Stereo Perspective

[Mixwell]

Perhaps a NON-TECHNICAL discussion is in order, though it all "bleeds" over to the equipment and technique anyhow. I wish to put more focus on; the instruments themselves, and the overall production as it relates to the music. Tell us what works. Tell us what sucks. Tell us you put vocals hard left and drums hard right. Audience? Player? Something Else? You have a certain amount of "Real Estate" to work with, and I am not talking about Monopoly.

[Weiss-Sound]

First rule of thumb, the drum overheads do not need to be hard left and right. Seldom does this allow for the best imaging or the largest drum sound. Doubled guitar parts usually work nicely hard left and right.

The irony of stereo imaging in my experience is that the closer you get your left side to the sound of the right side, the wider and more solid the image. Lopsided images can be cool, but rarely make the most forward image.

Things are strongest in the center. I try to let my room sounds and reverbs do the stereo for the most part, and keep my dry elements center.

Things that are repetitious, like a hi hat on 8ths, or something of that ilk should get the hell away from the sides. These things are usually good panned just off the center, or in the center but tucked down in the mix.

[Tomasz]

First rule of thumb, the drum overheads do not need to be hard left and right. Seldom does this allow for the best imaging or the largest drum sound. Doubled guitar parts usually work nicely hard left and right.

Right on. As usually the drums are flanked by the guitars anyway, ( if we are talking about a live band) and to me the drums sound a little more punchy and powerful panned a little more "in".

[Sandyrb]

When mixing I tend to mentally divide stuff into two categories; "features" and "flavors". In my brain this works out as what's driving the track and what's augmenting the track. So I tend to give the "features" the prominent panning positions; center, left or right (but not necessarily 100%). Then the "flavors" get to fit round those somewhere.

The BIG rule for me, though, is that the soundscape mustn't be disorientating for the listener. So if I find it disorientating, they darn well will. I therefore tend to do mixes balanced rather than one-sided in any way. However there are times when that works, too. I heard a U2 record where they had drums/bass/vocals all centered and the guitar on one side and it was pretty good (although it sounded mastered to death).

But all this being said I *really* like, whenever possible, to capture actual stereo at source and just work with that. I'm a huge fan of spaciousness and dimensionality. I also like to use a lot of MS trickery and stuff to create unusual stereo images. As long as it all fits together nicely, sounds huge and doesn't make the listener puke, I guess I'm pretty happy. :)

Cheers,

[Tomasz]

As long as it all fits together nicely, sounds huge and doesn't make the listener puke, I guess I'm pretty happy. :)

Priceless!!

[pauly]

When mixing I tend to mentally divide stuff into two categories; "features" and "flavors".

sandy thats perfect, a little bell just went off in my head, thank you.

[Mixwell]

But all this being said I *really* like, whenever possible, to capture actual stereo at source and just work with that.

+bthead+

[nandi]

i like to pan hard and glue with a pinch of a good room reverb. like to use midrange flavors of mics and minimal drum miking for a sense of unity (drumset IS an instrument, not a set of instruments). I try to use vocal distance to the mike as a psychological tool: how's the message of the song? intimate? loud? also distance is EQ -color to flat.

[albert]

http://www.audiosignal.co.uk/Resources/Stabilising_stereo_images_USL.pdf

^ Really interesting article which I believe to be relevant enough to this discussion

[Sandyrb]

Really interesting article

Yes, fascinating! And what a great website. Thanks for the link Albert! :)

Cheers,

[Pato]

Here's my 2 cents...

My starting point is Sandys point of view with the features and flavors... just expanding a little on that, features on center like kick, snare, bass, hats, main vocal, then i spread out a little bit stuff that fights for space but falls kind of in the "feature" category (most of the time 20% L and R is enough) and spread out the rest placing intruments with similar frequency oposite of each other

cheers

[Mixwell]

Its official. The Pan knobs are also equalizers.

De Bunk this myth

[Mo Facta]

First rule of thumb, the drum overheads do not need to be hard left and right. Seldom does this allow for the best imaging or the largest drum sound.

I disagree entirely.

If you've got two microphones positioned in some way to capture the entire kit - like overheads - you're obviously trying to capture a stereo image of the kit. It's also, IMO, a fundamental mistake to think of the overhead mics as capturing only the cymbals.

