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Sound Reinforcement - Forums for Live Sound Professionals - Your Displayed Name Must Be Your Real Full Name To Post In The Live Sound Forums => LAB Lounge => Topic started by: Russel Murton on April 04, 2011, 12:49:23 AM
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How many of you do a lot of panning for live sound?
I've done a lot of hard panning of guitars at certain venues, I've also panned guitars to the opposite sides for some venues to defeat loud stage volumes.
What else do people pan/hard pan? I mainly stick to OH's hard panned, toms in the 33% and 66% positions, guitars in 66% and 100% positions. Maybe some keys panning if the band has a single guitar and keys, if it's a three piece of drums bass and guitar I'll pan the bass mic a little aswell with the guitar mic to widen things a little but not too much. I never usually pan backing vocals.
There's a few pros and cons to panning at gigs, for examples not everyone is in a perfect position to get a stereo image from both speakers at the same time, the people right infront of one speaker won't hear the other etc.
I'd be especially interested how people approach panning on larger rigs which cover much larger spaces if they do any extreme panning or sticking to 66% or 33% as their outer limits and only maybe hard pan a stereo keys setup etc
I'm pretty sure there was a few threads on this subject on the old forums, but well they are dead and I thought I'd introduce some more recent conversation.
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How many of you do a lot of panning for live sound?
I've done a lot of hard panning of guitars at certain venues, I've also panned guitars to the opposite sides for some venues to defeat loud stage volumes.
What else do people pan/hard pan? I mainly stick to OH's hard panned, toms in the 33% and 66% positions, guitars in 66% and 100% positions. Maybe some keys panning if the band has a single guitar and keys, if it's a three piece of drums bass and guitar I'll pan the bass mic a little aswell with the guitar mic to widen things a little but not too much. I never usually pan backing vocals.
There's a few pros and cons to panning at gigs, for examples not everyone is in a perfect position to get a stereo image from both speakers at the same time, the people right infront of one speaker won't hear the other etc.
I'd be especially interested how people approach panning on larger rigs which cover much larger spaces if they do any extreme panning or sticking to 66% or 33% as their outer limits and only maybe hard pan a stereo keys setup etc
I'm pretty sure there was a few threads on this subject on the old forums, but well they are dead and I thought I'd introduce some more recent conversation.
The only thing that I hard pan is the stereo input from the DJM at raves so that the performers can have there LF sweeps work correctly.
I also have my CD/Ipod player for back ground music hard panned.
Everyone once in a while I will do a little bit of panning on over heads or stereo guitars but Mono works really good in Live sound applications. I want everyone in the venue to hear each instrument.
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How many of you do a lot of panning for live sound?
I've done a lot of hard panning of guitars at certain venues, I've also panned guitars to the opposite sides for some venues to defeat loud stage volumes.
What else do people pan/hard pan? I mainly stick to OH's hard panned, toms in the 33% and 66% positions, guitars in 66% and 100% positions. Maybe some keys panning if the band has a single guitar and keys, if it's a three piece of drums bass and guitar I'll pan the bass mic a little aswell with the guitar mic to widen things a little but not too much. I never usually pan backing vocals.
There's a few pros and cons to panning at gigs, for examples not everyone is in a perfect position to get a stereo image from both speakers at the same time, the people right infront of one speaker won't hear the other etc.
I'd be especially interested how people approach panning on larger rigs which cover much larger spaces if they do any extreme panning or sticking to 66% or 33% as their outer limits and only maybe hard pan a stereo keys setup etc
I'm pretty sure there was a few threads on this subject on the old forums, but well they are dead and I thought I'd introduce some more recent conversation.
It will depend on the content. On some occasions I'll pan guitars left and right, but never 100% of the signal and usually when there is more than one amplifier being used by the artist. There are also occasions where backup vocals or organs / keys (stereo source) will be panned, but again, never 100%. Like everything else, it depends on the situation at hand.
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How many of you do a lot of panning for live sound?
I've done a lot of hard panning of guitars at certain venues, I've also panned guitars to the opposite sides for some venues to defeat loud stage volumes.
What else do people pan/hard pan? I mainly stick to OH's hard panned, toms in the 33% and 66% positions, guitars in 66% and 100% positions. Maybe some keys panning if the band has a single guitar and keys, if it's a three piece of drums bass and guitar I'll pan the bass mic a little aswell with the guitar mic to widen things a little but not too much. I never usually pan backing vocals.
There's a few pros and cons to panning at gigs, for examples not everyone is in a perfect position to get a stereo image from both speakers at the same time, the people right infront of one speaker won't hear the other etc.
I'd be especially interested how people approach panning on larger rigs which cover much larger spaces if they do any extreme panning or sticking to 66% or 33% as their outer limits and only maybe hard pan a stereo keys setup etc
I'm pretty sure there was a few threads on this subject on the old forums, but well they are dead and I thought I'd introduce some more recent conversation.
Before you pan, you need to determine if the system is set up in stereo, and that is not just how it is wired but also the coverage patterns of the speakers.
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I pan stereo effects, break music, and if I know the band maybe for an effect but usually most of my inputs stay centered.
It bugs me if I go to a show and I'm off to one side and all I hear is one of the guitar players and 2/3 of a drum kit. Sure, it sounds great at FOH but are we mixing for ourselves or the audience?
