ВУЗ: Казахская Национальная Академия Искусств им. Т. Жургенова
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toms should probably be panned right to left, from
the audience's perspective, because there is an audi-
ence. Even though it really doesn't matter which way
you pan the drums in a mix, most people seem to
have very strong feelings about the matter, so it's
good to be aware of the preferences of the people
you are working with. Besides, it would be boring if
all toms were panned the same way.
OVERHEADS
Overheads are normally recorded in stereo on two
tracks and then spread completely left and right
between the speakers. This allows for the maximum
separation between cymbals and the widest spread of
stereo imaging. Of course, the type of imaging you
get from the overheads depends on the placement of
the mics themselves. If you place the mics as far apart
as possible, you will get a wider spread of cymbals
between the speakers; however, you also have a greater
chance of getting phase cancelation.
Visual 181. Overheads Panned Completely Left to Right
If you place the mics next to each other in the
middle using the "X" technique, there is less spread
between the speakers; however, the imaging is often a
little clearer because there is no phase cancelation.
Visual 182. Overhead Panning When Using "X"
Technique
The closer the mics are placed to the cymbals,
the clearer and more up front the image will be
between the speakers (put a mic closer to anything
and it will sound more present), but the cymbals will
also sound more edgy, which could be fine for rock
'n' roll.
DRUMS AS A WHOLE
It is interesting to note the way that drums have been
panned throughout the history of recording. The
Beatles placed the vocals in one speaker and the rest
of the band in another. Though this was, in reality, a
mistake. They meant for the two tracks to be mixed
down to mono when the record was made, but the
mastering engineer decided to be creative. Many jazz
groups have placed the entire drum set in one
speaker. The obvious advantage of doing this is that it
leaves a huge amount of space between the speakers
for the rest of the band. The big disadvantage is that
the separation between individual pieces of the drum
set becomes obscured.
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The Art of Mixing
Visual 183. Mix With Drums Panned to One Side (see
color Visual 183C)
NOTE: In order to obtain the most natural panning
of a drum set, try this: Pan the overhead mics on the
drum kit completely left and right, listen to where
each drum seems to be between the speakers in the
stereo overhead mix, then pan the mic of each indi-
vidual drum exactly where you hear it. This will give
you the clearest imaging you can obtain because the
image of the instrument in the overhead mix is in the
exact same place as the image in its own mic. If they
are not panned the same, then you are actually
spreading the sound in stereo between the speakers
—making the image less precise.
BASS GUITAR
Bass guitar is most commonly placed in the middle
because it is so large and commands so much atten-
tion, like the kick drum.
Visual 184. Mix With Bass Guitar Panned to Center
Jazz and similar types of music often place the
bass off to one side. Aside from the style of music dic-
tating the panning, a bass is normally only panned off
to one side if the part being played is a lead part.
When this is the case, the bass is often a much
brighter and cutting type of sound. When the bass
sound is thinner, there tends to be more room for the
bass to be placed off to one side.
LEAD VOCALS
It is almost against the law to place a lead vocal any-
where except smack dab in the middle. Pan a lead
vocal to one side and go to jail. By most standards,
you are simply being too creative. However, it might
be appropriate if the song is about unbalanced psy-
chotic behavior.
If a vocal is recorded in stereo with two mics,
doubletracked, or made into stereo with a time-based
effect, the two sounds are normally spread evenly left
to right. Sometimes they are placed at 11:00 and 1:00.
Visual 185. Lead Vocals Panned at 11:00 and 1:00 (see
color Visual 185C)
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Chapter Five
Sometimes they are placed at 10:00 and 2:00.
But occasionally, they are placed completely left and
right.
Visual 186. Vocals Panned Completely Left and Right
BACKGROUND VOCALS
The panning of background vocals often depends on
the vocal arrangement. When there is only one back-
ground vocal, it can't be panned in the center
because it gets in the way of the lead vocal. You could
put it off to one side or the other, but this makes the
mix unbalanced. Commonly, a single harmony is
made into stereo with two mics, doubletracking, or a
time-based effect. Then it can be panned in stereo,
creating a balanced mix from left to right.
Visual 187. 1 Stereo Background Vocal Panned From
11:00 to 1:00 With Fattening
If there are two background vocals singing the
same part in unison and you place the background
vocals completely left and right, they will pull
together, creating a line of vocals.
Visual 188. 2 Background Vocals "Pulling Together"
If the background vocals consist of different har-
mony parts, they won't pull together as much. The
more different the sound of the voices that are doing
the harmonies, the less they will blend together, the
more they will stay separate. If the same person does
all of the parts, they will blend more.
Visual 189. 3 Background Vocals Panned Separately
(see color Visual 189C)
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The Art of Mixing
Background vocals are commonly recorded in
stereo, doubletracked, or made into stereo with a
time-based effect and then spread left to right. As you
can see, there is a wide range of possibilities.
Visual 190. 7 Background Vocals Panned to 7 Different
Places Combined With Variety of Fattening
(see color Visual 190C)
The style of music can also make a difference in
panning. For example, in country music, many engi-
neers will only pan the background vocals from 11:00
to 1:00 or from 10:00 to 2:00, in order to give the
impression of a tight-knit harmony group.
PIANO
A solo piano is almost always panned completely left
and right in stereo. The bass strings are panned to
the left and the high strings are panned to the right,
because this is the way a keyboard is laid out. It is
funny that this is probably the strictest rule of all
when it comes to panning. You better shoot the piano
player before you pan the high end to the left. You
might think this is odd because when standing in
front of a piano, the high strings are on the left. Even
in a live show with a stereo PA, the piano is still
panned with the lows on the left.
