|
|
Post by RealNoob on Jul 15, 2023 20:21:13 GMT -6
I've done 8 live albums for a group. I'm getting better. As I build my new template in PT for the next, I am questioning my previous panning strategy. Here's my instrumentation. I have been a hard LCR guy most of the time. How would you pan it?
Kick
Snare
HH
T1 - L 100%
T2 - R panned 100%
OH Stereo Panned 100%
Bass
GTR FX - Panned 100%
GTR
Keys 1 Stereo - Panned 100%
Keys 2 Stereo (same player, just different sounds on occasion) - Panned 100%
Sax - L 100%
Violin - R 100%
(these play together very well and I usually have run them at 100% width opposed or 50% width opposed
Lead vocal 80% of the time
Vox 1 Stronger - L 100% when not singing lead
Vox 2 Weaker - Centered or moves to cover when 1 or 3 leads and comes to center
Vox 3 Stronger - R 100% when not singing lead
Audience mics, extra tracks for processing drums and bass, sometimes for Sax when he switches to flute, etc. May duplicate and treat differently for vocal parts. Typical stuff.
How would you pan at a high level?
|
|
|
|
Post by drbill on Jul 15, 2023 21:18:10 GMT -6
Personally, I never pan hard LCR. Having one tom panned hard L and the other hard R would drive me crazy. Bonkers. Also, especially for live, there's very little reason for panning like this. Tons of live venues are mono. Even the stereo ones are not radically stereo. More like a lush mono. That's my $0.02. And worth every penny. LOL.  . Good luck with the mixes. |
|
|
|
Post by gmichael on Jul 15, 2023 22:33:20 GMT -6
Is the live recording the reason for the performance or is it a bonus bi-product of a gig?
I don't find live LCR mixes to be very interesting and occasionally they can sound quite detached- and become very mono with often static correlation behaviour (eg:boring)
Instruments that may have interwoven melodic tags or phrasings would sound weird to me if on opposite sides of the field, or as in the case with the hard panned toms, that is just so not natural at all. I would start by setting my pan laws up to -3db sine/cos and then start looking for the opportunities to keep things interesting and serving the needs of each songs intended impact.
|
|
|
|
Post by Blackdawg on Jul 16, 2023 2:39:37 GMT -6
Kick snare center
Toms L/R 50%ish
Overhead 100-80% depending on Phase and feel and mic setup.
GTR L or R 30-50%, effects panned opposite same amount to a stereo bus.
Piano same but opposite the GTR to give balance in the image.
OTher stuff like Horns get panned evenly throughout but never super wide.
Lead vox always center with back grounds flanking on the sides 30-80% depending on whats happening and singers ect.
Reverb stays 100% and most other effects to give big space.
Obviously these are all subject to change pending...lots of things. But if you like what you're doing and the client does too. Then cool.
Can hear this more or less done here on a live jazz record I did. No singing. I am doing a live record though that similar instrumentation.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jul 16, 2023 7:04:32 GMT -6
LCR is the rock or metal bread & butter however for those not looking for a wall of sound (or mush) type presentation we tend used the term figuratively not literally. At least on those somewhat rare occasions in metal where bands had the money for a proper production / engineering team I or they never did hard LCR for anything, there's simply too much clashing information especially when verbs get involved. Panning tom's 100 LR is new though, even WOS mixes didn't do that and I bet it sounds a bit strange no?
Usually guitars (if they're double tracked) would be a 70 - 80 split (L / R), OH's and verb 100 (S), synths 60 - 70 (S) (unless it's a quiet section with no guitars then we'd run them usually about 80 / 90) and in a general (not live mixe) times we'd automate between. Backing vox would generally be 30 - 40, reason for that is once you bus them and add effects it fills & widens, although on occassion we've also slotted the vox bus into the 50 - 60 arena to give a more powerful presentation.
As BD said, for some types of music (like ska if you remember what that is) I'd balance like a sax opposite to the guitar. In short though the general rule of thumb was to start by following the orientation of the band on stage, if it doesn't sound right from there change it.
|
|
|
|
Post by mcirish on Jul 16, 2023 7:10:54 GMT -6
Guitars and keys I will pan wide to get them away from the vocals but I only go 50-70% on drum and overheads. When the drums are super wide, they sound a bit unnatural especially if the close mics are up in the mix. If it's mostly overheads, I can get away with wider panning.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jul 16, 2023 8:08:20 GMT -6
I only go 50-70% on drum and overheads. It doesn't quite work like that, the OH's are a point source capture of the kit and room. Let me explain, if we hit a splash which in conversion to panning is 10 on the potentiometer it will still be around 10 in the stereo field. It's like having a 0 mono bass synth spread in stereo, the frequencies will still be in the center (unless you move it of course).
