I know what panning is, but can someone explain to me how does panning give the best quality of sound and what methods of panning will give you the best sound? Thanks in advance.

 

Panning allows you to place signals anywhere in between all left or all right. If you try to place too many things in one spot or to close together, they have a tendency to drown each other out or create phasing cancellation that change the sound. There is no single way or any set guidelines to place tracks within a stereo field. Experience, tutorials, etc. Sometimes, just tinkering. That's where the fun and creativity is for mixing. The most common track placement puts lead vocals, bass drum, snare drum and bass guitar in the center. Maybe the solo. Then most other stuff gets the other spaces. But that is not a rule. It is fairly common to put bass and bass drum center though, because they are usually the tracks that need the most available gain and headroom. When you start adding stereo reverbs and other effects, things change again, and may need to be moved or re-EQ'd to stand out. You could write a book on this subject. I have been leaning toward complete left, right, center, style of mixing (LRC). It does away with a lot of phase and definition problems. You can pan more than one thing to the same spot, but usually those tracks will have different frequency ranges, so they don't cancel each other as much.

 

@ Johnatan,

'Algae' said it all ! *yes*


Just a little 'add' for some of your recorded Drums (in case that you want they sound a bit more realistic).
You can slightly 'pan' the HiHat, some Toms (depending their number !), and the Floor Tom(s), thus recreating a real Drum Set played 'Live', where the HiHat is on the Left of the Drummer, the Floor Tom(s) on his Right,... (for a right-handed Drummer !). BUT... Don't forget to use this as a 'Mirror'... *yes*

I mean, from your perspective of 'Drummer, Engineer, Mixer,... ', you'll certainly 'pan', for instance, your HiHat slightly to the Left, that seems logical... (as if you were the Drummer), BUT your audience (listeners) will heard it on their Left side too ! So, the 'trick' is, for instance, to 'pan' the HiHat slightly to the right side (always from your perspective of 'Drummer, Engineer, Mixer,... '), then this way, your audience (listeners) will heard it slightly on their right side, which is more realistic... *yes* (Always for a right-handed Drummer !).
Little Tip : If you want to 'emulate' the Great 'Phil Collins', for instance, do the opposite !!!

And by the way, I remember the First Album of the Great 'Van Halen', where the 'Rhythm Guitar(s)' of the Fabulous 'Eddie' was (were) panned totally Left !!!... whereas the 'Lead Guitar/Solo', was almost all panned to the opposite... almost unthinkable nowadays !!! *yes*

Also the First Album (if I well remember right now !) of Led Zeppelin', where the Drums of the Legendary 'John Bonham' were panned almost totally Right !
I was totally confused the first time that I listened to that album, above all when using Headphones ! *yes*

 

You need to think of your soundstage and analyze the positioning of the instrument if you were performing for example with the kick drum and bass occupying center to maximize them across both speakers and other instruments off center to varying degrees or LCR. Algae gave a perfect answer and we also have plenty of interesting videos in AudioSex Academy. One of them even goes into LCR panning.

 

Hi all just adding how I go about things in a mix, I hope any of this helps

Keep your kick center as well as sub bass,this is for psycho acoustic purposes where low spectrum freqs are hard for us to detect which direction they would come from.
A higher click panned just off center adds a tight stereo space providing if you have kept your low kick central.

Most percussion & hats to the sides not far out roughly a quarter to half your panning space.
I would and have on a few occasions hard panned mid toms for percussive purposes rather than for bass weight mind.

The same can be said for the clap although when mixed tight against the kick can add character when in the center again tho a higher layer slightly off center gives it space and depth.

One central strong lead synth with 2 higher layers panned left and right.

Mid bass can be panned just off center for width.

Just keepoing anything lower than 300Hz central and the rest sort of branches off.

 

Just a bit of clarification on one part, panning can't and won't fix any time alignment issues eg: phase any phase issues need to be corrected before panning or mixing.​

If you listen to any decent recordings you will hear very little is panned. (key word is decent rather than personal taste) if you know what i mean.​

Cheers​

 

Panning has always been an interesting topic that challenged my thinking. Though, through the years I've picked up tricks for it. A major point for all EDM genres is that the kick, low basses and most snares, stay close to the center. What you're attempting to work with, is the stereo image of a track. You don't want to mash everything dead center... you're just going to get a mushy mess from this. On the other hand, you don't want to pan only hard right and hard left. In my mind, I attempt to fill up the stereo image in a balanced and even manner. Each instrument having it's own place in the image. To this extent, I keep in mind both the panning and frequency aspects of mixing. E.G. a lot of times I'll use a stereo-imager to push strings or a pad further back in the image. A lot of times I'll also use stereo delays and reverbs, and edit them in a way that compliments the overall image. If you're working with lots of guitars, I highly suggest researching the Haas Effect, if you haven't already. That's all I can say for now. It's kind of hard to explain my production technique when it comes to this. It's just one of those things you have to research, listen to professional mixes, and do lot's of experiments for yourself, to see what works. That's the beauty of being an artist... aside from some essential rules, it's your style and vision that matter at the end of the day. Oh and one last point, keep in mind the phase of things in case of your track getting played in mono (some radio stations and club systems still use mono). You don't want any elements to get phased out in this situation.

 

hello, ladies, gentlemen,

all very well said... *yes*

have got really small things to add... *yes*
there are some, significant to be mentioned, differences in the way our two ears do their task, as the right ear has its accents on the lower plus the higher parts of the audible spectrum, whereas the left hears more of the middle part of it... *yes*
do not know if there are differences with right, left, handed persons, one may check this on the web... *yes*
the phenomenon can be tested with white, pink, noise plus turning one's head to both extremes, slowly, repeatedly... *yes*
all this means, for example, if there is one percussion element, say, with its impact in the higher region, depending on what you intend to do with it, keeping its level the same, if you want it to come out more from the mix, you pan it to the right rather, not to the left where it will become somewhat obscured... *yes*
these are small, subtle, differences, but keepeing them in mind might help in order to achieve the best possible soundscape... *yes*

later edit, seem to remember to read somewhere (sorry for being unable to source-data these things) that because we are somewhat conditioned to imagine the time line flowing from the left to the right, it might be of some use to have the instrument panned to the left, its effect (the delayed sound) to the right (in small dosage, of course, also the above mentioned thing feels to have more importance)... *yes*
also, reverse reverb is better to come from the left, then the real sound from the right (not panned to the extremes, again), of course, these are not strict rules, just small things that might help... *yes*
perhaps one wants to go for more genre-specific solutions, till all minutiae, for nearly subliminal messages, thus, mainstream songs might be supposed to follow these guidelines, outside the establishment genres might using these in the opposing way... *yes*

all the best for all of us, then some more...

 

And do not forget, that crazy murderer, Phil Spector, made a lot of great sounding "wall of sound" mixes------all in mono.

 

yes, even if without the use of panorama, he made use of expertly separated building blocks, then kept these together with every conceivable glueing stuff... *yes*

this also helps to understand that if there is not enough separation between the elements in the monaural mix, the use of panorama will give only some fraction of the achievable maximum... *yes*

all the best...