Panning bass for an orchestra

I am no orchestra expert by any means, so I have a picture of an orchestra below my screen so I can see where to place the instruments.  When I have the basses and cellos on the right, though, the right track begins looking like a brick when I compress it.  I just read the other day that it's fine to pan the basses right down the middle for an orchestra. 
 
Is that what everyone does and I just didn't get the memo? 

Subject edited:  AN orchestra, not A orchestra! 

Hey Janet,
Panning can be a bit awkward to suss out,what most people will tell you is that you should use whatever works in the mix - this is why in pop the bass and the kick are panned the way they are : it's a tried and tested method thats brings good results. Panning orchestral instruments is excately on the same level.No theres no rule to say you have to place the basses on the right - it's just we know this method works so it makes sense to use it as a starting point when approaching this kind of mix.
The biggest thing to consider when panning is how do the instruments complement each other. The nice thing about having the basses to the right is that they complement the violins on the left.Theres a Ying and Yang relationship going on where you have both the highs and the lows represented clearly in the mix. Sometimes you might not want this - maybe you want the instruments to deliberately fight against each other in the mix,and you want to build tension by NOT having the instruments complement each other.Again it all depends on the mix,and the message you want to put across.
So in answer to your post (before this turns into a blabber blabber post !!) is that if you're wondering why some people pan the string basses to the centre and others pan to the right - just listen close to the mix,listen to where the other instruments are panned and try to work out the mixer intentions. Is the mixer going for a Ying Yang everything in its place mix - or is he / she going for something might tense where theres instruments are fighting for their space ?
Hope this helps !
Kev

If you are going for old school realism, be true to your picture.  If you want what sounds best, pan instruments to balance each other.  Remember, if realism is what you want, you won't compress anything.  Orchestral music uses a much, much larger dynamic range than pop music and compression is sparingly used, if at all.

For orchestral music, I agree... turn the compressors off or, if you are using them regardless, turn them down. If you have a brick... go back and turn the compressor down and export again.... repeat until you have a nice wave. You should be able to EASILY count the number of peaks at 100% and hopefully not have so many that you give up before the chorus....... A brick is obviously staying at 100% all the time.  Orchestral music tends to have very loud passages followed by very quiet passages... you want and expect those wide dynamic swings when listening to classical music.  When you view the wave file (after export) in your Wave editor of choice..... you should have almost NONE of the peaks clipped. If the overall level is not approaching the upper limits (100%) then use the normalize on the wave to raise it up.  Most of my stuff, even after processing with O4..... and exported... needs a boost from the normalize to bring it that final step in loudness..... and using normalize doesn't loose the dynamic range.... it simply raises the overall level ratio ...loudest peak touches 100%.....

As far as the bass..... I'd fudge a bit on the picture and place them in the middle of the stereo field.  In many orchestral LP's that I have (yes I do have quite a bit of classical LP's) the bass is nowhere near as loud and as deep as the bass in the pop/rock LP's I have. Perhaps that is a function of the location of the recording mic..... more of a room that a direct close up..... but with synths, we can be inside the instrument if we choose.....

The above is my opinion..... Attempting this can be dangerous......do not try this at home..... !

When I have the basses and cellos on the right, though, the right track begins looking like a brick when I compress it.

Don't compress it.

Keep them panned center, but use the channel tools to delay the left channel by 16-30 samples (adjust to taste). That has the effect of making them sound like they're coming from the right, but doesn't skew the sound levels to one side.

This might screw up your mono compatibility, however. So if you're ever going to be playing this mono, it might be better to avoid that trick.

Thanks so much, everyone!  I figured I'd get a few responses on this one.  :-)  Perhaps compression isn't the right word--whatever I'm doing in Ozone to get the levels up.  If I use none, all my mixes are WAY too low volume-wise.  I think I'll try Matt's idea and use channel tools on the bass.  That should work. 

As to what I want and what I think sounds good--I can't hear panning anyway, so I have to trust my visuals and whatever everyone tells me.  Yeah, my listening environment stinks and so do my monitors.  Well, so do my ears, I guess.  I might be getting better though!  lol

Thanks again guys.  I really appreciate the help and the comraderie! 

Rolifer!  Of course! What was I thinking?  lol

Interesting!  Thanks!

Sure...I'll try to remember.  Right now I've got to remember which song it was!  lol

Matt, the song is 'Some Day'--3rd from the top on my SC page.  I've now panned the basses to 5% R.  Cellos are 32% R.  I used 'increased width' in channel tools on the basses.  I haven't posted this on the forum yet.  I'm crossing my fingers hoping I can get EWQL for the orchestra while they're still on sale this month and then I may re-do it. :-) 

Reece, I'm not using Ozone 4 to bring up the volume now, but I did leave Ozone on the master.  Now about the only thing it's squashing are the timps. 

The bass still sounds noticeably to the right, but I'm not sure if that's necessarily a problem. Probably best to just listen to some orchestral music with headphones (as bass direction is more noticeable there) and see how their bass sounds. Of course it will be panned as they played it, but they may have done some of this bass filter stereo narrowing trickery if it was a problem. I'm guessing in a real scenario, it wouldn't be much of a problem because the XY mics (or whatever they used) would pick up the lower end pretty evenly in both left and right mics, making the overall low end of the double bass and cellos sounding like it came from the centre. Using samples, however, the bass WILL sound as though it's coming from where you pan it.

You say you used channel tools to widen the image? Isn't this agains't what you wish to do? This is how I would do you filter thing.

 - Send EVERYTHING to a pre master bus.
 - On that bus, output it all to a new bus called MID/UPPER
 - On your pre master bus, create a send and send that to a new bus called LOWER
 - Now send each of those new buses to your master bus
 - Insert an instance of Ozone on (or something with filters) the MID/UPPER bus as well as on the LOWER bus.
 - Go to the multiband and find a nice crossover frequency for the low end, probably use a rather large Q, then mute the low end on the MID/UPPER and solo the low end on the LOWER bus.
 - Now apply channel tools after the filter on the LOWER bus and reduce the stereo width.

Probably best to use these filters or another multiband instead of a standard EQ as they are tailored for this job.

Matt...I got as far as Ozone.  I have 3 multibands on Ozone, but I'm guessing you're talking about the paragraphic equalizer instead of one of them.  I don't know how to mute or solo the low end (or how to find a nice crossover frequency for the low end, actually).

Hey Janet, I'll try to post some images up soon to explain how to do this correctly (as well as try this out for myself as I have never done this before). Give me about 14 hours as I have to go to work now! I could also maybe email you a template file with it all set up if you like? Then you can just drop the mix straight in and go from there - don't need the multitrack files for this, the entire mix will work fine. What version of SONAR are you running and if you want me to send a template, shoot me a PM with your email.

Janet - I'm unclear how you can have Ozone on the master bus but only be compressing the timps with it? 

yes, but that means you're still using the compression on everything on the master bus, but it's limiting only during the timpanis.