By removing the OH's down to 50 - 70 you're actually artificially compacting down the stereo spread which can in relation to the kit panning cause issues. If you're using a drum VST for example and you want to decrease the stereo spread ideally you'd move the actual cymbals / toms in closer, that will automatically reduce the width of the OH's. Just because the OH's are panned 100 / 100 it doesn't mean the actual instruments being played within the stereo field are 100 / 100.
When mic'ing a kit it's a fair bit different, gotta love VST's but there's methodologies for controlling the stereo influence of OH's by using XY for example. However even in that situation the kit itself is still relative to the OH's and panning, you just can't manipulate it on the fly (well technically speaking you can with widening plugs etc. but it's better to get it right from the get go).
|
|
|
|
Post by mcirish on Jul 16, 2023 8:16:49 GMT -6
When I shrink the stereo of the overheads, I listen to where the drums are positioned. Then I pan the toms to the same location. That's how I do it. I am looking for the drums to feel like a single instrument, instead of individual items wide spread across the stereo field.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jul 16, 2023 8:23:28 GMT -6
When I shrink the stereo of the overheads, I listen to where the drums are positioned. Then I pan the toms to the same location. That's how I do it. I am looking for the drums to feel like a single instrument, instead of individual items wide spread across the stereo field. That makes more sense and that's how you'd do it with a real kit that has close mic's / OH's, they're all in mono you pan to match. With a VSTI for example there's absolutely no need, I know we're talking about live here but IME in that situation it's better to control it with mic'ing techniques. I guess I've just never had to or needed to approach it that way.. |
|
|
|
Post by Martin John Butler on Jul 16, 2023 10:52:41 GMT -6
I mostly mix like I'm watching a band. When I listen to hard core LCR mixers like Chris Lord Age, they make me cringe. I do like having two guitars, one left, one right, but I often don't pan all the way. It has to sound natural to me, not unreal.
|
|
|
|
Post by jeremygillespie on Jul 16, 2023 15:22:18 GMT -6
Drums get panned as if I’m sitting at the kit. So a rack Tom doesn’t go all the way left and the floor doesn’t go all the way right but it’s further out than the rack.
Unless a piano is the main part of the song with a singer songwriter, I usually find a space to the left or right and let it sit there and balance the other side with a guitar or another instrument. Not a huge fan of wide panning keyboards especially if the player is all over the place.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jul 16, 2023 16:43:48 GMT -6
Check polarity of drum mics. Check phase of any drum multimics. Pan the overheads to where they are in the room mics or 50-75% L and R or so. Pan all the drums to where they are in the stereo field with the overheads panned. Phase is all important! Do not slide shit around time wise and kill the depth for artificial transients that will eventually be smacked down later and cause distortion or pumping! Stupid unnecessary transients that the human ear would compress anyway through psychoacoustic phenomena should be dealt with on the track level to not overlord anything later down in the signal path. True top down mixing, not just plugging in your bus inserts asap, encourages bad habits.
Pan guitars to where they are in the room mics if the band played all together at once or like 90 ish L or R if only one track or like 100-90 or something if double tracked. Use your ears. Not difficult.
Do things right as soon as possible in the production process and later steps will fall into place.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jul 16, 2023 16:45:08 GMT -6
Drums get panned as if I’m sitting at the kit. So a rack Tom doesn’t go all the way left and the floor doesn’t go all the way right but it’s further out than the rack. Unless a piano is the main part of the song with a singer songwriter, I usually find a space to the left or right and let it sit there and balance the other side with a guitar or another instrument. Not a huge fan of wide panning keyboards especially if the player is all over the place. If there’s room mics and whole band at once, has to be audience perspective. Drums tracked separately, prefer drummer perspective so guys can drum along if I can reverse panning of room mics and not fuck stuff up and sound like a diff space. This is why mono room mics can be cool. |
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jul 16, 2023 16:55:24 GMT -6
When I shrink the stereo of the overheads, I listen to where the drums are positioned. Then I pan the toms to the same location. That's how I do it. I am looking for the drums to feel like a single instrument, instead of individual items wide spread across the stereo field. That makes more sense and that's how you'd do it with a real kit that has close mic's / OH's, they're all in mono you pan to match. With a VSTI for example there's absolutely no need, I know we're talking about live here but IME in that situation it's better to control it with mic'ing techniques. I guess I've just never had to or needed to approach it that way.. The best sounding vsti recordings are inserted into a partially e kit with real cymbals and some real drums or sample augmented. The vsti still have to be panned to where the real drums or pads are and the overheads manually edited if pads used. |
|
|
|
Post by jeremygillespie on Jul 16, 2023 21:06:16 GMT -6
