Panning

So, when you're panning stuff in your mix, where do you put the subs??

central?

I'm kinda loosing power if I pan them at all.

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oooh never pan yo' subs !

will cause all sorts of problems if you're going to vinyl...

[Macc]

Largely speaking it's best to keep your subs central. It's very very rare you'd truly need to pan them. It's a) not the best idea to pan your subs, and b) essentially unnecessary.


Below.... oohhh, I dunno, about 80Hz or so (at a guess, can't remember the 'official' figure) you start to become much less adept at determining directional information. You feel it rather than hear it, to put it simply. You don't see many surround systems with stereo subs . It is not especially important where in a room you place the subwoofer (room modes notwithstanding)

It will also tend to destabilise your mix if a powerful main element of a tune is coming from anywhere other than centre - especially if you compress your mix. Also, you'll only be using one half of your (stereo) system, giving a feeling of lost power (probably where your sense of loss of power is coming from).

Further to that there's a matter of vinyl mastering, if that's a concern for you, where large low frequency signals with out of phase signals can cause big problems. You don't really have out of phase exactly here (unless you're using a big chorus or something), but you do have different signals in each channel at low frequencies, which could cause similar problems for vinyl (someone correct me if I am wrong there please!).


You can pan anything anywhere for digital media though, so if you want to do it, go ahead! Most of the other considerations still apply though.

Thanks!

that's kind of what I expected to hear. (except for the vinyl but, which is good to know).

I've just been messing around with panning subs and noticed that it doesn't really work.

I suppose this would apply to sounds that are layerd with subs??

for example if I have a kick layered with a sub then it should be kept in the centre too?

I tend to sequence subs alongside the other sounds within logic.
I should probably bounce them down first so the act as one sound.

[Macc]

You mean using a sub to beef up your kick?

If that's what you mean, I'd suggest leaving them at the same pan position,. or they will sound like two sounds playing at the same time, as opposed to one fat sound

[subvert]

indeed.

however its not uncommon to mult a bass patch for example into different frequency bands so that you can pan (or process in another way) the higher freq content whilst keeping the LF content central and focused.

veeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeery interesting


more routing possibilities to consider!!
just what i needed!!


nice one lads.

no doubt i'll be back later in the week with more questions.

[Macc]

Sort of related... Just some thoughts really...

It's quite common on older recordings (some jazz, a fair bit of funk) when stereo was quite new, that you get kicks in the middle while the rest of the kit is panned elsewhere. Also the bass (double or electric, so not too subby) was panned whereever a lot of the time.

I mention it cos in those days vinyl was all they had, and so they tried to get as much mono-compatible signal into the recording as possible, but generally they kept the lowest element in the middle, even back then.

Saying that, mooost jazz (prime example being most of Miles Davis' Colombia recordings) have bass and drums panned hard L+R. But then for them volume wasn't such a big deal being jazz, natural dynamics and all that lark.


Irrelevant? Quite possibly

but even nowadays with drum kits, they'll pan everything everywhere but the kick 99% of the time stays central. Given that most people are releasing on digital formats, this can only be cos of a) habit/tradition/'it's the way it has to be done', or b) because it keeps the mix grounded (more likely).

That said, I've been making (jazz) tunes recently and leaving things all over the shop. I LOVE the way it leaves loads of space in your mix when the drums are all over to the right, piano all left, bass in the middle, horns wherever... (Yes, that tune Mark )

THAT is stereo IMO, not 'BIG MONO', which most dnb and so on is. But that's an entirely different topic.


I'm boring myself

not boring at all!!

I don't mind so much when the kick is panned a little on a stereo mix, sounds awful on headphones though (depending on the genre I suppose).

have you ever heard the track "I Feel Free" by Cream??

everything is panned hard left except for the lead vocal which is panned hard right.

sounds mental on earphones, great track though.

[Macc]

i loooove that shit man!

that's proper stereo imo not just big wide pads etc, but mono/narrow sources spread around the spectrum. that reaaaaally gives you the sense of space.


one of the best examples of any such mixing for me is 'ricky's theme' by the beastie boys, on ill communication.

the kit is panned with the kick one way and most of the rest the other, the bass one way and keys another (something like that anyway). basically when you listen to it on cans it feels like you're laying down in the studio while they play it.

mario c

http://www.digido.com/portal/pmodule_id=...age_id=29/


^^^ an interesting article on subwoofer use/placement by the man, bobby katz.



in fact, i highly recommend reading all the articles on his site......they've been huge eye(ear?) openers for me.

[Macc]

Very good article, interesting method he's got there.

I've never seen (or even realy heard of) stereo subwoofers before though.. Shows what I know

:headpheauxne kru:

[subvert]

:headpheauxne kru:

hed-faux-n