Experiment with Panning to Improve Your Mix

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.

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Careful Drink Placement

You know how a bad mix can really ruin a song?

Yeah, well a spilled drink can ruin a studio.

No, I didn’t ruin my studio last night, but I have come really close a couple times over the years. Nobody ever pays attention to the “no food or drink” signs in professional recording studios, until some dude pours his Red Bull down the middle of an SSL console. (Yep, rumor has it that happened in a big studio here in Nashville.)

So what about your home studio? It’s your home, right? You can do whatever you want. Absolutely. But please, PLEASE be careful.

I talk a lot about getting things done in your home studio and setting deadlines and goals. Heck, I’ve got a whole category of posts on productivity.

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EQ Before or After Compression?

Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
Which should come first, EQ or compression?
Feel free to state your opinion for both questions in the comments section, but this article will deal mainly with the second. (Although, you never know…)
Esse, one of my Production Club members, emailed me a question over the weekend. (Side-note: Esse lives [...]

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Ask Joe #21 [First Official HSC Podcast!]

Image by DTGraphix
Today HSC officially has a podcast! You should be able to access it in the iTunes store now. Home Studio Corner…on your iPod…sweet.
Secondly, how do you like the “Ask Joe” logo? Very cool, right? Thanks to Dave of DTGraphix. He did an awesome job. He also designed the Understanding Pro Tools banners. If [...]

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Getting Ready to Mix My Album [I Need Your Input]

If you follow me on Twitter, then you’ve seen me post about my album progress. I’ve spent the last two days recording background vocals and percussion. I’m getting ready to lay down the lead vocals, and I’ll be ready to start mixing.
I want you to be involved in the mix process. More on that in [...]

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Ear Training Results: Acoustic Guitar

Here’s my follow-up video to yesterday’s round of ear training. If you haven’t checked out the audio clips there, you might want to do that before watching the video below.

Were you right? Wanna gloat?
Were you wrong? Wanna vent?
Leave a comment!

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Ear Training: Acoustic Guitar [Texas Hold 'Em Edition]

This whole “ear training” thing is pretty fun. Let’s do it again!!
This week we’ll take a look at acoustic guitar.
The Clips
I’ve got three clips for you. The first is the original acoustic guitar, no processing. The second clip has some processing. The third clip has more processing.
So the signal flow goes:
Clip #1 –plug-in–> Clip #2 [...]

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2010 Goal Update: How Are You Doing?

Back on New Year’s Day I wrote a post about setting goals, and I also released my latest free eBook, Roadmap to Finishing Your Album. If you haven’t grabbed your copy yet, just sign up to my newsletter, and it’s yours.
In that post I talked a lot about setting deadlines for yourself, and how these [...]

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About Joe Gilder
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. Read more...