Drums get panned as if I’m sitting at the kit. So a rack Tom doesn’t go all the way left and the floor doesn’t go all the way right but it’s further out than the rack. Unless a piano is the main part of the song with a singer songwriter, I usually find a space to the left or right and let it sit there and balance the other side with a guitar or another instrument. Not a huge fan of wide panning keyboards especially if the player is all over the place. If there’s room mics and whole band at once, has to be audience perspective. Drums tracked separately, prefer drummer perspective so guys can drum along if I can reverse panning of room mics and not fuck stuff up and sound like a diff space. This is why mono room mics can be cool. I feel like the times I’ve set up in a single room and was forced to have the drums with everybody else, I’m not using any dedicated room mics for the drums. Drums are getting some serious mono treatment with the slightest of panning, and every other open mic is the “room” mic for the drums. It’s seriously important to set production goals and to make very clear and informed decisions on who is where in the room. Mic choices and their polar patterns can either make or break what you’re doing. You want more of a room sound, push people away from one another. Tight sound? I’ve done jazz records in a single large room where the players were so close they were almost bumping into each other while they were playing. If they were 6 feet away from one another it changed the entire vibe. Anyway, I guess if you’re just given something to mix you’re kind of stuck with what they did earlier in the project. I don’t happen upon that stuff very often, so I try and get it right from the start. And if I’m doing something other than jazz or a very particular throw back sound, that means getting the drums isolated from everything else so that I can turn them into what I’m hearing them to be from the get go. |
|
|
|
Post by drbill on Jul 17, 2023 7:44:09 GMT -6
It's getting pretty off topic, but check out pics of sessions at Gold Star in Hollywood. The Phil Spector setup. Literally elbow to elbow. Talk about "tight" sessions in one room where everyones mic picked up everyone else...... Seemed to work for Phil though.....
|
|
|
|
Post by notneeson on Jul 17, 2023 10:21:02 GMT -6
If there’s room mics and whole band at once, has to be audience perspective. Drums tracked separately, prefer drummer perspective so guys can drum along if I can reverse panning of room mics and not fuck stuff up and sound like a diff space. This is why mono room mics can be cool. I feel like the times I’ve set up in a single room and was forced to have the drums with everybody else, I’m not using any dedicated room mics for the drums. Drums are getting some serious mono treatment with the slightest of panning, and every other open mic is the “room” mic for the drums. It’s seriously important to set production goals and to make very clear and informed decisions on who is where in the room. Mic choices and their polar patterns can either make or break what you’re doing. You want more of a room sound, push people away from one another. Tight sound? I’ve done jazz records in a single large room where the players were so close they were almost bumping into each other while they were playing. If they were 6 feet away from one another it changed the entire vibe. Anyway, I guess if you’re just given something to mix you’re kind of stuck with what they did earlier in the project. I don’t happen upon that stuff very often, so I try and get it right from the start. And if I’m doing something other than jazz or a very particular throw back sound, that means getting the drums isolated from everything else so that I can turn them into what I’m hearing them to be from the get go. This can be a rewarding way to work and learn a room. Had a pair of earthworks up on grand piano recently and the drum ambience they added was fantastic. |
|
|
|
Post by niklas1073 on Jul 17, 2023 15:03:02 GMT -6
I have to agree with mcirish and dan on the overheads. How I’ve learned it and have been executing it since is that the OH panning determines the position of the drums in field of depth. I feel it’s one of the crucial components that determines the 3D experience in the mix. I usually end up around 60% on the overheads. Sure a 100% pan will makenthe drums feel wide and big, but flattens out the whole mix at the same time. Also I have experienced it looses some of the punch when you pan it out all the way.
I have also tried to deliberately move away from doubling guitars and going 100% on them. Trying rather to find the empty space for the one guitar. I suppose everything else changes pan wise from song to songfor me except drums lead vox and bass.
But I do find the 100% LCR mixing intriguing for it’s straight forward philosophy and simplicity and have sometimes played around with it some, but never ended up actually printing that. But I sure will try finishing something that way too one day.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jul 17, 2023 15:24:21 GMT -6
I have to agree with mcirish and dan on the overheads. How I’ve learned it and have been executing it since is that the OH panning determines the position of the drums in field of depth. I feel it’s one of the crucial components that determines the 3D experience in the mix. I usually end up around 60% on the overheads. Sure a 100% pan will makenthe drums feel wide and big, but flattens out the whole mix at the same time. Also I have experienced it looses some of the punch when you pan it out all the way. I have also tried to deliberately move away from doubling guitars and going 100% on them. Trying rather to find the empty space for the one guitar. I suppose everything else changes pan wise from song to songfor me except drums lead vox and bass. But I do find the 100% LCR mixing intriguing for it’s straight forward philosophy and simplicity and have sometimes played around with it some, but never ended up actually printing that. But I sure will try finishing something that way too one day. You're doing the same thing, it doesn't matter about panning position per se more along the lines of where the instrument is in the stereo field. Again you can have a stereo synth which only has center frequencies. I haven't used every drum VSTI out there, maybe the OH's are fixed on some and you do have to match them if you reduce the panning width which is fine. For live / real OH's if you want to shrink the stereo spread (OH panning) then as I said earlier you have to match them.
