Anybody here a big fan of LCR panning? If so what pointers do you have for me?

Well... if you want the science of it, the reason LCR panning is effective is because only signals coming from absolutely right or left have a truly unambiguous stereo position, due to physically coming from one place only. Centre signals have a almost as definite position, and furthermore benefit from the strengthening effect of coming from both speakers.

As for the clashing thing, you should be solving that with EQ anyway. You can't really depend on pan position to take care of this, as many listening situations are either actually mono - eg single speaker radio - or de facto mono; if you get far enough away from a pair of speakers you're effectively hearing a mono composite. So mono compatibility is always something to be concerned with.

No, mono playback will collapse the two channels to one channel mixed together. So you hear both signals, but lose the positioning information. You can easily test what a mix sounds like in mono by clicking the stereo interleave button on your master bus.

gotcha. so in an lcr mix are you still able to do some things in mono, such as bass lines or would it sound out of place? i havent tried this yet

This is one of those things that you can over=think quite easily. I think the first point I made here is the most useful thing I've said, whatever that's worth. Basically, mono signals at hard L, C or R are very definitely positioned. Any other pan position, or any stereo recording will by necessity be less precisely placed, due to the limitations of the stereo illusion. I guess that's the thing to remember; stereo *is* an illusion, kind of like the audio version of 3d glasses. You actually can't place something 10% left in a truly definite way. You can verify this yourself by moving a few inches from your listening position and noticing how the stereo image changes. The power of LCR is that those positions are definitely "there, there and there" in most listening situations.

gotcha John T, thanks for your help!

+1 ... its almost impossible for me to get true LCR panning

... I'm a great fan of it and employ it in sections more than songs.

Center: Vocals, Kick, Bass, reverbs
100% L/R: All else, pads, snares, blah blah, delays, Haas delays, etc.

Interestingly, the sweet spot Center is an illusion, iirc.

L-R panning vs. LCR panning was employed by stereo pioneers, iirc.

Many complain that a song sounds dis-associated from LCR panning ... and/or that instruments stand out as a result.  But the complaint is made by purists, and rarely by pop-listeners.

Any of you care to elaborate more?

Well, the reason to use it, or at least to think about it a bit, is because "panning as we know it" is kind of mythical. You actually can't pan very precisely. You have Left, Right, Centre and whole heap of "kind of over there, sort of, depending on this or that factor" positions. That can be useful, of course. But I think the reason why people often go gaga for LCR when they first start using it is simply because they start getting mixes that aren't made up of a completely wishy washy stereo image, which is what you'll get if you try to go for the (non-existent) precise positioning that a pan pot appears to offer. Ultimately, I think most non-dogmatic people will settle on a combination of hard pans and less defined positions, according to the needs of the song. But LCR is definitely worth tinkering with, and understanding.

Yeah I get that, but I LIKE that about it! I still think it's reasonably defined in a good listening environment and if it's not a good listening environment, it's not a good listening environment so who cares!

Still, I'm sure it could teach you some things about balance. If the left and right sound balanced (frequency wise) in LCR, then it's going to also sound good when you bring back the pans. If you already have pretty close panning going on, balance issues may not be so obvious.

I'll try it out for fun, but I can't imagine I'd ever do a song in it. But that's just me!

I'll often start mixing and go to LCR on acoustic (as opposed to synthetic) songs.  As pointed out above, it can clear up a mix.  But like Bat I'll work my way back to center for the panned stuff.  Not all the way, but toward 50% until it sounds right or starts to get lost again.

@

Getting a good balance, while at the same time getting a good separation, between the L/R elements is to me one of the hardest things. It requires good selection of tones and parts for each side and careful playing to maintain the correct balance in tone throughout (unless you are one of those 'just mangle it with automation till it fits' people.)

And, inevitably it seems, the sound of an LCR mix in headphones is way off from the sound in the room, unless there's some stereo reverb to spread out the sounds a bit in a non-obtrusive way, or they are well blended into the center material I guess, since there's no crosstalk in the phones and they can sound wierdly separated from the mix. Just a wee bit off of far L/R can prevent that, it often seems to me. Get them up enough to be at the right levels in the room and they can be too loud in the phones.