When in a mix, a piano is still commonly
panned in complete stereo, just because it sounds so
nice that way. That is, if there is room in the mix. A
stereo sound takes up a lot more space in the mix;
however in certain styles of music, such as country,
even in a busy mix, the piano is still commonly
panned completely left to right. Sometimes it is
pulled in a little bit or panned more to one side to
leave room for other sounds. In some busy songs, the
piano is panned in one spot to leave room for the rest
of the
mix.
The panning also depends on the type of musi-
cal part being played. If the part is full of rich sus-
taining chords, it will tend to be panned in full
stereo. On the other hand, if it is very staccato and
rhythmical with many single notes, it might be
panned in one single spot.
One argument for panning the drums from the
drummer's perspective is that if you were to place the
hi-hat on the right, it would be hidden by the high
end of the piano. There is less masking from the high
end of the piano when the hi-hat is placed on the left.
Visual 191. Panning With High End of Piano on Right
and Hi-Hat on Left (see color Visual 191CI
NOTE: If you don't have enough tracks to record the
piano in stereo, you could actually pan the piano
from left to right when the pianist plays from low to
high notes; this is a great way to cheat with a lead
break. When they go up the keyboard, pan to the
right; when they play lower notes, pan to the left.
Cheap stereo, but it works.
GUITARS
Panning guitars is based on concerns similar to those
for piano and keyboards. Often the guitar is placed in
a particular place based on the placement of every-
thing else: crowd control. If you want the guitar to be
more interesting or present, you might try fattening
to spread it in stereo.
HORNS/STRINGS
It is interesting that horns and strings are almost
always spread in stereo completely left and right
across the stereo field. The horns or strings can be
recorded with more than one mic, played twice, or a
time-based effect can be used to make the instru-
ments stereo. The horns or strings might not be
spread completely in stereo (partial stereo or mono)
if there isn't enough room in the mix.
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Chapter Five
EFFECTS
Effects like delay, flange, chorus, phase, harmonizer,
and reverb can be panned separately from the instru-
ment sound they came from.
Delay
When the delay time is greater than around 30ms, it
is perceived as a separate sound. This separate
"sphere" is often placed wherever there is room for it
(crowd control). The further from the original dry
sound that the delay is panned, the more intense the
dynamic created. However, it is easy for this effect to
overwhelm the song. Sometimes it is quite effective to
pan the delay right on top of the original dry signal.
When the delay time is less than 30ms, the
sound is stretched between the speakers. As previ-
ously covered, this effect is called fattening. The pri-
mary consideration for fattening is the duration of
the dry sound. Fattening is rarely used on staccato
sounds. They just seem to take up too much room for
something so quick. If you were to use fattening on a
sound with a short duration, you might not pan it so
wide—maybe only 11:00-1:00 (or just around the dry
sound itself if it is panned off to one side).
On the other hand, sounds that are longer in
duration (legato) are often panned completely left
and right in stereo with fattening.
Once the drums and bass are mixed, you should cal-
culate which instruments will be spread in stereo with
fattening and which ones will be in one spot. This cal-
culation is based on the style of music, the number of
instruments/sounds in the mix, and whether each
sound is staccato or legato. Once the entire mix is up,
you can always change your mind and either add or
delete fattening.
Flanging, Chorusing, Phasing
Because these effects are based on a short delay time,
like fattening, they are panned based on the same cri-
teria. The only difference is that these effects are
much more noticeable; therefore, they might not be
panned quite as wide as fattening.
Reverb
Reverb is most commonly placed in stereo, com-
pletely left and right. This is to simulate the natural
sound of reverb in a room: It comes from everywhere
around you, as if you are trying to simulate a live sit-
uation. This is especially common when putting
reverb on drums.
Of course, you can place reverb anywhere you
want. For example, you could put a guitar in the left
speaker and place the reverb in the right speaker. It
is also quite effective to place the reverb right on top
of the dry sound. For example, place a keyboard on
the right and put the reverb in the right speaker also.
This can be very interesting especially when using
short reverb sounds or gated reverb. Any placement
of individual instruments other than the above norms
might be considered creative or unusual, depending
on your perspective.
Level 2 Dynamics: Patterns of Panning Placement
The overall pattern created by all of the panning set-
tings together is even more important to the style of
mix than any individual panning. The type of music
tends to make the biggest difference as to the overall
panning in the mix. And again, certain styles of music
have developed more strict traditions than others.
Also, the details of the song, especially the density of
the arrangement, can affect the overall placement
left to right. Often the more instruments in a mix, the
wider the overall panning.
There are a few different ways to look at the
types of patterns that can be created. We can base this
overall panning on natural panning, balanced vs. lop-
sided panning, or crowd control.
NOTE: Before stereo became popular, mixes had to
be created so all the sounds could be heard with no
panning at all. This is good to keep in mind. In fact,
you should always doublecheck your mix in mono to
make sure that is OK in the first place, before using
panning to create clarity. After all, listeners are often
not seated in the correct position between the speak-
ers to hear true stereo.
NATURAL PANNING
If we think of the space between the speakers as a pal-
let on which to place sound colors, we can place
sounds left to right, filling in the space in any way we
want that seems to work. There is an infinite number
of different structures of mixes that can be created
with simple panning. However, sometimes panning is
done so that it corresponds to the placement of the
band, as if onstage, or the way they are set up in the
studio.
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The Art of Mixing