About drum pannings

[Tachy]

I'm ready to record a promo cd of my band but the question of panning the drum kit is in my brain...
I try to use the search funztion of the forum to find it but I can't find it....
I have 8 tracks of the drum kit an this is what I think :

Tom1 : 60 % R
Tom2 : Center
Tom3 : 60 % L
Hi-hat : 40 % L
Kick : Center
Snare : 20 % R
Overhead 1 : 80-100 L
Overhead 2 : 80-100 R
What do you think about that?

 

[JeffTD]

OH's hard left and right, Snare and kick in the center, and tom's between 80% either way usually sounds most natural to me.

I can't stand panned snares.

 

[Tachy]

Thanks for your point of view!

 

[smy1]

You pan from an audience perspective, I pan from a drummer's perspective. Both is cool. It's just a matter of taste and I am so used to the drummer's perspective (hihat left) from most of the CDs I own that the audience perspective fucks with me when I mix

Other than that I actually like panning kick and snare VERY slightly to the left and right. Or in the case of a doublebass set, I pan the kicks slightly l/r and the snare to the center.

 

[Tachy]

Originally posted by smy1
You pan from an audience perspective, I pan from a drummer's perspective. Both is cool. It's just a matter of taste and I am so used to the drummer's perspective (hihat left) from most of the CDs I own that the audience perspective fucks with me when I mix

You use visual panning.....

 

[smy1]

You use visual panning.....

Visual??

 

[Tachy]

Ha ha!!! forget what I have wrote I'm stupid!
My problem with the panning is this....I wont a good stereo immage of the kit but at the same time a very balanced output.....are you understand?

 

[Jackal_Strain]

uhm... no.

 

[smy1]

Hey Tachy,

you can't have both. It's impossible

How will you have balanced output when the low toms are on the right and get played 5 times per song while the hihat is on the left and gets played all the time? Or how will you have a good room image of the kit if everything is in the middle to give you a balanced output? It's just not possible!

But here are the good news: you don't need a balanced output. I have rarely heard anyone say that a good stereo image on a drumkit sounds bad to them. On the contrary, most people like it.

Very few people like extreme panning on everything. Jerry Finn (Green Day, Goo Goo Dolls, Rancid, etc.) comes to mind. He likes to put overheads, room mics and toms hard left/right and the hihat hard to one side. Also the guitars hard left/right. Supposedly because he feels that radio broadcasting pushes everything more towards the middle and that way things don't get lost ...

I don't know about that, but I prefer my drumkit evenly spaced out.

 

[The Ocean King]

I have read that some mixers pan overheads from the audience POV and the tom in drummer's POV.

But anyway. I don't have any rules. It just matter of a song.

 

[JeffTD]

Panning the OH in a different POV than the Tom's wouldn't sound very good, IMO. You'd hear the close mic on the tom on say the left side, but the room portion of it on the right - wouldn't that cause phase problems?

 

[Suicide_As_Alibi]

I have read that some mixers pan overheads from the audience POV and the tom in drummer's POV.

But anyway. I don't have any rules. It just matter of a song.

That would be weird - not only would yout cymbals be the wrong way round, the bleed from the toms would be on the wrong side

I get all confused here - I pan as if you're watching a drummer, but I'm a left-handed drummer, so everyone else thinks I pan as if I'm behind a right-handed kit.

Steve

 

[Aaron Smith]

I can't stand panned snares.

DUDE I can't agree with you more. There are few things more irritating to me.

 

[Jackal_Strain]

Usually when I pan a snare I don't pan it very hard to either side. Just 2-3% to one side. that way you actually clear up the stereo image, but the snare still sound very centered.

 

[AStacy2]

I usually do something like this:


Tom1 : 50 % R
Tom2 : Center
Tom3 : 50 % L
Hi-hat : 30 % L
Ride: 40% R
Kick : Center
Snare : Center
Overhead 1 : 100% L
Overhead 2 : 100% R


This usually sounds pretty good to me for acoustic drums, if it's DKFH or something though maybe pan stuff in a little more so it dosen't sound fake.

 

[SPLASTiK]

I pan my toms and hi-hat to where they sound in the overheads. Kick/Snare center.

 

[JBroll]

I do remember hearing on a thread on someone's mix a few people noticing a snare panned two or three percent to one side, it did 'clear things up' a bit but it seems that even with it a tiny bit off-center there are a few who are driven bonkers by that little detail...

Jeff

 

[JeffTD]

I still can't listen to Tool's Ænema in headphones because it makes my head jerk to the snare beat.

 

[The Ocean King]

on the last project I actually had the snare panned 2% to right. The whole mixed just sounded better. Maybe I was just hearing things, but it worked

 

[Tachy]

Originally posted by smy1
Hey Tachy,

you can't have both. It's impossible

How will you have balanced output when the low toms are on the right and get played 5 times per song while the hihat is on the left and gets played all the time? Or how will you have a good room image of the kit if everything is in the middle to give you a balanced output? It's just not possible!

But here are the good news: you don't need a balanced output. I have rarely heard anyone say that a good stereo image on a drumkit sounds bad to them. On the contrary, most people like it.

Very few people like extreme panning on everything. Jerry Finn (Green Day, Goo Goo Dolls, Rancid, etc.) comes to mind. He likes to put overheads, room mics and toms hard left/right and the hihat hard to one side. Also the guitars hard left/right. Supposedly because he feels that radio broadcasting pushes everything more towards the middle and that way things don't get lost ...

I don't know about that, but I prefer my drumkit evenly spaced out.

Yes You are right, I'm agree....thanks man for your explanation.