Actually, the thing with the Beatles' stereo mixes is that nobody was interested in them til around Abbey Road / Let It Be time. Even George Martin wasn't generally bothered. They were mostly knocked off quickly after the mono mixes were done, often by junior staff.

Yeah, I agree. I think it's worth experimenting with as a learning process, but as a dogma, it's a bit too limiting.

I had watched a video about this and found this to be a great tip. I don't consider myself a purist; however, I have gotten the critique of pieces being too centered and do concur with panning making instruments standout. I must say this though - while panning has to occur for elaborate instrumentation, there is a problem as you just can't just throw whatever to the side.

Someone asked me about panning laws and while I don't recall or fully understand the "official" definition, I did use lamen terms even though I still may be wrong.

The problem one runs into is clipping/distortion because the further you push, space within the spectrum is truncated and has to compromise something. In the case with panning, it's volume. (Mixing - which panning and its laws are associated with, isn't what I'm explaining though)

Now, it may be that you're recording at -10dB (always record/mix @ low volumes, btw even if all is centered). at center, but as some say, it doesn't stand-out. Well, it wouldn't if 5-10 other instruments are in the middle as well.

If you can't hear an instrument, panning because of the volume compensating due to limited spectrum space, helps this - not only due to reducing a congesting "center-field", but you don't have to crank the volume or lower it from the other instruments to hear it.

I think "wanting instruments to stand-out" has taken a bad connotation though this isn't wrong. I've heard it said like this: "You don't want the instruments fighting each other." This is much more applicable when talking about frequencies within the spectrum. You also hear things like: "Muddy Mixes." 
Most relate this phenomenon to bass, bass-like or low-end/bottom instruments. 

Again, while this end of the spectrum is the most common, the higher ranges are also prone to this as well. This is due to too many instruments (guilty, but it's how I write). Again, though, like panning being "horizontal" while too many instruments is "vertical", you can get a pretty good mix with a hefty instrumentation (and you should be able to if you can get a bad mix with light instrumentation) You have to know what you're doing in both cases.

Anyway, in the video I watched. the guy said that you want keep the important stuff at the center and move the lesser important things to the side; however, you must keep the panning law and what happens in mind, too.

Many have probably implored this tip, too where instead of putting a track a dead center, make a duplicate of said track, and push both to the sides. It's quite obvious with vocal doubling, but the effect heard is one slightly ahead of the other. Stereo Separation. The chorus effect is exactly this in a sense.

What I am talking about though is what Philip mentioned as the illusion of center. If mixed right, one shouldn't be able to tell if something was centered or doubled + panned unless of course it's intended to be known that it was.

Going back to the pan/volume compensation issue, it'd be easiest to grasp when looking at a wave file. If the channel graphs are reaching towards the top or bottom (left/right channel) then something or things have been panned too far over. (Frequency Space isn't being discussed, but that can have alot to do with it as well)

One last thing:

It generally comes down to preference. There was a thread asking a question if one uses the same pan rules or not from song to song.

For me, personally, I do. While it is because I'm use to:

Bass, Drums, Piano, Harp, Strings centered (real or illusionary), Maracas left Cabasa right, etc. keeping in mind that I'm only listening from the left and right only (from speakers), but also from live music. Regardless of where they are placed, the sound from them is still reaching only two ears.

I've tried flipping things around, just for fun and it didn't sound bad, just weird. It's like someone learning to read backwards when since birth they've read forwards or vice-versa. Even if one has done both, one still may prefer one over the other.

Don't just pan stuff to pan it. "Centered Tracks" aren't a bad thing as you don't want everybody in one place; however, you don't want everyone all over the place either.

i work with hip hop and i like to start off with an intro of my main piano or synth track followed by vocals coming in after the first 4 bars. but they both sounded like they were sitting on top of each other. so i made the synth stereo. panned hard left and right and when my drum loops come in. everything sounds like its in a neat little box. the stereo synth makes the walls and the drums make the floor. so far im liking it but i dont think i could do the whole mix like this