Is there any reason to hard-pan a lead vocal?

I think many here will agree it is not such a good thing to do. I always think what would happen if they were playing a mix of mine in a cafe/restaurant and they had two speakers spread apart and one was not working.  What would you hear then.  In this case not much from the vocals if the vocal side was not working!

Sorry about not providing this earlier... I had to ask the name again to find that video, lol. The song is by Wong Fei (Faye Wong) called "Ren Jian" and was the "MTV video" recorded in 1997 (http://youtu.be/UGhIjKHVE1c).
 
@Jeff, in hindsight I really wish I had thought of your explanation when I was discussing this! I got way too technical trying to explain why this is not preferred, so think I missed making the point.

Queen did this often with Freddie's vox on certain sections.
 
i'd say that was the way to do it, if they did it.
 
again, it's judgement call time.
 

I have a lot of fun listening (studying) to mixes from the late 60's / early 70s after mono went to stereo: Paul Revere, Moody Blues, John Sebastian, Elton John...whole drum kits hard panned left with vocals right...all kinds of stuff :) Neil Young even has a track (or more?) with the just the snare hardpanned left, guitar right (Don't Let it Bring you Down). For example, Elton John shows a progression of mixing techniques through Tumbleweed Connection and Madman Across the Water. I think it's a cool piece of history.
 
But you know those mixes work! Isn't what a great deal of what's being listened on these days just mono anyway?
 
 

Although I won't speculate on hard panning lead vocals today, it used to be standard procedure back in the 60s when producers were trying to figure out how to use "stereo."   And most desks didn't have pan - if you were lucky you had a center to go along w/ left and right.  Also, the troops were lucky to have 4 tracks, and as every aspiring engineer/producer knows Sgt. Peppers was done on 4 tracks (actually, several of 'em, doing live bounces).  If you have the old pre-remixed albums of mid-60s songs you can hear vocals on one side, leads on the other side, drums and bass opposite and all kinds of spatial tomfoolery.  They weren't trying to be cool - well maybe some - but understand what works well.  And also keep it mono compatible, since nobody I knew had "stereo" in their car since there was no stereo AM radio.  And that is where most of the music we heard came from.  Even most living room systems didn't have stereo or much of it, since we had big old consoles with the speakers built-in either side of the turntable.  Maybe two foot apart.  Perspective didn't get sorted out until the 70s really.  I remember being blown away by the Jimmy Page's sounds whizzing around in "Whole lotta love" - by that time I had stereo speakers mounted on the ceiling of my pick-up cab (note - I didn't wear a helmet either, although I bashed my head more than once - dangerous days and maybe explains a lot now ;-) ).
 
Think of the arguments that linger today whether the drum should be from the drummer's perspective or the audience?  Stage left is to the right.  Etc. etc.
 
I do guitars hard panned these days, and some dynamic pans in honor of Mr. Page and all things psychedelic. But lead vocal - not yet.  I might try it on a project I'm starting w/ music and VO storytelling.  The only other reason for that would be to do a karaoke version, and it would be better to send separate files rather than let some yokel do his own.
 
@ 

I suppose it would work if you were trying to create an accurate mix of a simulated live un-mic'd performance for a film project where character was placed either extreme left or right of screen.

"Because I want to" and it wouldn't matter to me who may have done
it before or what anybody else would think about it. If others liked it-good. If not- to bad.
 
 
 

Guitarhacker
In my opinion...in short ... "NO".... however......
 
The entire Beatles remastered box set is that way..... vox on one side hard panned, music on the other side also hard panned.... quite the unpleasant surprise and listening experience on headphones. It only sounds good on something that has it's R & L speaker close together.   On the Beatles remaster, I heard that it was a mistake that the vox were left panned hard, and got sent to the reproduction stage before the mistake was caught. They decided to leave it that way for financial reasons,,,,, hoping people would think it was "artistic expression".....
 

But weren't all the original early stereo records of the Beatles just like that? So that is the original way they were made, isn't it?. I've also heard a Beatles record with the drums hard panned on one side. That was because they were recorded as any mono recording, and then made stereo with the means they had.

I imagine that panning a lead vocal could be effective if a theatrical presentation is what is intended. Also, it may be appropriate for duets or an arrangement that involves two or more lead vocalists.
 
 

I think I can shed some light on this particular song.
The track appears to be taken from a Karaoke DVD and the way audio is encoded for Karaoke DVD's is unique.  The L/R channels are used for the music and Ls/Rs channels are used for harmony vocal and melody vocal.  In a Karaoke capable DVD player, the Ls/Rs channels are mixed into the L/R channels and the user usually has some control over the volume of the vocal tracks.  A small percentage of Karaoke DVD players also have pan controls for the vocal tracks, but most users found the pan controls to be difficult to use and just wanted to sing and have fun.  The majority of Karaoke players now just route the vocal tracks equally to L/R.
 
So, likely this is a track copied from an improperly set up Karaoke DVD player that has vocal panning.