If yes for either question This is why pop vocals, dance kicks, basses and snares tend to end up in the middle of the mix. They lead or drive the song so hard center straight down the middle panning makes sense. Equal energy from both speakers at all times. Kick, bass, snare, vocal center. Guitars and keys off to the left and right. Overheads spread out nicely. You get the picture. Panning choices are of course highly subjective but there is a basic formula of sorts that most modern mixes will adhere to:.
Kicks, snares, basses and lead vocals tend to be panned dead center because these are usually elements that you want to appear solid in your mix. You want these elements to hit the listener straight on and it doesn't get more straight on than dead center. The rest of the elements or instruments is where it gets more subjective and where you can also get more creative with your panning, although there are still some tried and true methods you can use:.
Some mixing engineers and producers like to stick to only three pan positions. They set every channel to center, hard left or hard right and nothing in between. Drums, apart from snare and kick, are usually panned as they would appear on a drum kit , either from the drummers point of view, with the hi-hat and left overhead off to the left and toms and right overheads spread out to the right of the spectrum, or from the audience's point of view with everything switched around.
This type of panning isn't as common in EDM, dance or electronic genres as it is in rock and some pop. Guitars, keys, synths and backing vocals are usually best off-center , either hard left or right or somewhere in between.
These elements along with some of your drums and your effects are what you'll use to create width in your mix. It pays to spend time getting familiar with the different instruments and sounds in your mix and experimenting with different pan relationships because each mix is different and how you pan will play a vital role in the result you get with your final mix. Audio panning can of course be used more creatively with the application of automation and effects like auto-panners which you can start delving into when you get the basics of static panning down.
There are also other applications of panning which come into play when you you design sounds in soft synths or apply widening tricks like the Haas effect. These applications fall beyond the scope of this basic introduction so for now just get the basics down and delve into more hardcore panning techniques when the time is right. It's a bit of an old one, but it remains a great way to help you visualize what you're aiming for when you position sounds during mix down.
Your pan pot, which is short for panoramic potentiometer, allows you to distribute mono or stereo sound sources between your left and right studio monitors. A pan pot takes the incoming signal and splits it into a left and right channel. It then assigns a dedicated volume control to each channel which allows it to determine individually the amount of signal going to the left and right buses.
A pan pot set to zero 0 or center C will divide the signal equally between the left and right channel. A pan pot set completely to the left will send the signal entirely to the left channel and vice-versa. You'll often hear these positions referred to as hard left or hard right. You can of course as well set the pot or slider anywhere in between hard left and hard right. This of course translates, in practical mixing terms, to the ability to change the left to right position that a sound seems to originate from in the stereo image as perceived by your listener.
Panning is however used in many more ways in music. It can be also be used to create a stereo effect from mono sounds with production techniques which utilize psychoacoustic production tricks like the Precedence a.
Haas effect. It is advisable to keep the kick, snare, bass, and vocal in the center as they provide the music with a solid grounding and help aid the rhythm although these rules can often be broken to great effect. For every other instrument, however, it is advisable to position them either side of the center.
Panning several instruments hard left and right can be tempting to create a wide stereo sound which can produce an excellent sonic sound, but generally should be avoided. Many instruments can soon become stacked in the same area leading to a masked, muddy sound. Instead of panning hard left and right for all instruments, find a place inside those extremes. To maintain balance within a mix, for every element panned one way, another element should be panned the other.
Panning gives instruments their own space in the stereo field. It can be used to eliminate masking by moving sounds out of the way of other sounds so the listener can clearly define them.
With this approach, the hi-hat would be panned to the left, assuming the drummer is using a right-handed kit. Audience perspective pans instruments based on where they would be placed on stage if you were watching the performance from the crowd.
With this approach, the hi-hat would be panned to the right. The third option is to place instruments around the stereo field however you see fit, regardless of how they might be laid out on stage. One more note on panning—while it may seem counterintuitive, it's best to decide on pan placement while monitoring your mix in mono. One of the hardest parts of dialing in a wide stereo image is frequency balance issues. Mixing in mono helps you balance frequencies and avoid masking.
