Is it better to have the drum stereo spread (or piano for that matter) positioned using the view of the player or the listener?
Should the ride be on the right, and the HH on the left? Should the higher notes on piano be left or right?
I recently went back to a recording we did years ago and thought 'the drums are panned backwards', but maybe it's just me http://masteringmatters.com/stuff/Simpleton.mp3 (gotta give it 30 seconds or so to develop)
So many details when mixing/recording/mastering .. How do you, as a musician, expect the soundscape, or am I worrying way too much about such details? To me I want it from the player's view, but I may be biased; thought I'd ask. At around 2 min the cymbals seem way wrong panning to me ..
/it was done in PT, so relevant as far as forum rules (I hope)
I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome Make your sound your own!
Stereo was new to popular music in the sixties. As it turned out English mix engineers spread drums one way while American mix engineers did it just the opposite. When British music just about drove American bands off the music charts American bands like the Sir Douglas Quintet and Beau Brummels had their music mixed the British way. To further complicate matters the biggest British band, the Beatles, early music was mixed with the drums in one channel and bass in the opposite channel.
My personal preference is high-hat at 10:00 o'clock left, snare slightly left, ride at about two o'clock right, kick down the middle, crashes far left and right and toms from slightly right to far right.
Yeah, back when you had to work with 2 separate channels (Beatles era), I get it that they had limited options; but we don't anymore! Thought it would be interesting to ask about personal preferences when working these days. Do others even notice whether panning is correct from one view to the other (I seem to). Maybe I'm weird, but it raised a question in my mind; is one 'more correct'?
You seem to agree that the player's perspective feels more natural, which I agree with. The panning just seems to feel better when heard from the 'performer seat' view. Ride should be on the right side, HH a bit left. /If I understood correctly //maybe I'm weird for even asking
I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome Make your sound your own!
I have to admit that I have never considered the drum perspective. I do think there needs to be panning - to give it "space", but I don't know if I would notice their position to be "right or wrong". (mostly I don't want to "notice" the cymbals/hi-hats and have them pulling my ear. I am a loud-cymbal-hater)
HOWEVER... I have a HUGE preference for a piano to be panned across the stereo field with the bass (low keys) on the left and the treble (higher keys) on the right...so "Driver's Seat", for sure. The other way seems completely wrong (to my ear) when I hear it.
I suppose that would be an argument for the drums to be panned that way, as well? Maybe not...
As far as the players perspective goes, that depends on the player. Left handed drummers usually (not always) swap the kits. Phil Collins is an example.
Would need to listen to a Phil Collins record through the phones I guess to hear how they panned them on the recording, I don't own any
I say that because there is no correct way. I don't mean that as in a "music is art; break the rules." I mean it as there are no rules AT ALL. I hear HH's on the far left, just left of center, up the middle, off to the right, and even continuously randomly panned during a song.
Also, the ride doesn't have to be opposite of the hats. I hear it on the same side fairly often. Even more so since a fair number of drummers have a second set of hats.
For me personally, I prefer hats on the left and ride on the right because that's how it sounds when I play; which has been touched on. But the bigger factor is I like thinking I'm the one drumming. If it hear hats on the right; I'm watching someone else! So, I'm in the audience. For whatever reason, it takes me more out of the music. When I was younger, I would even go so far as to turn my cans around to hear it with the hats on the left if they were panned on the right.
As far as Phil Collins, how he set his kit up had very little bearing on the panning of his drums. I just never knew if it was him or the engineer that made the decision and if it was a song by song basis. His toms go left to right in some songs, the opposite in others, and even panned almost entirely up the middle. For a while he didn't use nearly as many cymbals as you would normally think to use in a song. More so shakers, and electric percussion.
One quick example of would be by Genesis's "That's All." The HH starts right in the beginning of the song, panned up the center. There is no cymbal crash until 1:39...a little different. When the toms come in, they are panned right up the center to right.
Then again THE drum fill from him, I've coined it THE drum Phil, from "In the Air Tonight" is high tom (L) to low tom (R).
You guitarists coming into the drumming world with all of your "rules" like "keys", and "chords." I get why it's confusing.
I mean there are some basics for mixing like (generally) you want the snare up the middle...but even that's broken. If you listen to a song like "Gimmie That Girl" by Joe Nichols you will hear an auxiliary snare (which is off to the side of the drummer usually tuned different than the main snare) panned to the side for many of the ghost notes of the verse. The main up the middle; but just because it's a snare it doesn't HAVE to go up the middle. In this case, I think it helps the listener hear it a bit more...which give the verse a nice groove.
If it makes you feel better, MANY of the drummers I talk to who aren't pro don't notice. Many of the pro drummers I know don't care. Pan away my friends.
I could go on and on but this is probably already more than you wanted to know about drum panning.
The much shorter answer is, your song sounds fine to me. Even at the time you indicated; I wouldn't have thought anything was odd, wrong or out of place. Good song by the way!
Last edited by HearToLearn; 03/05/2007:47 AM.
Chad (Hope that makes it easier)
TEMPO TANTRUM: What a lead singer has when they can't stay in time.
I have a HUGE preference for a piano to be panned across the stereo field with the bass (low keys) on the left and the treble (higher keys) on the right...so "Driver's Seat"
So using your piano example, at least I'm not the only one that notices such stuff.
