Recording in mono?

[broken81]

When you guys are tracking a band do you even bother to like pan your overheads and drums and pan guitars or is it better to track everything mono/not panned so you can hear how it works together.

Maybe also to achieve better playing by 2 separate guitarist. To me it really seems to show the flaws if to guitarist are playing sloppy to each other when the guitars are not panned. If i pan them it can kinda hide a sloppy performance a bit but I'm just wondering your guys take on tracking a band and panning......

 

[scorpio01169]

I usually pan during tracking drums and guitars

 

[scorpio01169]

I usually pan during tracking drums and guitars

 

[Deaf Ear]

I pan too, it helps everyone focus better I think. Make sure you pan the drums for the drummer's perspective or it'll sound weird to him in his cans.

 

[2012]

Stereo

 

[Zombietakeover]

why would it throw him off?

I pan too, it helps everyone focus better I think. Make sure you pan the drums for the drummer's perspective or it'll sound weird to him in his cans.

And yeah i have to pan shit or you really cant tell whats going on it just sounds like mud

 

[Torniojaws]

And yeah i have to pan shit or you really cant tell whats going on it just sounds like mud

Wouldn't that mean that something's wrong with the overall drum and band sound

 

[scorpio01169]

Wouldn't that mean that something's wrong with the overall drum and band sound

No if everything is sitting in the middle then everything is fighting with eachother

 

[Fredrik-Ablaze]

I pan everything when tracking as well, but i always play back all guitars soloed in the same speaker when checking for flaws

 

[grywolf627]

I'm by no means the expert like many people on here, but I tend to pan drums when tracking as well. It sometimes "inspires" the musicians to hear things sounding bigger and better in their cans.

However, I have to disagree with this:

No if everything is sitting in the middle then everything is fighting with eachother

Maybe it's from my days of mixing live sound, where everything was mono. But I find when I'm starting a final mixdown, if I start off in mono, and get everything sound good and sitting well together, when I start panning things...it already sounds great. In fact, someone here (don't remember who and when) wrote a post/topic about this subject some time ago. It was a really good thread.

Just my 2 cents

 

[evolutions_end]

Yeah, track in stereo/panned.

That was you can hear what is going to tape/disk and you know (roughly) how it'll sound in the mix. As for it hiding stuff-ups, ill be sure to look out for it now!!