When and how do you pan?
I just got off a Q&A call with my Step By Step Mixing Challenge members and one person asked about panning so I thought I'd collect my thoughts for you as well.
There are three basic guidelines I have for panning:
- Keep the kick, snare, bass, and (usually) vocals straight down the center.
- Make sure your mix doesn't sound lopsided and heavy
on one side compared to the other (unless it's for effect for a limited time in the production).
- Don't pan duplicate tracks left and right because they'll just sum to "ghost" mono. Create anchor points at the extreme edges of the mix.
This third point is key to a wide mix.
Panning is all about balance and the easiest way to get a wide mix during the rough mixing phase is to pan
different instruments hard left and hard right.
That way you'll get "anchor" points in the stereo spectrum that tells your ear where the extreme edges of your mix sit.
If you don't pan anything completely left, the ear won't know that's how wide the mix goes.
You might fill out some of those edges
with stereo effects, reverb, etc. But it'll sound weaker than if you commit to putting stuff at the edges of your mix.
You can still smear the sound of the track with stereo effects so that it's not completely isolated on the edges - which can be a good or a bad thing depending on what you're looking for.
Those are just some quick thoughts on panning that I thought you might
find helpful.
If you're interested in starting your mix off properly and saving time in the studio, download my Easy Mix Approach template and get better mixes in less time.
Cheers,
Björgvin