track special and give it that emotivness it was missing before.
8. Leads; last and certainly not least. Again this is a good place to get creative. It all depends on your track but if you have a few instruments in your lead element you can spread them out some, panning different synths to different places in the stereo field. If you're working with a single lead instrument it would a good idea to keep it centered and to experiment with widening it.
To conclude and keep my gist here short, there's a few things I think one should remember. First, I will continue to say "track by track," "case by case" because as you already know, there are no hard and fast rules to play by in the field of music. Next, and the primary reason I started this thread was to remind you that PANNING IN DANCE MUSIC SHOULD BE MINIMAL. It should be done only to add a tad of depth or wideness, or make a buried instrument heard if EQing and rearrangement do not work first. If your track is playing in a club, keep in mind that your sound will be distorted a bit already. After your sounds hit the walls and bounce back into the crowd there will already be a slight delay effect in place. When panning or widening you essentially multiply this adverse effect. If you hard pan an element, you may only have half the crowd listening while the other half is left straining to catch something in the gap left where the element should have been.
Hope this helps. Your feedback?
Anywho, I sometimes feel like I have a huge inferiority complex when it comes to my tracks. I always let my raving, PLURing, EDM-loving friends listen and they say its really good stuff but when I read more and more mixing and mastering manuals I feel like I can do so much more with my mix. I always feel after a song that I didn't spend nearly enough time mixing, probably because I usually mix as I produce meaning the final mixdown is a lot shorter than would be with an actual band handing me unmixed material to work with. To get to my main point, I started noticing some neat tricks with panning while doing my final mixdown through hours and hours of trial error and messing with everything from going completely mono to panning everything hard different ways. Some of this stuff might sound very obvious and others maybe not so much. Anyways, here's a few things I think might be useful to someone:
1. Kicks; never pan them. It's common knowledge that you don't want to pan your anchor so-to-speak. I would even say you should put it pretty narrow in the stereo field but that really is a track to track option.
2. Claps/Snares; very generally do not pan. I personally put them somewhat narrow in the stereo field but widen the reverb on them.
3. Hats; these can seriously vary. Because you can have so many hat items going it's very case by case. If done strategically, you can make it seem like your hats are shifting in the soundfield if you pan a closed hat a bit to one side of an open hat. Sometimes it's necessary to pan hats because of the simple fact that they can get buried in the mix if there's a lot of dense leads on top.
4. Pads; if you have a pad holding down the bass/sub freq range it generally should be put towards the center. Pads can sound wider if panned opposite to a sound with similar freq range and loudness. Whenever panning pads use caution. I can't tell you how many times I feel I am going deaf because of a pad hard panned through the whole track.
5. Basses; in most mixing manuals basses are considered to be a part of the same element as the drums or more specifically the kick drum since they share a similar freq range. Generally basses should be centered. Subbass should always be mono in the stereo field. There's a bit of debate over the wideness of non-subbass basses. What I've found is that if your song is driven by a rolling, grinding, dirty, nasty, or wobbley bassline you could find some benefit from widening where if you have a simple bass holding the track down you might find some use in narrowing.
6. Percussion/loops; these all depend on the role of the perc loop. Currently I'm working on a trance mix of another song I produced and I use a perc loop to hold things together in a breakdown. I kept it narrower in the stereo field and kept it centered. If you have a section of a song where you want your audience to notice your perc/loop I find it best to have it a bit wider.
7. Vocals; there is a lot of things you can do with vocals but generally they should be narrow or mono in the stereo field and almost always be centered. Backing vocals you can get a little more creative with perhaps reverbing into a different speaker, widening, narrowing, automated panning. In regards to panning, it's the little things with vocals and backing vocals that make a track special and give it that emotivness it was missing before.
8. Leads; last and certainly not least. Again this is a good place to get creative. It all depends on your track but if you have a few instruments in your lead element you can spread them out some, panning different synths to different places in the stereo field. If you're working with a single lead instrument it would a good idea to keep it centered and to experiment with widening it.
To conclude and keep my gist here short, there's a few things I think one should remember. First, I will continue to say "track by track," "case by case" because as you already know, there are no hard and fast rules to play by in the field of music. Next, and the primary reason I started this thread was to remind you that PANNING IN DANCE MUSIC SHOULD BE MINIMAL. It should be done only to add a tad of depth or wideness, or make a buried instrument heard if EQing and rearrangement do not work first. If your track is playing in a club, keep in mind that your sound will be distorted a bit already. After your sounds hit the walls and bounce back into the crowd there will already be a slight delay effect in place. When panning or widening you essentially multiply this adverse effect. If you hard pan an element, you may only have half the crowd listening while the other half is left straining to catch something in the gap left where the element should have been.
Hope this helps. Your feedback?
