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Post by drbill on Jul 17, 2020 11:29:54 GMT -6
That mult thing... I hope you're talking about some silly YouTube video. If not, I don't know what kind of people you hang with!!! Nope. Big name engineer who will remain nameless.
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Post by drbill on Jul 17, 2020 11:35:21 GMT -6
My monitoring is fine, really. PurIt's the general philosophy, a starting point, and oftentimes the destination (well at least for LCR!). But that's never how it's presented. It's always L-C-R. Absolute. Those are your only choices. And that's just not good enough for me. As soon as you break or bend that, you're no longer L-C-R. And you might as well toss the idea. Yeah, I'll pan stuff hard. But I'll also pan stuff midways. So I can't say I'm L-C-R if I don't follow the "rules" 100%. IMO, you can't have it both ways and say you mix LCR. In the same respect, if you're mono, you're mono. Not "kinda" mono.
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Post by NoTomorrow on Jul 17, 2020 12:33:50 GMT -6
I agree with those above that do not use LCR as a strict mixing technique.
I'm always able to get a more cohesive, pleasing sounding mix bringing in mono elements to around 80-90% and narrowing the drum kit anywhere from 30-50%.
Not saying I don't pan certain things 100% because I do, but definitely not every element.
Humans don't naturally hear anything in one ear only so I especially find I don't like LCR in headphones. I want at least some crossfeed to my other ear without using delay/reverb.
It's still very obviously panned, but sounds more natural that way to me.
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Post by christopher on Jul 17, 2020 12:47:00 GMT -6
LCR mixing makes no sense to me. I'm sorry, I can't really sugarcoat it in any way. I find it extremely unappealing to listen to. It's bad enough in front of a decent set of speakers, set up correctly, but just forget about listening on headphones or in a car. Please convince me otherwise. Examples of what you consider great mixes done LCR are very welcome. Original Ok Computer on Apple Music. I’m not so into OKNOTOK mix. The Apple Music mix is better than my original CD, which sounds very blurry in comparison, (Like a low res/ data corrupted???) Just happened to listen the other day after my last post. I haven’t done a serious analysis it might not be pure LCR, but’s it’s obviously ‘inspired by’. In earbuds it’s a great record to hike with.
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Post by christopher on Jul 17, 2020 12:59:24 GMT -6
That mult thing... I hope you're talking about some silly YouTube video. If not, I don't know what kind of people you hang with!!! Nope. Big name engineer who will remain nameless. isn’t that how panning was done before pan pots? Wow.. I guess a few people really think 2 channels with mono traces is better than a single channel with dual traces. Well, weird.. what else can I say. Hmm.. maybe they don’t like pan laws? Thanks for sharing, I like pan pots.
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Post by Tbone81 on Jul 17, 2020 13:01:55 GMT -6
I think there are a lot of subtle pan moves that are meaningful, but not obvious, or even possible to pick out of a mix in and of themselves. For example, I often find background vocals that are doubling the main voice sound better just slightly panned off center. You don't necessarily hear them as leaning towards one side or the other, but it leaves a sense of separation between them and the main vocal that would be lost otherwise. Same goes for certain percussion elements.
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Post by stormymondays on Jul 17, 2020 13:04:33 GMT -6
I don't think any mixing technique can/must/should be strict. So in that respect, I'm in agreement with everyone here. I also think that everyone that's chiming in has tried to mix LCR and either liked it or not. So - we're not going to change anyone's point of view. Although it might be a fun experiment: once you're done with the mix, pan everything LCR for a laugh, see what happens. It might inspire you! But if you hate it, don't show it to the client... they might like it and then you're screwed!!! In the spirit of the thread, the condensed version of my mixing tip would be: Try mixing in LCR. It just might be the shortcut to a clear, wide, punchy mix. You might just realize that some of your favorite records were mixed this way. However, make sure to check your mix in mono, and avoid "big mono" ("big mono": tons of hard-panned stereo tracks). And by all means, break the rule if it gets you a better mix!
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Post by drbill on Jul 17, 2020 13:23:11 GMT -6
Nope. Big name engineer who will remain nameless. isn’t that how panning was done before pan pots?. Exactly. But somehow they think it's LCR and that panning is evil. LOL
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jul 17, 2020 14:35:55 GMT -6
You can’t avoid hard panned main instruments if you mix twin guitar rock or metal LCR so the balance just changes drastically in a car. If you’re doing pop that’s a vocal and a backing track, then yeah you can get away with it. Twin guitars? Well if you balance it for mono, it will be bad in stereo and vice versus, especially if they’re higher gain or fuzzy. Toeing them in slightly makes it easier but 100 and 85 pannings if double tracked or 90 if single tracked isn’t LCR anymore. Many records that seem LCR When listening aren’t LCR when you mono them.
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Post by drbill on Jul 17, 2020 14:38:48 GMT -6
That mult thing... I hope you're talking about some silly YouTube video. If not, I don't know what kind of people you hang with!!! Nope. Big name engineer who will remain nameless. PS - it was a hardcore LCR proponent who's championed the format that we all know. In response to a question asking about what to do if you want to pull something in a bit so it's not so "hard panned" and un-natural sounding.
