A Right Good Panning

A Right Good Panning
By Fran Ashcroft

Surely I must not be the only person who questions why on earth default settings for digital recording systems and fx are always in stereo? Stereo delay for example, is plain stupid – unless you own Ping Pong Ball Studios.

Of course we’ve all heard silly mixes where everything – including vocals – is split hard left and right, but it has certainly become the norm to unquestioningly pan keyboards and rhythm guitars that way because it’s how it “should” be done. Funny how these pernicious ideas creep in.

So whenever I hear hard left/right splits on mono instruments, it makes me wince. The left/right guitar pan is especially irritating, as it is most definitely a mono instrument. Splitting it in half just leaves a big hole in the middle. And if the aim is to add body or space, why not double track* it? Or if you don’t want to double track, at least pull in that hard left /right split to 10 and 2 o’clock respectively.
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Not that I’m a ‘true stereo’ purist. As a matter of fact, mono is quite nice.

*For those younger readers weaned entirely on computers,double tracking means the musician has to play or sing exactly the same part twice. ‘Doubler’ plug ins are not the same animal at all. It’s the subtle differences in a performance make double tracking effective.. So much so that I’ve known seasoned musicians who can repeat a performance so neatly that double tracking doesn’t work!