Proper Use of Panning and Stereo Separation

I know that there are no "one size fixes all" cures.

I need to know some general rules on how to mix my songs in stereo for proper separation.

General rules by genre of music and the limits you would want.

My current results all sound like crap because I don't have a clue.

Thanks for any help.

I am also curious how to set tracks up that are panned either left or right which are being sent to a reverb plugin.

* Should this reverb plugin be mono or stereo?
* How should you pan the effect send?
* when should you use mono / stereo plugins

Cheers Dan

This is a question that is itself the answer....

#1 No formulas - do what works....
#2 Listen to mixes/songs/albums that you think are mixed right - make notes and do your best to emulate
#3 Pay attention to the genre - I mostly do Orchestral stuff so therefore Violin 1's are always left through double basses to the right wth brass back right, percussion spread with typanni in the center and higher pitched percussion to the left with the exception of the bass drum which in some orchs is back left or center left
#4 I mention my orchestra experience because when I am doing my tracking of non-classical stuff I adhere to the sound stage approach as if the audience were listening to a chamber ensemble - regardless of the genre. I really like to create a 3D sound stage.
#4 Some freqs are better at localization than others - said differently as I get below 100Hz I like to stay center - I avoid above 7Khz+ (fundamental) panned very hard - this blurs the center to me - but I am trying to avoid some formula here. Just respect the bandwidth of the instruments you are mixing and choose what it is you are trying to replicate - something realistic or artificial in the sound stage

I once saw a working drawing for Paul McCartney's second self-titled album (just after his japanese incident) he used colors to represent the sound stage in a 3D manner - I use a very similar guide in my class when describing mixing for an optimal sound stage.

Good luck - listen to stuff that you think sounds good....(and get some symphony tickets - listen to the room as much as the orchestra - what a blast - real 3D stereo)

-D

These are my general rules for stereo imaging.

1) Consider the final destination. Headphones can handle wider separation than most other destinations nonetheless, they do not like extreme separation unless there is very similar material hard left AND hard right. Living rooms can deal with a great deal of separation. Large venues do not handle stereo well except in the center of the room. Depending on the final destination decide how far to the left or right should be maximum. In a large roon I would dread to go more than half way to the right or left.

2) Psychologically there are expectations for a stereo mix. Effects and sound effects can be anywhere in the spectrum but musical instruments prefer a "space" to ocupy. In order to give each instrument its space,
a) instruments of similar range and sound should be panned away from each other
b) similar instruments can be panned together if they form a coherent part as a combination or represent voices in a section.
c) drums prefer to be panned so that their various sounds appear to come from the drum kit as the audience sees it. Drummers hate this, they prefer to hear the hihat on their left, but we prefer to hear the hihat on the right. Bass drum can be center or just right of center.
d) instruments can ocupy more than just the left to right spectrum. Instruments dulled with the extreme highs and lows cut off and using more delayed reverb can sound as if they are placed farther back. Instruments with just a touch of plate reverb and a fuller dynamic frequency range can sound more up front. Cutting the low end with Eq seems to raise the instrument toward the ceiling. Cutting the high end seems to sink the instrument more toward the floor.
e) given thses ideas assign each instrument a workable imaginary space and try to place it there as if you were duplicating the sonic sense of the stage being performed upon.

If you are talking about high tech music. Then there are absolutely no rules except to not keep any of the above rules.

There realy are few other hard and fast ideas. There is more than enough room to try absolutely anything and if it works then it works.

ORIGINAL: Phrauge

"Mastering Audio: The Art and the Science" by Bob Katz

"The Mixing Engineer's Handbook" by Bobby Owsinski

"The Art of Mixing" by David Gibson

I've got the second one, though I felt it was kinda cheap the way that half of the book is material culled from interviews, and the other half is just the intervies themselves. Still, it's got some good info.