Therefore, if you're pulling in the the L and R channels closer to the center in order to make your overheads less hard panned, all you're really doing is lessening the effect of phase cancellation when collapsing to mono. That is all. Otherwise, it's not really stereo, is it?

In my view, if you're looking to get a narrower stereo image in your overheads then it would serve you better to use something like an X/Y configuration. It'll be narrower and collapse well into mono and since this is a stereo image, there is no other choice but to pan hard L and hard R.

Cheers :)

[Halfway Competent]

I disagree entirely.

If you've got two microphones positioned in some way to capture the entire kit - like overheads - you're obviously trying to capture a stereo image of the kit. It's also, IMO, a fundamental mistake to think of the overhead mics as capturing only the cymbals.

Therefore, if you're pulling in the the L and R channels closer to the center in order to make your overheads less hard panned, all you're really doing is lessening the effect of phase cancellation when collapsing to mono. That is all. Otherwise, it's not really stereo, is it?

In my view, if you're looking to get a narrower stereo image in your overheads then it would serve you better to use something like an X/Y configuration. It'll be narrower and collapse well into mono and since this is a stereo image, there is no other choice but to pan hard L and hard R.

Cheers :)


Agree with you on this one. I use X/Y over drums, and sometimes that's ALL I use over drums (jazz, usually). The stereo image with X/Y is not particularly wide; but it's wide enough that I can tell which cymbal he's hitting, and the floor tom appears most definitely on one side. But the snare is locked right in the center of the image (because that's how I placed the mics).

[albert]

Its official. The Pan knobs are also equalizers.

De Bunk this myth

EQs mess with phase, and so can panning when used on a stereo pair!

Nothing to debunk. . .

The worst is when a mistake has been made during the moving microphones phase and it's so very hollow in the middle that you try to bring them in and either the top or bottom disappears or a nice comb.

Anyway, I don't know if I explained anything very well here, but I hope you nice people get me. . . :P

One thing I do like about analogue mixing is when you can turn the pots just a hair to the left or right. Certain things can get more power going that way. Mixing in Logic with it's 1980 something MIDI 128 step panning is annoying sometimes to the point where for fine detail stuff it can make the mixer's pan unusable! How long until there is something along the line of 1024 or so discrete steps in Logic? :/ -1 or +1 is way too noticeable every time, sometimes when you have a group of cheesy BG vocals going, or a nice wonderful wall of guitars, you need more precise panning :>

Best,

[Mo Facta]

One thing I do like about analogue mixing is when you can turn the pots just a hair to the left or right. Certain things can get more power going that way. Mixing in Logic with it's 1980 something MIDI 128 step panning is annoying sometimes to the point where for fine detail stuff it can make the mixer's pan unusable! How long until there is something along the line of 1024 or so discrete steps in Logic? :/ -1 or +1 is way too noticeable every time, sometimes when you have a group of cheesy BG vocals going, or a nice wonderful wall of guitars, you need more precise panning :>

Best,

To each his own, for sure, but for me there's only 3 pan positions: left, right, and center. That's it. If something feels too wide in stereo, it becomes mono and put either L, R, or C. To me, intermediary pan positions only smear the stereo perspective and results in a bland mix that lacks definition.

For me, it's the contrast between M and S that make for big sounding mixes. I know I've said this before (I am still a huge fan of Dave Moulton's research) but I'd rather spend time in tracking capturing the stereo sources I want in the perspective/width I want and then keep my pan positions in mixing L, C, or R.

It keeps you on your toes during tracking, forces you to have foresight for later on down the line when your mix vision comes to fruition, and keeps the panning decisions simple.

Cheers :)

Ps. I'm not 100% sure that this is relevant here (it doesn't touch on panning) but check out this article by Mr. Moulton on phase shift and comb filtering:

http://www.moultonlabs.com/more/about_comb_filtering_phase_shift_and_polarity_reve rsal/

[Mixwell]

EQs mess with phase, and so can panning when used on a stereo pair!

Nothing to debunk. . .

Best,

Yo Albert I generally meant "making room" for things inside your entire field not so much with stereo sources and context but actual placement of your context.

[albert]

Mixwell:
Ah, I see. Got ya.

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Anyway, talking about stereo, has anyone heard Lungs the Florence And The Machine album? Beautiful stereo presentation on that record. It's weird because it's really wide but with a super nice solid middle always. One of the best recorded recent records I've heard.

I recommend you folks check it out sometime. Maybe some of you could recommend something else that is stereo and beautiful sounding!