The same holds for me; even if the stereo piano sound is narrowed to the left side; the higher notes still have to come from more right than the lower notes (I'm OK with the piano being panned a bit left, but the upper notes still need to be more right than the lower notes .. even if that means just a tiny bit more toward middle).
Quote:
I suppose that would be an argument for the drums to be panned that way, as well?
That was why I made the original post; do others notice or is it just me? Maybe the whole 'drivers seat' doesn't matter to most. I'm sure it doesn't matter to casual listeners, but as a musician, does it matter to you? It seems to be matter to me Something feels off, maybe it's the ride in this one
I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome Make your sound your own!
Classically in the dawn of HiFi, it was all about emulating the audience experience listening to an orchestra and later bands. How things were set up on stage was how it was panned from the audience perspective. As a general rule that's how I mix too. Looking at a standard drum kit from the front, hats on the right, kick in the middle, ride to the left. As things evolved it went all over the place. A classic trick you hear all the time is a big tom run using a huge kit they would pan the toms one way or the other like Phil Collins did all the time. You would hear four or more toms clearly going around the world from one side to the other. Nobody ever heard that in the audience listening to a concert 40-50 years ago. Things like that were done in the studio to try to develop an identifiable sound for one artist.
Now, unless it's a live concert recording, it's all studio production stuff so it's whatever works for you. I like your mix btw, sounds great to me.
Fun discussion. I believe the on stage versus audience perspective matters more to listeners that are musicians than to listeners that are not; in particular musicians with either an active or strong background in performance.
On a side note, perspective is much more noticeable to me when the panning doesn't match with how things are set up. If I'm seeing a performance from the audience perspective then my brain expects the sound to match what I see. For instance if I see the keyboard player far left, acoustic guitar near left, singer center, drums and bass behind singer and electric guitar far right then I expect to hear the keyboard to my left and electric guitar to my right, not vice versa.
Recorded music I'm far less particular because most of the recorded music I listen to are studio recordings and the overall perspective is more difficult to determine.
On a side note two songs from the 70s that were available in discrete four channel really stand out in my memory, "No Time" by the Guess Who and "Light My Fire" by the Doors.
In stereo Randy Bachman's lead guitar intro and solo for "No Time" are panned from far left to far right with the panning duration matching the length of the intro or solo. Four channel the guitar panning is 360 degree from left front to right front to right rear to left rear to left front. Same trick is performed with lead and background vocals at the outro. Made me dizzy the first time I heard it.
The "Light My Fire" mix was much more conservative with the front channels almost standard stereo but with light delay or reverb and the rear channels drenched with delay and reverb. The doubled electric bass and keyboard bass parts were easier to pick out. It was also easy to hear the effects used on the kick drum.
Guess maybe I listen closer than most. For a different interpretation of stereo drums, this recording has Steve Gadd's whole kit in one channel and Rick Moratta's (I'm pretty sure it was him) in the other <grin>. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pIkFaY3sjM
I enjoy noticing this kind of stuff in a mix. Probably because I grew up on it. Yeah I'm that old
I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome Make your sound your own!
For a different interpretation of stereo drums, this recording has Steve Gadd's whole kit in one channel and Rick Moratta's (I'm pretty sure it was him) in the other <grin>.
That was the norm decades ago. IIRC...where many instruments were one side or the other....Doors, Traffic, Cream, Hendrix, Beatles....and the list goes on. If I listen to that old material now it's so obvious and sounds a bit odd from a current perspective but I never noticed or even made that observation back then.
Just in the last few weeks I decided to learn "Traveling Man" and the lead axe solo is on the left. (Very fun song to learn/play, I might add)
I guess I thought it was unique to have two different drummers on the song .. and impressed with how well they played with each other. When this came out I was 13 and even then noticing things like this. And yes I've heard all the above and toured a couple studios from those days (museums now) just to fathom how they managed to do what they did with so little to work with.
Touring Motown (Hitsville USA) was really enlightening in particular. If you like recording I recommend taking the tour if ever in the area.
For those from the south Muscle Shoals is also pretty cool in its own way.
I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome Make your sound your own!
Guess maybe I listen closer than most. For a different interpretation of stereo drums, this recording has Steve Gadd's whole kit in one channel and Rick Moratta's (I'm pretty sure it was him) in the other <grin>. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pIkFaY3sjM
That was great! I have never heard that one. It definitively sounds 70's influenced. Fantastic musicianship.
I'm not sure if you know that Dave Weckl did something similar in, I want to say, '91 or '92. Really cool song with...guess who? Steve Gadd! lol Go figure.
Drums [Left Channel] – Dave Weckl Drums [Right Channel] – Steve Gadd
Quote:
I enjoy noticing this kind of stuff in a mix.
I get it. I love all this kind of stuff. I truly geek out on production. I think too many times it is over looked.
Overall with panning I know one thing. How someone does it is the best way. If they change how they do it; then that's the best way.
Last edited by HearToLearn; 03/12/2008:10 AM.
Chad (Hope that makes it easier)
TEMPO TANTRUM: What a lead singer has when they can't stay in time.
Lots of really great rock records being released these days have mono drums. Check out The Raconteurs or The Black Keys for reference. If the song kicks, it seems it’s not really all that important.
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I get why it's confusing. 
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