Lost in how to pan an 8 track project.

Hi there gat19g I will give it a go.

Drums in centre (maybe just to left eg 11 O Clock)
Trumpets centre (maybe just to right eg 1 O Clock)
The Cellos that are playing more of the bass part perhaps dead centre (Pitz or Detache)
Expressive cellos perhaps left of centre eg 10 O Clock
Pizz or Detache Cellos (not sure what that means) right of centre  eg 2 O Clock
Piano to one side (left) eg 9 O Clock
Sleigh Bells to right 3 O Clock) or centre if they are only at end.
Men AH choir could also be say at 3 O Clock but I would try to spread them somehow eg reverb to take up the space fom hard left to right eg 8 O Clock to 4 O Clock. or delay then one side compared to other and pan the two choir sounds.

These are just some ideas. Hope that helps.

The question you have to ask yourself is, if you were to see this preformance live what would the stage set-up look like?
hope that helps a little bit.
peace.

There's no concrete rule and I do agree with the suggestion of imagining live performance; however, just because something is sitting on one side of the stage, doesn't necessarily mean you'll hear it from that side. (ie: Guitar on left side of stage, but going into my right ear for it's coming out of the right monitor. (Of course, that would depend on where they are placed and your proximity to them.)

I was at a function yesterday, and sat near a monitor near my left ear, but the monitor was angled away from where I was sitting and the sounds' sources were from different places.

Band was on the right, choir was middle-right, but I heard everything from the left monitor. Same could be said if I were on the right and they were left, middle left. 

Of course, this is with being plugged in as opposed to not; however, the live stage visual helps as you can get "stereo panning" (if desired) which is effective in its own right.

Hard panning is effective if you want instruments to stand-out as pushing them towards the center blends them in with the other ones. (Rhythm guitars see this kind of panning frequently) 

This also with when instruments are layered, but you still want to distinguish what is what.

Two electric guitars are playing the same passage, but I won't know it's two unless they're spread out. Not widely-spread necessarily, but generally the are. (ie: an electric/acoustic, electric/acoustic either or both with chorus applied, etc ...)

Layered bass tracks (Any trance/techno) sees a "thin" bass track/instrument doubled and hard panned underneath of the "thick" one to produce the desired effect.

As the OP said, panning does make a piece sound better since what's playing can be distinguished and those with casual ears can't tell the difference between Center and Wide Stereo although the difference is quite distinguishable.

It's akin to the Chorus effect which makes the instrument wide (or fat) as if there are many of the same playing at once (each slightly out-of-tune vs. the original signal)

It's kind of neat when you double a track panning it out, then muting one of them or throwing in a Pan Delay. Messes with your ears which can be a good or bad thing depending on how it used.


Someone suggested spreading the instruments out on my tracks and I just enjoy this little technique!