Panning Question

[Mosh]

How would you pan a guitar and bass of my band it's hard to get right.
or
Should I just copy the guitar part add a bit of delay then hard pan each of the guitars and keep bass in the middle?

Cheers. xx

[the_uber_penguin]

I did bass 10% to the left and guitar either 10% to the right or down the middle for some lead bits.

EDIT: It's purely subjective how you do it. There is no right or wrong way of doing this, just experiment and see what works best.

The traditional thing will have bass on the left and guitar on the right, with vocals in the middle. Feel free to ignore that, however.

[Aus_rock_god]

what program are you using?

[Seafroggys]

It depends on whether you want the mix to be realistic to a live situation or you want to go avant garde with your stereo placement.

I like wide stereo mixes, they sound more spacious and you have more work to place things. If you do the live stage approach, you would go something like lead guitar 75% right, rhythm guitar center, and bass 75% left, or something similar. Sometimes you can just do stereo placement which what you think sounds cool, as opposed to being realistic. I know on Beatles records they'd have vocals panned hard left or right, which is something you never see nowadays.

[Moseph]

How would you pan a guitar and bass of my band it's hard to get right.
or
Should I just copy the guitar part add a bit of delay then hard pan each of the guitars and keep bass in the middle?

Cheers. xx

I have recently gotten into the habit of controlling the lowest part of the frequency spectrum to a narrow panning field. Low frequencies can sometimes be tiring to listen to in headphones if the panning is too far to the side. So either I use conservative pans for bass (ie, less than 20% L or R), or I use various bass placement effects to handle the very lows, but maintain the higher frequencies of bass off to the right.

[Mosh]

what program are you using?

At the moment im using the toneport UX1 for my tone and i was using the Ableton Live lite Line 6 thing that came with it but it only has 4 tracks and its a bit harder to use to ATM im using Audacity but i might go out and get either Guitar Tracks Pro 3 or Cakewalk Home Studio.

I've been looking for cool edit pro but cant find or dont know where to get from.

Cheers for all the help guys. xx

[Aus_rock_god]

Ah, sweet.

For hard panning, all you do is record each track in mono, then click on the arrow on the left-hand-side control panal, on the track itself, and select "left channel" for one and "right channel" for the other.

Otherwise, record each track in mono, then use the stereo panning tool to pan the tracks.

What you're talking about, though, is 5.1 panning, which you can't do in audacity (ie: you want the bass coming through the centre speaker, and the guitar out the left and right speakers). This type of panning relies on the signal for the guitar tracks, for example, to be slightly out of phase from the rest of the tracks, so the signal is sent to the left and right array, but not the centre.

You can try copying the guitar track, and panning one left and one right, and hope that the software in your computer will get the hint, but to get the best results for a hi-fi or car audio system when you burn the song, you'll need Cubase or Cool Edit in order to get the stereo feild panning you want.

Jason_morgan_graham@hotmail.com

add me to MSN and I'll tell you where you can grab a copy :thumb:

[Mosh]

Ah, sweet.

For hard panning, all you do is record each track in mono, then click on the arrow on the left-hand-side control panal, on the track itself, and select "left channel" for one and "right channel" for the other.

Otherwise, record each track in mono, then use the stereo panning tool to pan the tracks.

What you're talking about, though, is 5.1 panning, which you can't do in audacity (ie: you want the bass coming through the centre speaker, and the guitar out the left and right speakers). This type of panning relies on the signal for the guitar tracks, for example, to be slightly out of phase from the rest of the tracks, so the signal is sent to the left and right array, but not the centre.

You can try copying the guitar track, and panning one left and one right, and hope that the software in your computer will get the hint, but to get the best results for a hi-fi or car audio system when you burn the song, you'll need Cubase or Cool Edit in order to get the stereo feild panning you want.

Jason_morgan_graham@hotmail.com

add me to MSN and I'll tell you where you can grab a copy :thumb:

-Adding-
Cheers. xx

[Seafroggys]

yeah, but that 'central' speaker is virtually created in the stereo field though. Panned center has the same spacial effect as having a speaker in front of you.

[ares]

ok, here's the deal:

if you really want to get a professional sounding mix, you need to keep all low frequency instruments panned dead center: kick, bass

for guitars, if you have just one guitar, record two different perfect takes of the song and pan them 50-100% left and right, depending on the stereo spread you want. if you have 2 guitars, just record one of each and pan the same way.

that is the simplest way to do things, but i do it by trying to create a "cocoon" of guitar. i.e. i record two of the rhythm guitar (chords/simple riffs) and pan those left and right, then i record any lead guitar and pan that as close to center as possible. the key is to try to keep the stereo field balanced. if you have two lead parts, pan left and right. two rhythm, left and right.

3 parts: 2 rhythm and one lead: pan rhythms left and right, lead center. 3 parts, 2 lead and one rhythm: record two of the rhythm, pan hard left and right, one each of the leads and pan them left and right.

i hope that will answer any of you questions

[Seafroggys]

I prefer the bass guitar to be panned though.

I recorded a band at a pro quality studio for my Audio Recording Final. I found while the bass was centered, it got totally lost in the mix. When I panned the one guitar about 25% left, and the bass 25% right, the bass just stood out like magic, you could hear it quite well, without boosting the faders on anything.

[Moseph]

ok, here's the deal:

if you really want to get a professional sounding mix, you need to keep all low frequency instruments panned dead center: kick, bass

for guitars, if you have just one guitar, record two different perfect takes of the song and pan them 50-100% left and right, depending on the stereo spread you want. if you have 2 guitars, just record one of each and pan the same way.

that is the simplest way to do things, but i do it by trying to create a "cocoon" of guitar. i.e. i record two of the rhythm guitar (chords/simple riffs) and pan those left and right, then i record any lead guitar and pan that as close to center as possible. the key is to try to keep the stereo field balanced. if you have two lead parts, pan left and right. two rhythm, left and right.

3 parts: 2 rhythm and one lead: pan rhythms left and right, lead center. 3 parts, 2 lead and one rhythm: record two of the rhythm, pan hard left and right, one each of the leads and pan them left and right.

i hope that will answer any of you questions

I think that will result in a pseudo-mono wall of sound. Professional in some respects, yes, but I'd rather have a more realistic panning.