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Post by stormymondays on Jul 17, 2020 17:17:13 GMT -6
You can’t avoid hard panned main instruments if you mix twin guitar rock or metal LCR so the balance just changes drastically in a car. If you’re doing pop that’s a vocal and a backing track, then yeah you can get away with it. Twin guitars? Well if you balance it for mono, it will be bad in stereo and vice versus, especially if they’re higher gain or fuzzy. Toeing them in slightly makes it easier but 100 and 85 pannings if double tracked or 90 if single tracked isn’t LCR anymore. Many records that seem LCR When listening aren’t LCR when you mono them. That never happens to me. Maybe it’s my car? I do tend to favor the driver’s seat when mixing, by the way This short article by Mike Senior agrees with you: www.soundonsound.com/sound-advice/q-are-there-any-panning-rules-maintaining-mono-compatibility
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Post by notneeson on Jul 17, 2020 18:57:17 GMT -6
The thing is, and that’s the key part, that we think we can hear the panpot when we work it but we can’t. There’s quite a bit of literature about it but it’s better to hear for yourself. Close your eyes and get someone else to move the panpot, hear what happens. I’ll concede there’s a blurry zone between the speaker and the ghost center but it takes a LOT of panning for your brain to register that change. If that's your experience, get better monitoring. Seriously. I can hear all amounts of subtle panning. Including if a mono track that printed as stereo and panned hard L/R is slightly "off" Left to Right and not sitting truly Center. And that's a VERY subtle pan thing. I also have to kind of chuckle when hardcore LCR proponents take a track, mult it, pan one hard L and the other hard R and bring one track up to say....-5dB, and the other up to say -20dB and start expounding on the beauty of their sound field creation. Essentially all they are doing is creating a "manual panning" situation in the mix. LOL People get pretty voodoo about ITB panning... although maybe that person is on a console.
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Post by schmalzy on Jul 19, 2020 21:55:42 GMT -6
I always mix with LCR in spirit more than in practice.
It's a good reminder to push things further than you think they should go. You want that lead guitar just slightly off center? Try going further than that! See what happens! If you don't find a good reason to keep it out there bring it back in! I want to make bold choices not settle for timid happenstance.
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Post by Bob Olhsson on Aug 3, 2020 11:03:58 GMT -6
The reason for LCR panning, again, is musical balance translation.
I've been told the original reason, after it became a choice, was to bypass additional stages and transformers in the console. After that problem went away, people realized that the old LCR mixes still sounded more musical anywhere. What we don't want is a mix that only sounds its best on the monitors in the room where it was mixed. Mono compatibility is important because broadcast processing assumes it and there will be no "sweet spot" in playback at concerts when they are not mono. Remember that we are selling an artist and hence need to make a great first impression.
Doing an LCR mix can be challenging. It involves using delays and reverb to fill out the space when there isn't enough bleed to move things about. It also demands effective musical arranging.
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Post by Pueblo Audio on Aug 3, 2020 14:38:57 GMT -6
The reason for LCR panning, again, is musical balance translation. I've been told the original reason, after it became a choice, was to bypass additional stages and transformers in the console... Early in my career I had eventually tried my hand a designing/building my own mixer for my location work. Researching schematics of known consoles I was shocked at how invasive Planning circuits were. Every design I studied presented (in my opinion) major compromises in fidelity and resolution. What to do??? I blew it off!! No pan pots! LCR switching only. For those times when I needed to place a signal midway between the extremes I simply relied on stereo mic technique. Turned out this provided more natural and compelling sound stages than synthetic panning ever did for me. Just last year I engineered a direct-to-disc quad record. Again no pan pots, yet the spacious sound field occupied and enveloped all the cube feet of the room. At the same time providing solid and stable phantom centers. Fidelity and resolution are more important than pan pots when it comes to image depth and stability. Obviously there is a time and place for everything. But by avoiding the extra circuits/processing one may, with judicious technique, outperform pan pots.
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Post by Ward on Aug 3, 2020 14:46:25 GMT -6
The reason for LCR panning, again, is musical balance translation. I've been told the original reason, after it became a choice, was to bypass additional stages and transformers in the console. After that problem went away, people realized that the old LCR mixes still sounded more musical anywhere. What we don't want is a mix that only sounds its best on the monitors in the room where it was mixed. Mono compatibility is important because broadcast processing assumes it and there will be no "sweet spot" in playback at concerts when they are not mono. Remember that we are selling an artist and hence need to make a great first impression. Doing an LCR mix can be challenging. It involves using delays and reverb to fill out the space when there isn't enough bleed to move things about. It also demands effective musical arranging. I am so grateful you are here.
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Post by chessparov on Aug 3, 2020 15:11:02 GMT -6
IIRC Bob, there was a time you mentioned that a Motown Mono mix...
