Stereo mixing

[Prime Mover]

I just had a curious question that I've been pondering about for a while, and never really talked with anyone about, but I've always been very cautious of stereo field placement, maybe overly so. My basic philosophy is: "if it's central to the foundation of the music, it should be close to center". Seems to be a fairly standard philosophy I hear from mixers. But then I start to wonder "what ISN'T central to the foundation?" Bass, Kick, Snare, and Melody are no-brainers, and tend to be panned near center. But then all that's left is rhythm and counter-melody. Fine if you have two rhythm instruments or double-tracked guitars, but if not, simply throwing the rhythm instrument to one side will unbalance the mix. So, admittedly, what I end up doing for piano is keeping it center, but keep a moderate stereo field on the instrument (high notes left, low notes right).

I guess what I'm saying is that I'm very conservative with my stereo placement. I like the widening effect produced by stereo reverb, drum overheads, and keyboards, but tend to keep all the musical content near center. Then when countermelodies or harmony vocals come in, I can start to spreading things out.

My question is, is this a bad approach? Is it too utilitarian, too conservative?

[Schweats]

I'd think that as long as you carved out a space with EQ for each part/instrument , you'd be fine with whatever placement you chose except for putting something maximum left or right , unless you want that specific placement for a particular effect.

It also depends on who you ask … if you make a specific placement and the recording makes you a boatload o' money, then wash , rinse and repeat … ad nauseum !!!

[Phil O]

I experiment. If I like it, I keep it. If I don't like it, I experiment some more. Hey, if I'm happy, the client is happy, and the check doesn't bounce...

Seriously though, I tend to keep what's central to the music central to the stereo field as well (as a starting point), but I'm never afraid to move things around if I think it will make things more interesting, realistic, intentionally unrealistic, musical, whatever. Check out the panning on Smashmouth's Satellite. Some pretty wide stuff going on there and it really works.

Phil

[stephentayler]

Originally we were trying to make records sound like an approximation of how things sounded live..... then record making became more adventurous, and now most people try to make gigs sound like the record.........

Anything goes really.... for many years I used to mix in what I called 'wide mono' - in other words everything pretty much centred with some sounds solid in the middle and others pulled out into mono by stereo miking, stereo effects or ambience.

I do many different kinds of projects that there never seems to be standard way of doing things.... interesting stereo can be wonderful for headphone listening, which we all do a lot of these days..... but for radio or broadcast I think the 'wide mono' approach can be safer.

Think about where your sound will most be heard... I think that most music is hardly ever listened to from the sweet spot anymore! One of the reasons I place so much more importance of headphone mixing these days. And from speakers I always have a listen from the next room as well....

Cheers!

Stephen

[mikehalloran]

>Originally we were trying to make records sound like an approximation of how things sounded live<

Hardly! Rather, we need to re-define early. In the 1950s, that was true. Every stereo recording was recorded in true stereo with 2-mic arrays - even live. Pop records were generally recorded and released in mono with rare exceptions.

If you listen to many "stereo" recordings from the '60s, you will hear that was quite often not the case. The novelty that was multi-track mixed to two channel was often exploited as an effect. How else would the listener know it was "stereo" if the two tracks didn't sound completely different? The Beatles Capitol recordings being a classic examples but certainly not the only ones. The lead vocal was usually placed center but even that was sometimes ignored.

Drums and bass hard-panned right or left were common. These so-called "mistakes" that were rectified by the 1970s when everyone figured out how to do it correctly, i. e. like everyone else.

BTW, pan pots on mixing boards didn't happen till the mid or late 1960s - a track was placed R, L or R/L but there was no blending. I remember a mid or late '60s article (album liner, perhaps) where Brian Wilson was quoted talking about this new development allowing instruments to be placed in the mix as they would appear on a stage for a more natural sounding product. In retrospect, knowing that Brian preferred mono and that he is deaf in one ear makes it highly unlikely that the words were his but, as the reigning musical genius of the time, his name was used.

I learned this first hand as a kid. My paper route money was spent on the stereo version of the album - always. One half of the cartridge on our home record player was defective so my dad re-wired the leads so that sound came out of both channels - he had made it mono but it was the left side only from both speakers. I didn't know this till I took my records to my next door neighbor's house and heard both sides for the first time. I had no idea all that music was on those grooves (nearly every Beatles cut had drums, bass and rhythm guitar? - I didn't know). One of my first tinkerings was to isolate the problem, go down to the Allied Electronics store where I bought a new cartridge and restored the record player to a stereo. Next door neighbor was cute so I didn't let on... but that's another story.

CD reissues, especially the early ones, show how often the rules were ignored in the early days. Early reissues often ignored the fact that the finest cartridges had only 27dB separation R/L (20-22dB being typical) and some kept the hard panning of the 2-track master tapes. Modern remasters usually take that into account.