At some of the smaller rooms I hit I will pan the guitars a bit just to compensate for backline volume. You know SR guitar gets paned to SL a hair and vice versa. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
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How many of you do a lot of panning for live sound?
I've done a lot of hard panning of guitars at certain venues, I've also panned guitars to the opposite sides for some venues to defeat loud stage volumes.
Only a minor consideration to be sure (compared with the total sound of the mix), but one nice thing about hard panning is that you wind up with fewer nulls and lobes for that particular sound (assuming it's coming from only one sound source).
Note, however, that hard panning an amplifier on one side of the stage to the other defeats this. You still have two (out of phase) signals combining in FOH.
That said, worrying about cancellation is something I rarely do when considering which sources to pan and how I would pan them.
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I run a mono PA but mix in stereo for a couple of reasons:
1. It's easier for me to balance things like multiple guitars, drum kit and/or backing vocals if I can solo them in stereo.
2. Recording performance/mix for reference. I'll have a VP88 up at the mix position and delay the board signal to the stereo mic.
That said, the only thing I would run in "hard" stereo would be effects.
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The only reason I can see the advantages is usually effects. A lot of the bands in the area are blues based and the Hammond XK3c's and Electro's emulate a Leslie quite well. The difference is noticeable to say the least. Even then it works way better in venues that are narrow and long, rather than wide. A real Leslie even better.
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I pan stereo effects, break music, and if I know the band maybe for an effect but usually most of my inputs stay centered.
It bugs me if I go to a show and I'm off to one side and all I hear is one of the guitar players and 2/3 of a drum kit. Sure, it sounds great at FOH but are we mixing for ourselves or the audience?
At some of the smaller rooms I hit I will pan the guitars a bit just to compensate for backline volume. You know SR guitar gets paned to SL a hair and vice versa. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
I hard pan stereo effects (mostly tap delay).
For DJ music I pan about 75% as it seems to have a better feel than full pan.
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How many of you do a lot of panning for live sound?
I've done a lot of hard panning of guitars at certain venues, I've also panned guitars to the opposite sides for some venues to defeat loud stage volumes.
What else do people pan/hard pan? I mainly stick to OH's hard panned, toms in the 33% and 66% positions, guitars in 66% and 100% positions. Maybe some keys panning if the band has a single guitar and keys, if it's a three piece of drums bass and guitar I'll pan the bass mic a little aswell with the guitar mic to widen things a little but not too much. I never usually pan backing vocals.
There's a few pros and cons to panning at gigs, for examples not everyone is in a perfect position to get a stereo image from both speakers at the same time, the people right infront of one speaker won't hear the other etc.
I'd be especially interested how people approach panning on larger rigs which cover much larger spaces if they do any extreme panning or sticking to 66% or 33% as their outer limits and only maybe hard pan a stereo keys setup etc
I'm pretty sure there was a few threads on this subject on the old forums, but well they are dead and I thought I'd introduce some more recent conversation.
For me it depends on the system and venue. If I'm on a system with good stereo coverage to all or nearly all of the audience space, I'll hard pan stereo keys, stereo electric guitars, drum overheads, and FX. I'll pan the toms out some; whether they're hard-panned depends again on the venue and the music. Other instruments get lightly panned to taste; vox stay centered.
If the system's stereo coverage is less ideal, I'll still pan, but I won't hard-pan much if anything.
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For me it depends on the system and venue. If I'm on a system with good stereo coverage to all or nearly all of the audience space, I'll hard pan stereo keys, stereo electric guitars, drum overheads, and FX. I'll pan the toms out some; whether they're hard-panned depends again on the venue and the music. Other instruments get lightly panned to taste; vox stay centered.
If the system's stereo coverage is less ideal, I'll still pan, but I won't hard-pan much if anything.
That's pretty much exactly what I do, but if there are background vocals, they get panned to open them up some too.
Mac
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How many of you do a lot of panning for live sound?
I've done a lot of hard panning of guitars at certain venues, I've also panned guitars to the opposite sides for some venues to defeat loud stage volumes.
What else do people pan/hard pan? I mainly stick to OH's hard panned, toms in the 33% and 66% positions, guitars in 66% and 100% positions. Maybe some keys panning if the band has a single guitar and keys, if it's a three piece of drums bass and guitar I'll pan the bass mic a little aswell with the guitar mic to widen things a little but not too much. I never usually pan backing vocals.
There's a few pros and cons to panning at gigs, for examples not everyone is in a perfect position to get a stereo image from both speakers at the same time, the people right infront of one speaker won't hear the other etc.
I'd be especially interested how people approach panning on larger rigs which cover much larger spaces if they do any extreme panning or sticking to 66% or 33% as their outer limits and only maybe hard pan a stereo keys setup etc
I'm pretty sure there was a few threads on this subject on the old forums, but well they are dead and I thought I'd introduce some more recent conversation.
I pretty much mix in mono with the exception of stereo sources and playback and fx as mentioned earlier.
I remember seeing a stadium show where the mixer panned guitars and other stuff hard left and hard right, apparently not realizing that several hundred people are getting the entire mix from one line array hang. The other guitar was absolutely in-audible until I squeezed my way to the center. And if its really crowded getting to the center isn't an option and the average punter might not know to do that for an even mix anyway.