Obviously, you won't be able to hear instruments move around the stereo field as you pan them while monitoring in mono, but you can hear a difference in the track. The pan position of each instrument affects the sound quality and balance of the overall mix. Just remember, if it sounds good in mono, it will sound great in stereo! Now that we've covered the basics of sculpting your stereo field, let's take a look at some tips and tricks to help you dial in wider, more immersive mixes.
One quick and easy way to make your tracks sound wider is to duplicate a track and pan them hard left and right. Of course, listening to the same exact signal come out of the left and right speakers is essentially the same as listening in mono. But, by applying time-based processing like a delay to one of the tracks, you can create a psychoacoustic effect that causes the listener to think they are two different signals, making the track sound significantly wider.
This is known as the Haas Effect or the precedence effect. One sure-fire way to increase the stereo width of your mix is to use a stereo enhancement plug-in. Best of all, GROW can be applied dynamically, so only certain signals will be enhanced. For instance, you can use the filter to focus on one specific frequency range.
This allows you to boost the highs in your mix without affecting the lows, keeping your mix clean and free of mud. Or adjust the threshold controls so that only the loudest transient spikes are enhanced, creating a rhythmic pumping effect that's perfect for synth stabs and lead lines.
However, this technique is known to cause phase issues, so it's important to leave a third version of the track panned in the center at a lower volume to help retain mono compatibility. For an even more pronounced stereo widening effect, use a pitch shifter to adjust the pitch of each track by a few cents. The difference in tonality should be just enough to catch the listener's ear without sounding dissonant. Another option is to add a chorus effect to both tracks, which effectively combines delay and pitch shifting to make it sound like multiple instruments are playing at once.
Additionally, spectral panning can be combined with very subtle delay-based panning to make the effect even more realistic. If we consider that the head has a specific diameter, and a distance exists between the ears, then it has to be said with certainty that a sound played on left ear side of the head will arrive at the left ear sooner than it arrives at the right ear and vice versa.
If we know the speed of sound, and the size of the head or rather, the distance from one ear to the other, we can get an approximation of the delay that exists from one ear to the other. If this distance is By dividing 1 second by this number, we find what each sample takes up.
In a session with a 48kHz sampling rate, each sample is roughly 21 microseconds more accurately This means that the delay between the left and right ear in our example could be emulated by delaying the right channel by roughly 30 samples. Although this may sound convoluted or more complex than most other audio effects, I guarantee you that combining spectral and level panning, as well as delaying the corresponding channel by 30 samples in a 48kHz sampling rate session will lead to some amazing results.
Lastly, if your session is in a 96kHz sampling rate the delay in samples would be roughly 60 ; if your session is in a If you want to learn more about psychoacoustic effects, check out our video and blog post on the topic:. Delay panning can be used in a number of ways — from the precedence or Haas effect, to phase cancelation that expands the image into the degree stereo field, delay panning is a versatile tool.
To use delay panning, simply delay the left or right channel by a small amount. The method described is just about the same. But instead of delaying one channel only enough to emulate the distance between the ears, we can use more delay to create some truly useful phase cancellations and to create the Haas or precedence effect.
In short, small timing issues between two otherwise identical signals cause phase cancellation and interference. This interference results in a very unique form of panning, in which the signal is spread beyond the degree stereo field, and into the degree stereo field. The Precedence or Haas Effect is the phenomenon in which two identical signals are played, with one delayed slightly. The two separate signals are perceived as one; however, the one that arrives at the ears first determines the perceived direction or location of the sound source.
With that said, you can use the delay settings a little bit more loosely if you want to create this effect. Phase based panning is very similar to delay based panning in that delay is used to cause phase cancellation and widen the image; however, signal settings cause the signal to spread more towards the left or right channel.
Using phase panning needs to be done carefully and intentionally. As the delay between two identical signals increases, one might expect the signal to get wider and wider; however, the stereo width seems to jump between being oriented more towards the left, right, or center. With that in mind, certain settings can be used to orient the signal more toward the left and right.
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