I had coffee with a fellow audio engineer this morning, and he was talking about how big of a difference panning can make on the sound of a mix.
He told me a story about a test he had to take in engineering school. The test was done in a 5.1 surround sound mixing studio. It began with a Pro Tools mix that was routed to the center channel only.
The assignment was to create a mix by only changing the routing of the various tracks. My friend said he was amazed at how much of an improvement he was able to make.
Obviously, mixing into six channels of surround sound gives you more options that a two-channel stereo mix, but don’t downplay the effectiveness of panning changes.
Panning vs EQ
A big part of the mixing process is using EQ to carve out a place in the frequency spectrum for each instrument. You want the vocals, drums, guitars, keys, etc., to all blend together nicely without a lot of buildup in certain frequency ranges.
My name is Joe Gilder. I'm a singer, songwriter, and recording engineer. I love music, whether I'm producing an album or playing a show. Home Studio Corner is an outpouring of the knowledge I've acquired so far.