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In this article...
Making The Most Of The Stereo Panorama Low‑down Centre
Panning Bass
Mix Processing Techniques Vox Populi
Stereo Instruments
Mixing Production
Getting The Hump
By Paul White Published March 2009
Mono To Stereo
It's A Phase Thing
Out Of Time
Sense Of Balance
Just For E ect
Panning E ects
Mono‑cool
A Moving Experience
Stereo Enhancers
Cardinal Rules?
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Recorded sound is an illusion, and stereo doubly so. We tend to take the stereo pan pots in our
mixers and DAWs for granted, but they're one of the key tools available for crafting your mix. Latest Videos
So how should they best be used to build a convincing stereo mix — and, come to that, is
panning always the best way to create a stereo soundscape?
The reality is that our ears use a number of sonic clues to determine the direction of origin of
a sound and the relative level di erence between the two ears is only one of them, yet this is all
a simple pan-pot can replicate. In real life, sounds coming from the left arrive at the left ear
slightly earlier than they do at the right ear, and when they do arrive at the right ear their
tonality is changed because they're being masked by the listener's head. To complicate matters
further, the frequency‑response curve of the human ear is di erent depending on what angle
the sound source comes from — and this is one of the ways we can tell whether a sound
comes from in front or behind. So there's obviously a lot we can do to fake the sensation.
iZotope RX7 - AES 2018
6 hours 28 min ago.
Of course, you don't have to rely solely on panning to separate the sounds in a busy mix. For
example, I sometimes like to get the mix elements sounding good in mono, using EQ, dynamics
processing and level‑adjustments, before then using panning to further enhance the listening
experience. But in this article, I'm going to take you through a few tips and tricks to help you get
the most out of panning and manipulation of the stereo panorama.
Low‑down Centre
Low‑frequency sounds contain the most energy in a typical pop music mix and therefore use
up the most headroom. The lower the frequency, the less easy it is to determine the point of
origin of a sound (which is why subwoofers don't have to be placed in the centre of your
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listening system). Following from this, it makes sense to pan bass sounds to the centre of your
1 day 3 hours ago.
mix so that both speakers share the load of reproducing them. If you also happen to be into
vinyl, this is particularly important, as panned bass (or bass treated with a heavy modulation
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e ect such as anging) can cause cutting problems.
Panning Bass
If you do need to pan a bass sound for artistic
reasons, I'd suggest that you try to nd some way to
split the signal into two frequency-bands (for example,
by copying to two audio tracks and using two di erent
lters set the same frequency, one high‑pass and one DAWs have di erent ways of setting the
low‑pass), so that everything below, say, 150Hz stays panning for stereo tracks: in Cubase (above) Audio Technica Drum Packs - AES 2018
in the centre and anything above that gets panned as you can select di erent setups in the mixer, 3 days 2 hours ago.
desired. The ear will lock onto the positional whereas in Logic you'd insert the Direction
Mixer (right) on the track.
information in the higher part of the spectrum but
you'll still keep the majority of the sound energy in the centre — meaning that the speakers will SIGN UP TO SOS NEWSLETTERS
share the load. The Drawmer 2476 Master ow processor is perfect for this, as it includes
a three‑band panner. You can nd a software equivalent in Izotope's Ozone, or PC users could
look at Otium FX's freeware BassLane VST plug‑in, which is dedicated to this purpose.
Vox Populi
The vocal line is, with very few exceptions, the
most important part of any song, so it needs to
be kept in focus and is traditionally panned
centre. Yes, I know about those early Beatles
songs... but when you only had four tracks to
work with, you took what panning options you
could get! However, backing vocals can usually
be panned anywhere that your artistic fancy
takes you. Where there are multiple backing-
vocal parts, panning them left and right of the
main vocal can spread the sound nicely — and it
also provides some useful spatial separation
between the main and backing parts.
Stereo Instruments
Stereo instruments such as pianos, synths and
drum kits usually come on stereo tracks, which have balance pots rather than pan pots.
