Ideas For The Mix: Panning & Balancing - Pt 2

L-C-R Panning 

 In the days of yore an old analogue console had a three way switch for panning. That was full right, full left or centre (both left & right). Nowadays when it comes to panning we can have any setting we desire but how does that come across to the average listener? If we go all out in panning things around the stereo image can anyone, apart from an engineer with trained ears, actually hear those subtle differences?

 There's still something to be said for the power of old school L-C-R panning in a mix and it's still very much a go to in modern mixes. But in saying that so much has changed as to how we now listen to music, ear buds, mono bluetooth speakers,crappy laptop speakers, that some would argue L-C-R has lost some of it's mojo as it was originally intended for the listener to be sitting at the required distance centralised in front of two speakers approximately 6-8 ft apart to create the optimum stereo image. That way there was no doubt as to something being, guitar solo for instance, panned hard right, as in the classic AC/DC - Back In Black song.
 But panning isn't just about deciding what speaker or what side a sound should be heard on in fact it can be used to add spatial transition to enhance your mix. For instance say you have two electric guitars. One panned 60 to the left, the other panned 60 to the right. That still has somewhat of a mono feel to it but when it comes to the chorus you could automate those two guitars to go full 100 right and left and now the width increase sounds to the listener like the whole mix just got bigger and wider adding more interest and excitment when it hits the chorus section of your song.
 Panning is more apparent on headphones which give more of an effect, almost a phantom illusion, to the listener as to where a sound is coming from. If your listening on your laptop your most likely not aware of a stereo image at all but that of mono sound. The same for someone not sitting directly centre in front of two speakers 6-8ft apart. If your across the room you won't notice what sound is coming from what side of the speakers just that there's a wall of sound that might as well be mono.
 So as you can see panning isn't as straight forward as it used to be, governed now, by how most people listen to music. But we created stereo and at the time it was revolutionary so for now panning still has validity in your mix, just an no more, the question being how many of us actually need stereo anymore? Yet as engineers we over think things and analyse the heck out of things spending hours painstakingly critiquing over our mix decisions for someone to then listen to it back on laptop speakers and not be aware of your panning or any other brilliant ideas you thought you had injected into the track.

Note: Panning full left or right can decrease the volume by 1.5dB or more due to Pan Law that differs from product to product and even Daw to Daw.

Balancing The Mix 

This is the part of mixing I love the best. You've loaded in the stems that have been sent to you, sorted them, gain staged them and maybe even done a little panning around. But then it comes to listening for the first time to the song and you start to bring up those faders hearing the different parts, different instruments and you level up how loud things are in context to others. No plugins to worry about, no major make or break a mix decision made, just levelling volumes of individual tracks so everything can be heard at just the right level when everything else is playing back.

 This is when you can build a relationship with the song and get a feel for where it wants to go without slapping a thousand plugins on it or using outboard gear. Simply just creating a nice balance and enjoying the track as a listener rather than a analytic sound engineer. Sometimes, depending on the quality of the recording, you can get a truly exceptional balance and panning mix going so well you'll think you have nothing else to do, job done you might say.

 Watch the video below as I show some of these ideas and how to possibly implement them.