DougDbug wrote:Others say, stereo panning is becoming a thing of the past with more recent songs. I agree!
I'm not sure what that means...
Panning is a normal part of almost every commercial recording. But, it's usually solo-mono tracks with each instrument/vocal panned somewhere between left & right across the "soundstage".
What may be a style of the past is "hard panning" where everything is panned fully-left, fully-right, or center. Mixing engineers often try to carefully-position each instrument/vocal across the soundstage, but in reality it doesn't work very well
* unless the listener is in the perfect-center position in a "perfect" acoustic environment. I'm not saying you shouldn't pan somewhere in-between the 3 main positions, but the listener may not perceive the sound exactly where you position it.
Some of the early Beatles recordings are famously hard-panned in an unnatural way (with nothing in the center). Stereo was new and they were experimenting with it. Early classical stereo recordings weren't done like that, but I guess they were having fun with rock & roll.
"Stereo Panning" the way GoldWave does it with stereo files is a bit unusual because with multitrack recording you usually have many mono-tracks that are individually panned and then mixed into the stereo recording. (Or with 5.1 / 7.1 surround sound, each track can be panned anywhere around the listener.)
With a regular stereo recording, you generally adjust the balance (instead of panning). GoldWave's Pan can do that if you select
Change Volume Only.
* Here's an article on panning. To me, the most interesting part is on the 2nd page where he talks about doing an experiment and finding-out how poorly panning works except for hard-left, hard-right, and center. (IMO - Phantom Center localization isn't precise either, and I assume that's why surround systems have a center-front speaker.)
Doug, here's my story as my ears tell it.
[First] the majority of society could care less about Stereo. Same holds true with HQ sound. My Guesstimate = 15%. I have to chuckle when I see a site claiming their audio quality caused the song to [hit] chart.
No one ever told me why I enjoyed stereo so much, I had to answer my own question. Imagine drawing the outlines of musical instruments on transparent panes. I overlay a Guitar, Drums and Piano, and look at it, I can still see the individual instruments, just not clear - that equals a Mono Mix. Now, I spread those panes out in front of me, with Guitar = Right, Drums = Center, Piano = Left, where I clearly see everything - that equals stereo. In other words, in Mono, one sound masks the other. Even an artists from Canada contacted me when he heard remixes of Beatles meter, where multi-tracks escaped (per se'). he (and I) got to hear what you didn't hear before. Most mixes were mixed, just to be loud, not to express High Fidelity
When man had a limited amount of recording tracks to work with, impressive, sometimes wide, stereo exists.
Beginning in early 70's, when recording technology changed (greater number tape tracks), that impressive stereo mixed sound began sounding like monophonic.
When I refer to panning, I mean moving sound(d) L-R, R-L. A good example is Led Zeppelin's, "Whole Lotta Love", with the guitar work panning. Why I asked how to pan, I wanted to replicate it from multi-tracks I found. Otherwise, my stereo mix had static guitar work. I always admired when a stereo mix took some effort and imagination. I generally refer to my own stereo mixes as "static", because tracks a mixed and fixed at volume.
Not to sound like a jerk, but it always the same story I hear about "remastering". I still stand by my claim, remastering initially meant remixing multi-track tapes to create a new Master (tape). You want the greatest dynamic, you can't get it with a slightly spent Master tape, but remix seldom touched multi-tracks and any tape noise vanishes for greatest dynamics.
My feeling, if you need someone like Dave Moulton to tell you how to "mix", find a different profession. I can be cruel, but lovable
Thanks, Doug, always a pleasure.