Depending on how the instrument was recorded, it may sound unnaturally wide if left to its
own devices, so it's worth thinking about inserting a plug‑in that allows you to reduce the
stereo width. If you think about it, a piano or drum kit panned hard left and right will sound as
wide as the whole stage, which is quite unnatural. There are no hard and fast rules here,
though — especially when working with samples, as you have no idea how they were recorded
or mixed. You just have to close your eyes and then adjust the stereo width until you
like/believe what you are hearing!
Getting The Hump
In the introduction, I mentioned that sounds
arriving at our two ears are tonally di erent
when they originate from one side than when
they originate from the other. You can emulate
this (either in conjunction with panning or not)
by using EQ to put a hump of a few dBs in one
channel (the one you want to make the sound
source appear to be coming from) at 3‑5kHz,
and put a mirror‑image dip in the other
channel. This can enhance the sense of
directionality, and because the opposite As well as controlling the panning of send-e ect
returns, you can dictate where in the stereo
processing is used on both channels, the sound
panorama you send a signal to the e ect channel's
shouldn't su er if it has to be summed to inputs. Di erent DAWs give you di erent ways of
mono, as it may on radio or TV, for example. If accessing this functionality. In some it's hidden, but
you experiment with the EQ frequency and most o er it.
amount, you can sometimes even make the
sound source appear to be wider than the physical spacing of your monitor speakers.
Mono To Stereo
If you want to add width to a mono sound source, you could opt to use reverb, but another
option is to use a mono‑to‑stereo plug‑in. Essentially, these use comb ltering to separate the
source into two channels, with one side the inverse of the other (so that they sum back
together when played in mono).
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It's A Phase Thing
Another way to make a stereo sound‑source
appear wider than the monitors is to feed
a polarity-inverted version of the left channel
into the right channel, and vice versa. You can
do this by copying the individual left and right
tracks and clicking the 'phase' button in your
mixer track or inserting a polarity‑inverting
plug‑in. If you want to work with a stereo track, Otium FX's BassLane freeware PC VST plug‑in allows
you'll need a plug‑in that can swap the left and you to narrow the stereo width of the frequencies
right channels as well as one that can do below a de ned threshold, in order to distribute LF
energy more evenly between speakers.
polarity inversion. As you increase the level of
out‑of‑phase components, the impression of width increases until the in‑phase and
out‑of‑phase sounds are at the same level, although, in practice, the best subjective e ect is
achieved before you reach this point. Once you pass this point, the left and right channels
reverse position, so don't overdo the e ect: be sure to use your ears. If you sum the mix to
mono, opposing phases cancel, so you'll have no comb‑ ltering problems, although the
subjective level of the treated tracks may change, especially if you used a lot of the
out‑of‑phase components in your mix.
Out Of Time
You can make a sound appear to be coming from one side or the other simply by sending the
same sound to the left and right speakers, but delaying one of them by around a millisecond or
so, to emulate the time of arrival di erence between the two ears. The channel that isn't
delayed provides the ear with its directional clue, although the e ect can be further enhanced
by slight level‑panning and by using the 'opposing EQ‑hump' trick that I described earlier. Note,
however, that any form of processing that involves delaying one channel will result in
comb‑ ltering (a subjectively 'phasey' sound) when the mix is summed to mono — which
means that playback on a simple transistor radio or mono TV may be compromised.
Sense Of Balance
It's important to try to achieve a fairly
symmetrical balance of energy in your mix, so
that your main stereo meters read more or less
the same each side for most of the song. If you
pan too many high‑energy things to one side
you can end up with an o ‑balance mix.
A Goniometer‑style 'jelly sh' meter can help
determine the mix balance visually, but your
ears and output meters can also do the job
perfectly well. At this stage you can also check
that sounds occupying the same part of the
audio spectrum, such as two electric guitars,
are panned to opposite sides, to further
enhance the sense of separation.
