Old timers will know this, but we get new faces in here who are just starting out and I wanted to offer this little bit of info to those who may need to hear it.

There is often a tendency to leave everything panned dead down the middle. That is okay in some cases, but allow me to share how it was explained to me long ago in a production class.

Imagine your song is a baseball team. Now picture those players lined up in a way that the catcher is standing on home plate, the pitcher is on the mound, and the other 7 players are lined up in a straight line starting on second base and going directly into center field. Now imagine you are standing in the stands directly behind the catcher. All you see is one player. So, you say "I want to see ALL the players", so you tell the last six players in the line to fan out, 3 to the left and 3 to the right. Now you can see all 9 players. Some appear closer, some further away, to the point where you can see that those last 2 players on each side are visible, but don't look as big as the others.

That example is your eyes doing what your ears do. If all your tracks are dead middle, they are in a line like the players. Once you move them left and right, they "appear" to your ears. Vocals, bass and solos usually stay dead middle. Drums (in this context) are all on one track so there isn't much choice, but live drums usually have the kit set up with several dedicated mics panned in a way that the drummer's tom toms will "walk" around the mix when he plays them. Rhythm instruments, like piano,organ, guitar, etc... can be panned left and right to give the sound some depth. To let your ears "see" them.

Often people in the learning stage of the mixing end of the game leave everything panned dead center. Experiment with moving things left and right and listen after the changes. It may be subtle, but it will be apparent. Something else I do is once I have it like I want it, I then play it again with my back to the sound source. It WILL sound a little different when your ears are turned around. If it sounds good both ways, it's done. Take it off the fire and stop cooking it.

Last edited by eddie1261; 03/17/18 04:06 AM.
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