One vocal, one guitar, and panning
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Posted on Aug 06, 2009 01:02 am
thermocaster
Appenine
Member Since: Dec 13, 2004
Hi, guys! Been a while since I've had a chance to stop by. Good to see so many familiar names still around.
Alright, so here's the situation. I'm producing an album for my friend, and we've got a couple tracks which are going to be pretty stark --- just vocals and solo acoustic guitar and some severe pathos. :)
I've played around in the past with dead-center panning the vocals and then splitting the rhythm guitar unevenly to both sides (normally at about a 35-65 ratio). However, this has a tendency (at least to my ears) of making the singer seem kinda "surrounded", which I'm trying to avoid on these tracks.
So my question is --- When you're just mixing two elements like this, what's your normal approach in terms of stereo field panning? Or what have you tried and liked (or not liked)?
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olddogMember
Since: Jul 02, 2003
Aug 06, 2009 03:06 am Welcome back!
Not sure on the question. I think if it were me I'd try several approaches. If it were simply 1 guitar and vocal I don't think I'd do much if any panning. Double track the guitar, in which case I still don't think I'd pan very much. Maybe try a stereo mic approach. Maybe clone the guitar track pan hard l/r and then use delays to widen the guitar sound a bit. Or some combination of all of the above. :) Can't really think of a time I've done just acoutic & vocal except one and then I just doubled the guitar and slightly panned them.
Dan
CptTrippsCzar of Turd PolishMember
Since: Jun 20, 2006
Aug 06, 2009 11:38 am I would double track the guitar and pan them a tad as you stated. The vocalist being surrounded sounds more like an EQ/Reverb issue to me.
Aug 06, 2009 06:02 pm for a more natural sound i'd just pan a mono guitar 35% to one side and the vocal the exact opposite....
if yer tracking guitar and vocals in one take with two mics' this will sound very natural....
if yer gonna do the tracks seperately...i'd mic the guitar up with two mics i'd pan the mic on the finger board a bit towards one side and keep the mic on the body dead center...then vocals evenly panned opposite of the guitar track that's paned.
if you really wanna get creative....you could stereo mic the guitar with a 50/50 pan (not all the way out) and leave the vocals center....hard panning will sound a bit distracting so just pan 'em out enough to create space for the vocal.
if yer gonna double track guitar, i think you could get away with harder pans...but i don't think that's the sound you're lookin' for...
welcome back bro!
