droddey

Philip


+1 all,

for me its kind of like ducking a kick into a bass

IOWs ... use LCR only when/where things conflict ... especially in the highs. 

Interestingly, most all of us oft widen the high freq stuff in our masters ... perhaps the ears seem to approve selective widening of the highs.  Its the non-highs that beg centrality for purist ears.

Only once you start getting up into the mids and up do the frequencies become sufficiently directional in the room to really be solidly placed to the far ends. Really high passed acoustic or electric guitars or shakers or tamborines and such, those when placed hard left or right really seem wide. Probably it also helps that high frequency stuff on the far edges are probably less likely to destructively interfere in the room, I would think, making them even more apparently separated.

Yeah Droddy, that makes a lot of sense.  Your logic also affords me more consideration to experiment with more bold HPFs (perhaps frequency-automated) for the tracks that I'd consider to pan around the most.

As late as the trip-hop era there was a fair amount of active panning in a fairly mainstream genre. Some of those great Zero 7 songs will have a quite audible track or two actively moving around the stereo field. Some of those songs in general are great examples of having instruments spread across the stereo field as well. They would often have really strong separation between the foreground elements, allowing them to be placed very distinctly. They may have been using some sort of Haas type mechanism to get that sort of accurate placement, I dunno.

Some of those great Zero 7 songs will have a quite audible track or two actively moving around the stereo field

Simple Things is a great example of use of width.

And a great example of studio engineers making good music.

There may have been some limitations with output switching in very early stereo consoles and perhaps they had to make do with just L C or R before pan pots came into being.

I believe good positioning cannot be achieved by just panning a mono signal alone. You need some early reflections to help position things better. The type reverbs do well. We get our sense of positioning and image from early reflections and the reverb component. 

When I created a mix for the test to see how DAW's might sound compared to each other, I used a very high quality multi track that had a variety of mono and stereo tracks. I only panned L C and R just to make it easier on all the DAW's in question so their pan laws did not come into play. I found as long as the balance was good it sounded surprisingly excellent. The moment you move away from your monitors panning in increments is going to be harder to hear anyway. So L C and R sort of makes sense.

I personally feel the pan pot is a useful control and should be used. That combined with early reflections and the right reverb (convolution) can create a very strong sense of positioning with lots of depth. I agree that things sound better too when they are moving around.

I personally feel the pan pot is a useful control and should be used. That combined with early reflections and the right reverb (convolution) can create a very strong sense of positioning with lots of depth. I agree that things sound better too when they are moving around.

 
+1 and my feelings as well, Jeff. Impulses today are so insane, they literally take us a step further than traditional reverb in my opinion plus give us lots of control. A good reverb unit is also a plus...but I seem to lean more towards impulses when that sense of positioning space is needed. I too am a fan of pans that go beyond the simple LCR method. I just think it can make a mix sound better to my ears. :)
 
-Danny

I too am a fan of pans that go beyond the simple LCR method. I just think it can make a mix sound better to my ears. :)

Exactly, plus the fact if somebody does bother to get into a good listening position or put cans on then it's extra nice to have catered for them by letting them hear it exactly as you wanted it to be heard.

One thing that hasn't been mentioned about LCR panning in the early days of stereo is that the early stereo desks/pres often didn't have pan pots, they had three-position switches marked L C R, so the only options available were hard left, hard right and centre.

Hence the recordings of the period with the drums panned hard right, vocals center and bass and guitar hard left when mono would have sounded far more natural (and usually better).

I'm with Jonbouy on this - panning isn't just there as a way of setting out a "fake stage with a band on it" or separating things out in a mix (eq can often do that better in any case), it can be a useful and powerful sound designing tool and effect in it's own right.

An autopan plugin containing an LFO or two with a variety of waveforms is something Sonar could really do with in my opinion.

An autopan plugin containing an LFO or two with a variety of waveforms is something Sonar could really do with in my opinion.

You can approximate this using Sonars Surround Panner.

the pros that use LCR exclusively, also use the soundstage and the LCR technique, for ARRANGEMENTS.

this is key.

Bristol_Jonesey

An autopan plugin containing an LFO or two with a variety of waveforms is something Sonar could really do with in my opinion.

You can approximate this using Sonars Surround Panner.

Never tried that (I don't use surround so I've never looked at Sonar's surround functions). Thanks for the idea, I'll have a look at it.