Would 9 out of 10 times, be picked over the Stereo mix, if it they were listened to blind.
Did this have to do, with the extra "Punch" of Mono, on dance records? Thanks, Chris
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Post by Bob Olhsson on Aug 3, 2020 16:52:37 GMT -6
They just felt better. They had a lot more work put into them because they were the "money" version. The same is true of surround today. I used to have fun comparing Hafler matrix versions of stereo mixes to their dedicated surround mix counterparts at hi fi shows.
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ericn
Temp
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Post by ericn on Aug 3, 2020 18:50:08 GMT -6
They just felt better. They had a lot more work put into them because they were the "money" version. The same is true of surround today. I used to have fun comparing Hafler matrix versions of stereo mixes to their dedicated surround mix counterparts at hi fi shows. I’m going to second Wards comments.
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Post by jcoutu1 on Aug 3, 2020 20:42:16 GMT -6
The reason for LCR panning, again, is musical balance translation. I've been told the original reason, after it became a choice, was to bypass additional stages and transformers in the console... Early in my career I had eventually tried my hand a designing/building my own mixer for my location work. Researching schematics of known consoles I was shocked at how invasive Planning circuits were. Every design I studied presented (in my opinion) major compromises in fidelity and resolution. What to do??? I blew it off!! No pan pots! LCR switching only. For those times when I needed to place a signal midway between the extremes I simply relied on stereo mic technique. Turned out this provided more natural and compelling sound stages than synthetic panning ever did for me. Just last year I engineered a direct-to-disc quad record. Again no pan pots, yet the spacious sound field occupied and enveloped all the cube feet of the room. At the same time providing solid and stable phantom centers. Fidelity and resolution are more important than pan pots when it comes to image depth and stability. Obviously there is a time and place for everything. But by avoiding the extra circuits/processing one may, with judicious technique, outperform pan pots. I imagine we have completely different tastes...which is one of my favorite things about music.
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ericn
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Balance Engineer
Posts: 14,817
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Post by ericn on Aug 3, 2020 20:52:05 GMT -6
Early in my career I had eventually tried my hand a designing/building my own mixer for my location work. Researching schematics of known consoles I was shocked at how invasive Planning circuits were. Every design I studied presented (in my opinion) major compromises in fidelity and resolution. What to do??? I blew it off!! No pan pots! LCR switching only. For those times when I needed to place a signal midway between the extremes I simply relied on stereo mic technique. Turned out this provided more natural and compelling sound stages than synthetic panning ever did for me. Just last year I engineered a direct-to-disc quad record. Again no pan pots, yet the spacious sound field occupied and enveloped all the cube feet of the room. At the same time providing solid and stable phantom centers. Fidelity and resolution are more important than pan pots when it comes to image depth and stability. Obviously there is a time and place for everything. But by avoiding the extra circuits/processing one may, with judicious technique, outperform pan pots. I imagine we have completely different tastes...which is one of my favorite things about music. The acceptance of this is one of the reasons I spend time here! Now imagine your a gearpimp who has the pleasure, yeah that’s the word, of listening to all kinds of things by those of all levels of talent! Wait you’ve done live work, except in that case they can convince their friends to to come listen!
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Post by Ward on Aug 4, 2020 6:18:00 GMT -6
I imagine we have completely different tastes...which is one of my favorite things about music. The acceptance of this is one of the reasons I spend time here! Now imagine your a gearpimp who has the pleasure, yeah that’s the word, of listening to all kinds of things by those of all levels of talent! Wait you’ve done live work, except in that case they can convince their friends to to come listen! Could not agree more! John and I, for example, hear some things exactly the same and other things completely differently. That's fine by me. Here, you can disagree on whether or not a G-SSL buss comp sounds beautifully clean or (to me) like a crunch box - but an extremely useful one!
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Post by peterhess on Aug 4, 2020 19:34:07 GMT -6
Quick thanks to everyone contributing to this fascinating thread!
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Post by chessparov on Aug 4, 2020 19:44:21 GMT -6
Reminds me of hanging around, as a "Youngin" (starting at 11) with a Pack of "then" and future Chessmasters and Grandmasters. You definitely get lifted up, by those who are more advanced than you are! (sayeth a Junior Wolf here;)) Chris
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Post by wiz on Aug 4, 2020 23:24:54 GMT -6
The reason for LCR panning, again, is musical balance translation. I've been told the original reason, after it became a choice, was to bypass additional stages and transformers in the console. After that problem went away, people realized that the old LCR mixes still sounded more musical anywhere. What we don't want is a mix that only sounds its best on the monitors in the room where it was mixed. Mono compatibility is important because broadcast processing assumes it and there will be no "sweet spot" in playback at concerts when they are not mono. Remember that we are selling an artist and hence need to make a great first impression. Doing an LCR mix can be challenging. It involves using delays and reverb to fill out the space when there isn't enough bleed to move things about. It also demands effective musical arranging. I use the LCR method, and write and arrange around that. It so suits my aesthetic...... cheers Wiz
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