I thought Mcirish was just reducing the OH stereo spread without matching, I was wrong.
|
|
|
|
Post by niklas1073 on Jul 17, 2023 16:03:05 GMT -6
I have to agree with mcirish and dan on the overheads. How I’ve learned it and have been executing it since is that the OH panning determines the position of the drums in field of depth. I feel it’s one of the crucial components that determines the 3D experience in the mix. I usually end up around 60% on the overheads. Sure a 100% pan will makenthe drums feel wide and big, but flattens out the whole mix at the same time. Also I have experienced it looses some of the punch when you pan it out all the way. I have also tried to deliberately move away from doubling guitars and going 100% on them. Trying rather to find the empty space for the one guitar. I suppose everything else changes pan wise from song to songfor me except drums lead vox and bass. But I do find the 100% LCR mixing intriguing for it’s straight forward philosophy and simplicity and have sometimes played around with it some, but never ended up actually printing that. But I sure will try finishing something that way too one day. You're doing the same thing, it doesn't matter about panning position per se more along the lines of where the instrument is in the stereo field. Again you can have a stereo synth which only has center frequencies. I haven't used every drum VSTI out there, maybe the OH's are fixed on some and you do have to match them if you reduce the panning width which is fine. For live / real OH's if you want to shrink the stereo spread (OH panning) then as I said earlier you have to match them.
I thought Mcirish was just reducing the OH stereo spread without matching, I was wrong.
Yes absolutely you need to match the full kit accordingly. Never used vst drums myself only miked drums, so I am not sure how they work in praxis. |
|
|
|
Post by drumsound on Jul 17, 2023 21:13:59 GMT -6
Things recorded in stereo tend to start panned full L and R, but that may change.
Toms are panned as they are when you're behind the set. On a 3 tom setup, 10-2-4 ish on the clock, sometimes tighter. I will sometimes pull in the overheads but usually leave the room wide. Guitars recorded with one mic each go where they work, but when I use 2 mics on one cabinet, recorded to 2 tracks I usually think of them as stereo and hard pan them.
I'm working on a record right now with stereo keys and stereo guitar and I'm not panning those equal. The Keys are Hard L and the R is about 2 o'clock and the guitars are hard R with the Left around 10 o'clock, at least that's how they are sitting now, but we are still in production.
Any mono source is panned where it speaks well in the mix, and that is rarely hard L or R.
|
|
|
|
Post by jmoose on Jul 19, 2023 15:19:45 GMT -6
I like records that are kinda mono... narrow & tight. I also like records that are super wide & have things swirling all around.
Both are great just really depends on the genre & overall production. Can't make the same moves with a bebop quartet that you would with a prog metal group that did 37 layers of overdubs. The music is what it is.
In the context of "live music" - where there's an audience present on the recording? All albums suspend reality but to some degree the live trip has gotta be believable.
Literally just printed & delivered mixes for a live instrumental trio this afternoon... Rev C. Hopefully final.
Drums are right up the center... overheads hard panned but the toms are dead mono. More power that way.
Guitar in rev A was also right up the center w/ a bit of stereo slap from echoboy to spread it out... They weren't digging that & suggested hard panning the guitar and putting a double with some verb on the other side like he was playing through two amps. Sure! That works.
Remember a funny panning incident mixing an album about a decade ago where I got called into the artists home studio...
Spent maybe 3 or 4 hours getting the mix of this one song together. More like de-mixing... anyway... pulled the crew in for a listen. Loved it but the bandleader wanted to spend a little time on this shaker at the tail end of the song... literally the last 7 seconds.
I got kicked the couch and he spent the next 3 or 4 hours, about the same amount of time I spent on the entire song playing with the panning & automation for this shaker & reverb on the tail end. Completely absorbed in the minutiae of that last few seconds.
My vote was to stick some kinda auto-panner on there and move forward but no no... its gotta swim! Swim shaker swim!
|
|
|
|
Post by notneeson on Jul 19, 2023 16:55:56 GMT -6
Had a guy in from NY getting drum sounds at this super nice room near me (I was just there for the hang).
He’s got this really wide pair of OHs going, but then with a Coles dead center over kick/snare. Great engineer, based on what I heard him doing.
Point being, the width thing really varies based on OH placement.
Me, I’ve been liking a pair of 269s about 18” apart over the middle of the kit. It’s just a different sound.
|
|
