PANNING

[tracatak]

hello

i noticed when panning every sound..it seems to open the track up more for lack of a better explanation. when i keep the pan dead in the center no sounds seem to stand out more or less everything seems to be stuck on top of each other. so i started tweaking the pan knob alot and allowing each individual percussion to breathe more i guess. at the same time keeping a good balance so the entire track isnt all the way to the left or vice versa..not sure if any1 can better explain why this happens/works..or maybe a few more tips on top of it. thanks

[tonyc2002]

Its known as the stereo field (with two speakers anyway). Basically by panning you are shifting sounds around the stereo image. It's a fact that extreme panning will make us subconciously listen harder which is probaly something we have evolved with over 1000's of years (listening out for predators, for example). This phenomenon is known as psycho acoustics. The properties of a piece of music can (as mentioned) be improved by making your ears listen harder and by giving each sound its own space in the mix helping to avoid clashes etc...

Similarly, reverb can be used to send a sound to the back of the mix so with panning and reverb you can move a sound back and forth as well as left to right.

[Siege]

It can also be good to play about with reverb position on certain sounds. For instance, say u have a sound fairly central...but spread the reverb on the sound fairly wide or vise versa, wide sound with reverb in the middle. Just like to play about sometimes so the reverb doesnt always sit in the same position as the actual sound,.... not all reverbs units allow you to alter the width, so would have to find one that does. I sometimes use the nomad liquid verb to do this.

[The_Laughing_Man]

This is great for home listening but be aware that pretty much 85% of club soundsystems don`t run in stereo or are not set up correctly for stereo so you may well end up losing power on club rigs when overdoing stereo spreading

[Siege]

good point

[RDR]

For live PA... check in MONO always.

Let me repeat that.

MONO. ;) X

[BloodStar]

personally, i dont use any stereo enhancers or wild panning, it can brings more bad than good...

reverbs are very good for creating more spacey feel in the track. usually i am using 3 verbs as send fx, 1 early, 1 hall and 1 room,.
Based on what kind of sounds (percs, drums, hihats, synths, fx), I am sending them to any of thse 3 verbs..
The room verb can be also called track verb, as it's the main verb where i am sending all the sounds,. Ofcourse some sounds are staying dry, kicks, bass, etc..
Usually, sounds in the bottom end are dry, and as it goes up the frequency scale, i am making them more wet.
No needs to mention, you can also use reverbs as insert fx, for ceative use and twisted fx...

[tracatak]

will try

thanks all

[Jay Pace]

Stereo delays work wonders
Fills up the sound space whilst keeping your mono instruments relatively mono.

Generally I try keep noises fairly mono, and fill up the space using delays, reverbs, and widening on FX channels and verbs.

Make sure whatever you do sounds good in mono. No point making a kick ass synth part if it sounds weedy and lifeless when its summed down into mono. If you make party music, needs to be suitable for mono rigs as steve said....

There's a nice free stereo widening plugin i got called stereoizer thats mono friendly, highly recommend it.

[acidsaturation]

Generally I try keep noises fairly mono, and fill up the space using delays, reverbs, and widening on FX channels and verbs.

Ditto.

One club I played in a couple of times had some wierd business with the stereo reversed at the back in a really small space. Had loads of fun putting wierd scraping sounds on randon panning so it kind of sounded like lasers coming from 4 directions at once...