hi everyone, I have a good one for you all. I recently completed my record, 19 songs. I sent them off to the mastering studio and when I got them back all the panning was reversed, what I mean is, when I recorded the songs then bounced them down to stereo I had  one guitar coming out of the right channel and another guitar coming out of the left. somehow when the songs were mastered right became left and left became right.
I don't know what to do, I just got off the phone with the mastering guy and he's telling me that he has no idea what happened.
my question is, does anyone know what i'm talking about and does anyone know how I can fix it. should I tell the mastering guy to redo everything? it's really bugging me, I've also paid this guy $1000
any ideas?

So is it just the guitar or the whole mix where left and right has been swapped? You have listened again to the actual audio files you gave to the mastering facility?

thanks for getting back to me. yeah, everything is switched. what was right is now left, I can't think of any way to fix this. really sucks

yes, I have listened to what I sent and it's exactly what I wanted. that's the first thing I thought of, however, I've been living with this record for ages, I would have never sent it. 

I'd await further comments, but I would first talk to the guy and ask him what's up. Might be just a simple mistake he made. Seems a bit odd how he would make it unless he tranferred from a tape master (A to D) and got the output leads inverted.

Make sure he didn't screw with the phase as well I suggest.

Ta

bad mastering is bad mastering.

first, I need to thank whoever it was that changed the "topic" thanks. now I need to thank all of you for your ideas. last night, right before I feel to sleep I got an idea. what would happen if I reversed the output going to the monitors? what happened is what want. however, I need some way burn a new CD with the corrected panning.
i'm wondering if I load the songs into computer #1, then run the left/right wires to my interface with the channels inverted, or I could leave them normal because it's the output I need to change left to right and right to left. then just burn a new CD. does that make any sense?
let's see

Don't know if it will do what you want perfectly or not, but Sonar's Channel Tools plugin can swap the left and right channels.

It is simple enough to load the entire 19 files into a wave editor and swap the L/R channels as a batch process.
 
As for the guy that mastered for you, it just means he used a tool somewhere that had a "Reverse Channels" setting selected and he didn't realise.  If you're happy with the sound he gave your tracks, the L/R is easily fixable.

Channel Tools is the perfect solution.
 
Just drop it in on your Master Bus and hit the Swap button