Does anybody have the recommended pan settings for recording, like vocals left, guitar a bit right...I forget?

Question

Does anybody have the recommended pan settings for recording, like vocals left, guitar a bit right...I forget?

Answer 1

Working regular in a recording studio as a session and production technician, put the Drums on a ration of 70% left and 30% right or vice-versa. Rhythm guitar on the same side as the 70% drum. Lead guitar on the other side. Put the Bass guitar on the same channel as your lead guitar.



If you combine Bass and drum on one channel, muddiness will occur and you lose the cymbals of the drum etc..



If you ever want to add singing, again, the same side as the lead guitar.

Piano is panned at 70-30 like the drums.



Good Luck.



edit... I did not want to go into details about centring sound. All recordings are mixed down on 2 channels. Their is no middle sound or whatever. If you are recording live, than we use surround sound mixing and is the way to go.



Once you recorded your material, if you put the left & right column at 45 deg. angle, and you sit in the middle at 10 feet away, you should actually here the drums come out as if their was a center speaker. Than, you know you did a good job. Just a thought.

Answer 2

Ok, I could teach you everything I know about recording, but that would be a book, so I'll give you the nitty gritty of it and you can email me with any further questions.



1. Mic placement- if you are using only one rhythm guitar, then try to have at least two mic's, one at 6 inches away from center cone on your amp, and the other about two feet from top left cone of the amp. Record into seperate tracks for each. Acoustic, one mic at bridge (condensor) and a large diaphragm condensor about half way up the neck, and again seperate tracks for each.



2. Drums, try to mic as much of the drums as possible all seperate tracks, and two to threee condensor's (one over head, one about 4 feet in front of kit, and one behind the kit (optional)).



3. Mixing, You did not say if you are recording with adat's, or a DAW (sonor or pro tools).. So I will go with a DAW setting..

this also depends on the sound you are looking for, but this is the industry standard. Guitar track one, (6 inch) copy track and paste into new track, pan one about 30% right and the other pan about 30% left, IMPORTANT on the left pan, click the invert button if your daw has it, this will throw it to the Rear channel of the left, so guitar one will sound as if it is right in front, and left behind, Guitar two (optional) (two feet) do the opposite, copy your track into a new one, pan about 30% left, and then 30% right and on the right, click invert. This will give you a FULL guitar sound.. Play around with this to get the exact sound you are looking for.



Drums- panning, your kick will normally be straight up the middle and snare can be offset a bit, but normally down the middle. toms, will be panned according to you standing in fron tof them, 10" full right, on down to the floor tom full left, going in about 25% to 50% depending on how many toms you have. Cymbals are normally controled by your over head condensor, (TIP: if you do not have a Studio Kit, download the free trial of Drumagog plugin, it can replace your kit sounds with pro sounds.. THIS is a must in any studio, HOME or pro..)



Leads- your'll need to save the center for vocals, so in your leads channel you will need to find a spot for it, this is normally by the producers choice, I tend to put them around 15% to each side, but this is just to taste, it depends on how much attention you want to the lead, if it is an IN Your Face lead, then copy and paste it about 3 times and do the same as guitar one, using any where from 15% to 20% to each side, and of course inverting.. (Inverting puts the listener in the middle of the sound as if they are in the room.)



Vocals- try to play around with 5% to each side, this gives your vocals a beefy 10% spread across the center.



I could go on and on, but this should put you with a foundation to play around with.. if you want more in depth help, I am happy to help, email me at [e-mail] ...

Answer 3

Although both answers given so far are excellent, I wanted to throw in my two cents.... I'm not going to go into recording or mastering so much, you seem to want to know about mixing. So...





maxim 1: you should get 80% of your basic sound through volume levels and panning - before EQ, before compression, etc.



In general, the loudest and most present things go down the middle, with background and texture tracks going progressively further out. The kick and bass almost always go down the center. The vocals and snare can vary a little bit. Guitars and keys tend to be panned. Cymbals, keys, etc are usually panned harder.



Only start applying your compression and EQ, etc after panning and leveling... you can always adjust your volume levels after doing this stuff, but you want to have a basic idea where you want to go first.



maxim 2: when using EQ, cut before boost. If you have to boost any frequency on any track more than a few db, then you should be looking to cut frequencies somewhere else instead, or consider recutting the track.



maxim 3: low-pass and high-pass everything, even if you don't think a needs it. Obviously the frequency cut-offs will be different for each track, but doing so will keep you from cluttering up your highest frequencies and mudding up your bottom end.



A good place to start is high-passing everything that isn't the kick or bass at 100-150 hz, and low-passing every non-cymbal, non-vocal track at 10 khz or so.



maxim 4: mix with your ears, not your eyes. Even though I will normally cut in the "mud" section (300-700hz for most instruments) for just about everything, I try to listen - if it sounds better when I don't, then I leave it.



maxim 5: reverb is good, unless you use too much. If reverb is audible for more than a split second, you're probably using too much. Mix just below what you can clearly perceive, and the subtlety will breathe life into your mix without it sounding like you're a bloody amateur.



maxim 6: A/B often - compare your current mix back to the original every so often, and keep a "reference" track on hand so you can keep what a good mix sounds like. It's easy for our ears to adapt to what we're hearing, and this can lead to wonky mixes (technical term *grin*). Take breaks (ten minutes every hour? maybe more?) often to give you ears a rest.







Whole books could be written about using EQ, compression, and different mastering techniques, including doubling and tripling tracks in different parts of the spectrum (one hard left, one hard right, etc) - I won't go into those, this is just basic stuff that everyone mixing should know.





Saul