Hi all,
 
Quick question - when mixing a tune with traditional left and right guitars - what's your preference?  Do you pan them hard (100%) left and hard (100%) right?  Or 75/75 so the mix isn't so wide?  Does it depend on the tune (what other instruments may be used, etc)
 
I typically pan hard left and hard right, but was curious what others do

I've been setting my rhythm guits at about 8 and 4 o'clock and the leads between 9-10 and 3-2. It all depends on the track though so whatever ends up giving me a more "girthy" sound. I find hard panned left and right makes it sound TOO separated and kind of thin. I've mostly been doing distorted tracks though and I'm by no means a pro.

All depends on the listening environment of the end user, some people only use L-C-R and no in between's. If  your not listening from the optimum position then perfect stereo can often be worse than mono.
 
Roy.

It might also depend on what else is going on in the mix.

It depends on other instruments in the song and how you want the guitars to sound in that particular song. sometimes its hard left and right, sometimes its 80% left and right, sometimes its 50% left and 100% right and so on.  If you are the producer and mixing this song, I would try some different panning positions and see what works best for that song.
 
Each song will have different needs, so take each song on a case by case basis.
 
CJ

royarn
All depends on the listening environment of the end user, some people only use L-C-R and no in between's. If  your not listening from the optimum position then perfect stereo can often be worse than mono.
 
Roy.

Yes, I take this into consideration too as many of the people who would be listening to my stuff might be using crummy, broken low fi equipment. I used to have a boom box that was my main way of listening to tunes and one of the speakers would crap out intermittently. If I was listening to some old Slayer I'd only get half the solos. It was annoying.

I start at 57% L&R and then adjust accordingly. Sometimes I will bring them closer for a lead, or if there is a doubled acoustic track and put them about 35% L&R. Still adjust accordingly. Separation is a key in all of the mixing. I still have to work at it based on each individual song. 57% L&R is usually my starting point though. 

Yeah, cymbals (from I've read) can eat into the highs of your guitar tone so depending on how you have your drums panned you might want to take a look at whether say your hi hat is occupying the same space of the stereo field as your guitars. I'm kind of starting appreciate the idea of trying to get things panned out of each others way as much as possible before trying to wrestle with the EQs to let things cut through.
 
Again... not a pro. Just been reading a lot.

I record two signals for my guitars. An amped and a clean sound. I use and amp sim on the clean guitar.  I usually start out about 70%L and 90%L with the brighter of the two parts at 90%L. I record the right side the same way. That's still not a rule though. Sometimes the parts are totally different and I may pan each part with that general panning with the lower rhythm on the inside and the higher rhythm on the outside. It depends what your doing really. Never go in with set ideas or you just end up settling sometimes.

One option is to visualize how you would put them on a stage and pan them that way.
 
One of my favorite guitar pan examples is Frank Zappa's guitar solo on "Stinkfoot" from Apostrophe. He split the guitar signal and sent one side through an autowah and panned that right and sent the clean signal all the way to the left. That's a classic!