[Prime Mover]

Some good history there! Thanks. I didn't know that early stereo was done without pan pots, that seems pretty crazy now. Funny thing is, I would have thought that stereo would have been first used in live sound reenforcement, since the main barrier to stereo recording was the medium (vinyl records had to be constructed to allow for two channels, and for them not to impede on each other). And one would think that live PA stereo would have had pan pots from close to the beginning.

In any case, I guess we're more talking about the advent of modern, mature stereo, not the early period of "let's go crazy with this new toy and show our listeners how cool it is!"

[janzoulou]

and now most people try to make gigs sound like the record.........

Thats a good one... And so true!

For me the virtual stage is mostly the thing I am thinking of when it comes to placement. And this stage can be whatever comes to my mind.. a big hall, a palace or even the Sky, up in the foggy clouds... But I always get myself a picture of where this song is happening.
Therefore a Movie - Score - Mix gives me the greatest freedom.

Mono is my favorite when it comes to pressure and punch. And to get both, a fat mono - punchy sound and at the same time a widen up - Stereo-field is the "Königsdisziplin"as we say in Germany. Greets from Berlin.

[Prime Mover]

Interesting, because recently my band has been working on trying to be as physically close to each other on stage as possible, because it tends to make us musically tighter. I played a gig today where we were (unfortunately) fairly far from the audience. There had to be only a degree or two of difference between each instrument. It's hard to believe that would translate to much noticeable stereo separation. Obviously, this isn't the case in all situations, but I'm just saying.

[kwiz]

Originally we were trying to make records sound like an approximation of how things sounded live..... then record making became more adventurous, and now most people try to make gigs sound like the record.........

Anything goes really.... for many years I used to mix in what I called 'wide mono' - in other words everything pretty much centred with some sounds solid in the middle and others pulled out into mono by stereo miking, stereo effects or ambience.

I do many different kinds of projects that there never seems to be standard way of doing things.... interesting stereo can be wonderful for headphone listening, which we all do a lot of these days..... but for radio or broadcast I think the 'wide mono' approach can be safer.

Think about where your sound will most be heard... I think that most music is hardly ever listened to from the sweet spot anymore! One of the reasons I place so much more importance of headphone mixing these days. And from speakers I always have a listen from the next room as well....

Cheers!

Stephen

This is excellent advice! Thanks for sharing Stephen.

[stephentayler]

Oh, that comment about making records sound like live music... that dates back to the origins of recording...... trying to convince the listener that they were listening to the real thing....

Of course once recordings were being made, the practitioners were trying to 'equalise' to make things sound more natural, and 'level' things to make the systems cope.... but in doing so they discovered... hey, we can push these controls and make things sound more interesting!!

At least that is my take on things.

Cheers!!

Stephen

[Shooshie]

Wow… synchronicity at work. I swear I had not seen this thread when I posted my musings on stereo L&R naming and routing conventions. Not exactly the same questions, but definitely on the same page.

Shooshie

[aprael]

My infatuation with a stereo mix has carried me from the first time I heard a stereo recording with a set of 1960 era Koss cans. Here in the Bay Area there used to be a radio show, "For headphones only" which featured "Ear Candy" mixes, as I used to call them. To this day, although I mix with monitors I "Place" with headphones, trying to surprise the listener with a bit of surprise. "Do I mix with the high hat on the left or the right?" Never in the middle, Even going as far as recording a sax in stereo with three miss, on on the top, one in the middle and one on the bell, then take the mix and turn it on its side from left to right. We were blessed with two ears.

[bolla]

I spent a fair amount of time as an assistant (long ago) to an Abbey road engineer (the place and the album).
One answer he gave for some of the extreme panning was that when stereo came along (after years of mono) the most boring thing you could do was to leave something panned up the center.
Some panning considerations these days...
Center or near center is the safest option. You'll always hear it even when one speaker is kaput or in another room or the wife thinks it's ugly or it mucks up the feng shui or two kids are sharing one pair of buds.
Car listeners are never in the center.
My favourite stereo panning is on some of the big band recordings from around 1963. There was a great Count Basie record I had (Lil' ol groovemaker) with horns panned across from l to R tpts>troms>sax>bari-sax.
Cheers, Bolla

[conleycd]

Interesting thread.

My experience is that most of live sound is mono because you kinda want everyone to get the same thing. The exception to this would be a L C R setup that has a very broad horizontal spread so that everyone does truly get what everyone else is hearing. In that kind of setup most of the "mono" instruments of course go to the C. Again very broad horizontal throw is necessary.

With respect to stereo recording and mixing. I have always been more conservative but when I read an article from Chris Lord-Alge I was more inspired to be extreme. Now his goal to get things as big as possible. He says he has 3 pan positions - ummm L C R. So I tend to do more of that.

It is important to of course always check in mono for phase cancellation.

Outside of iPods - everything does essentially become mono a few feet away from the stereo system for most people.

It makes the case for testing your mix on all sorts of systems and depending on how the music is consumed may deteremine some of your mix decisions.

CC