Basic Music Mixing Panning Of Channels

This article is as basic as it gets. It's for someone who has never used a mixer and panned channels. In later articles we'll show you how to use two or three lead vocal tracks, how to pan them, delay them, etc. This article is the bare basics.

In the stereo field you have a left speaker and a right speaker. Panning a channel puts that sound somewhere within that field. If you pan a channel hard left (L90), you will hear the sound playing only out of the left speaker. Pan a channel center (C0) and you'll hear the sound coming from directly between the two speakers, right in the center.

Typically in music, certain instruments and sounds consistently appear in the same areas of the stereo field. Technically, you could pan things anywhere. But your goal is to pan instruments and vocals in common recognizable areas that leave space for each other. You could pan every instrument in the song dead center, but if you did, you'd have a train-wreck of noise all on top of each other. Each instrument needs to have its own space in the stereo field (and in the frequency field).

Back in the day, the Beatles panned their vocals hard left and the drums hard right in some of their songs. That wouldn't work today (or back then either). While listening on an Ipod, no one would want to hear a guy singing only in their left ear for an entire song. The industry quickly scrapped that panning experiment.

Here Are Your Basic Panning Starting Points

Note: C=Center, L=Left, R=Right

Lead Vocal - C0 (double and triple vocals are panned in multiple areas)

Snare - L5, or C0, or R5

Kick Drum - C0

Hi Hats / Wood Hit, Clicks, Snaps, Etc. - Between L35 to R35

Cymbals - Between L10 to R10

Bass Guitar - Between L10 to R10

Lead Guitar - Could be anywhere, but usually "at least" 20L or 20R off of center.

Keyboards, Piano, Horns, Violins - Between L80 to R80 or stereo (L90 and R90). All depend on the song and the arrangement. Many times these instruments are stereo, but in a full mix sometimes the piano or a horn is only on one side, around L45 or R45. Also, different musical melodies are sometimes played. One violin melody could be playing on the left while a different one is being played on the right. This will be explained in detail in our future "stereo field" and "music arranging" articles.

I never pan anything L90 or R90 (I'll go L80 or R80) unless its a stereo track whose material doesn't reach the very outer edges. Anything that is panned this hard sometimes is exaggerated when using an Ipod. The sound could be annoying and hot in one ear.

The best way to learn where instruments are panned is to listen to commercial artists whose music style is similar to yours. Listen to different songs and take notes on where the instruments appear in the stereo field. This will at least give you some idea of what's going on.

Note: When multiple vocals or stereo instrument tracks are playing it could be hard, if not impossible, to tell exactly where they are panned. In future articles, we will explain in detail different advanced panning techniques that will help you quickly decipher what's going on in your favorite artist's songs. Which means you can emulate these commercial panning techniques.

Source: http://cdmusicmastering.com