Just For E ect
Jimi Hendrix's Axis Bold As Love is a rare example of
Most reverb plug‑ins or processors take a successful rock album that uses extreme panning
a mono input and create a stereo output, e ects.
which is what you'd get if you played a mono
sound source in a real re ective space and then listened from a few metres away. Reverb
outputs can be panned hard left and right (which will create the greatest sense of space), but as
in real life, large amounts of reverb tend to mask the direction of the original source. One
popular trick, especially in surround recording, is to add a mono reverb to speci c sound
sources and pan it to the same position as the original sound so that it reinforces its position
rather than masks it. The simplest way to do this is to insert a mono reverb into a mono audio
track, set the reverb balance using the plug‑in, and then pan the channel to its desired location
in the mix.
Panning E ects
However, there are more options open to you with reverb and delay. For example, you could
set up a stereo reverb, and instead of panning the reverb return itself, pan the signal that you
send to it (there's usually a separate balance control for each aux send on your DAW channels).
If the stereo e ect is e ectively set up as two mono channels, you can route several di erently
panned tracks to the same send e ect.
Mono‑cool
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Always check that your mix sounds good in mono when you're done. It isn't always critical if the
sound of some of the 'ear candy' elements of the mix change when heard in mono: listen
carefully in stereo and mono and you'll notice just how many commercially successful tracks
make compromises here — it's a deliberate trade‑o . But all the main elements, especially the
rhythm section and the vocals, need to work just as well in mono as they do in stereo. You
might be tempted to point out that real‑life isn't mono compatible, and so ask why should our
recordings try to be — but the reality is that there are still people out there who listen in mono,
who will be happy to tell other people how awful your music is, so they need looking after!
A Moving Experience
Your pan pots needn't be static, of course: DAW automation makes it easy to move your parts
around the panorama, although it's a trick that was around long before software (listen to the
opening track of Jimi Hendrix's Axis Bold As Love, for example). But be careful not to overdo it:
it can be great for some genres, but for most, while the odd bit of automated panning can
create great spot e ects, and be e ective on sound e ects, you can have too much of a good
thing. In the case of most instruments, it's often advisable to park them where you feel they
want to be, moving them only when you want to make a 'feature'.
Another e ect that has been, erm, 'panned' by some for its over-use is the Autopanner.
However, I nd that it can be a wonderful e ect to apply on a reverb return for a special e ect:
you keep the source sound (say, a guitar) in the centre, and autopan a subtle reverb. This
results in the delightful‑but‑strange sensation that the sound is moving around, even though
the focus remains in the same place.
Stereo Enhancers
Most DAWs include a stereo imaging plug‑in with which you can increase the apparent stereo
width of a mix or a stereo element within it. There are two basic types, and while they may do
good things in stereo, they have di erent audible results when listening in mono. If you use
MS‑based (Mid/Side) wideners, the width is increased by increases in the proportion of the Side
(di erence) signal. But the mono listener doesn't hear that — they just get the Mid signal. So if
you push more source elements into the Side signal to make them wider, the balance might
change for the mono listener, but that's all. With time‑delay‑based wideners, the balance
doesn't change — but the original and time‑delayed signals mix to produce comb‑ ltering
e ects, resulting in a coloured, phasey character in mono. So this really is an area you need to
check in mono — one approach being to see how far you can acceptably push the width
control while listening in mono, before pulling it slightly back and listening in stereo.
Cardinal Rules?
Producer Terry Manning proposed the
'Cardinal Points Law' technique for panning,
whereby he pans monaurally recorded
material to extreme left, centre, or extreme
right as a starting point for a mix (stereo
sources already have a natural place when
hard-panned left and right). Although this
may at rst sound rather like checking
things in mono, his reasoning is that you
can save the 'No Man's Land' in between
these points to place details in the
arrangement that you want to leap out of Terry Manning, who swears by his 'Cardinal Points
the mix, without necessarily having to resort Law'.
to EQ or level changes.
Published March 2009
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