Understanding Panning

Panning-or the strategic distribution of sounds in a stereo mix-is one of those practices that may not have a lot of hard-and-fast rules, yet attention to detail is paramount. Using your channel inputs' pan pots, you can create a wider, more dynamic soundscape, or you may prefer to keep the various sounds a bit closer together. Naturally a lot depends on how many moving parts you have in the mix-that is, the more individual sounds there are, the more thought will be required when setting up a panning scheme.

Here we have some additional ideas on arranging voices and instruments across the stereo field, and the importance of maintaining separate pathways for each signal.

Plan Your Panning
Before you begin randomly laying out parts, start by taking into account some commonly accepted panning processes. For example, place anything in the center that generally works best in mono-these include lead vocals, bass guitar or keyboard bass, kick drum, as well as percussion instruments like maracas or tambourine. The idea is that the more parts you can comfortably fit in the middle, the more space you'll have to place other passages in stereo, thereby making for a less cluttered overall mix. When it comes to panning, however, experimentation is welcome-if it feels right to put the drums on one side, or the lead vocal slightly left or right of center, for instance, go ahead and try it.

Distribute Sounds Evenly
Another thing to be cognizant of when setting up your mix is keeping an even distribution of frequencies across the stereo spectrum. In other words, what you don't want is a lot of bass-heavy signals on one side and higher-end sounds on the other. For example, if you have an acoustic guitar with substantial bottom panned towards the left, ideally you should balance it with a similar-sounding instrument (say, another acoustic guitar, or a piano) on the right side. The same goes for drums-for instance, when a hi-hat is situated left of center, ride or crash cymbals might work better in the middle or on the opposite side.

Making Your Pans "Real"
While the stereo placement of each sound can be a purely subjective decision, sometimes it helps to have the mix reflect how the instruments are physically laid out in the room. This is especially helpful when arranging a live performance in stereo-that is, you'll want to create a sonic picture of how the band looks from the audience. If you have a pair of backing singers and electric lead guitarist stage right, and a percussion player and piano stage left, use your pan knobs to arrange each input the same way in the mix, while keeping drums, bass and lead vocalist centered.

Keep Them Separated
The most important part of the panning process is ensuring you have a dedicated path for each signal in the mix. Start by making a rough layout of the mix as described above, then sit back and listen for any sounds that seem to be obscured by nearby parts. Just looking at your pan controls should tell you a lot-with the exception of anything centered or grouped (such as panned background vocals) each channel's pan knob positioning should be at least slightly different from the others. Let's say you have a synth part and a rhythm guitar track both panned to the left at around 10 o'clock-chances are one of the instruments is going to "block" the other. But by moving either instrument just a hair to the left or right, suddenly both should be clearly audible. It's that simple.