so i've uploaded one of my first beats on the site and i got alot of great feedback to everyone who rated my beat i appreciate it....one thing i noticed was that the issue of panning came into mind like people kept throwing the idea out...my question is where and when do you guys pan and instrument,sample,etc. like where does panning fit best??? when using drums, the keys, or what??...also i mean it seems more like a question on creativity so im sure theres no definite answer right or wrong but i was just wondering

Panning Hi Hats usually sounds good, depends what kinda style your going for though really. In your new school hip-hop you tend to get snare rolls that have a hella lot of panning, I wouldn't really pan your kick or snare, I mean it can sound good if done right, but generally they stay central. As for instrumentation, what I've noticed is that less dominant sounds are panned, so kinda like your 'filler sounds' so to speak, say a really high violin that just plays a small melody every now and then can sound nice panned.

But like you said, it's only limited by your creativity

I find panning (and the stereo image) of a song very important. If you use panning well, it can make your track sound a lot more lively or attention grabbing, but it is possible to do too much with it (in rap, it can distract from the vocals... in electronic music like dnb, acid, etc. you can get away with doing some more crazy panning of instruments).

Here are some Ideas that I tend to use pretty commonly (they are not rules though and you can really do whatever you want):

Percussion:
Kick- I like to keep the low end of my kicks pretty much centered, because panning or stereo separation tends to decrease the presense of the bass, making your kicks "bump" less or hit less hard. You can stereo separate the mid and highs of your kicks without harming the sound of the track, but I personally don't care for this effect except for in certain circumstanses.
Snare (main)- I also like to keep the main snare centered, sometimes with a just a little stereo separation for flavor. To me, they sound better and more hard hitting in this way. Panning the main snare to either side has a very odd sound.
Snare (second)- very comon in dirty south music, there will be 808 snare fills and rolls, I think it's really fun to play around with panning in these rolls and fills. Maybe have the snare pan all the way to the left in the first half of the roll then back
right in th second half; or maybe alternate each hit from far left to far right. Get creative with these.
Clap- I usually stereo sepparate my claps quite a bit (or use several samples panned to opposite sides) to make them nice and fat. Claps are rarely panned hard to either side, but can be in a clap roll or some other efect (see Low ft. T-Pain)
Hats/shakers- If I have only hats, or only shakers, I tend to keep them centered. Stereo enhancing can have a very nice effect on hats if done properly, but isn't necissary. If I have both hats and shakers (or multiple types of shakers) I tend to pan them slightly (5-20% but all the way up to 100% can sound good as well)to opposite sides. This helps both sounds to come through more clearly in the mix and keeps things interesting.
Cymbals- For most of my beats I use only one (usually crash) or two (crash and ride) cymbals aside from hats. If I have one, I keep it centered, but often with stereo separation or a stereo reverb. If I use two, I usually pan one mid-far (50-100%) right and the other mid-far left. In contrast to this (especially if you have 3 or more cymbals), you can set up your cymbals (possibly including hats) in such a way that they kind of resemble the position that each specific one may be located at in an actual drum set. There are a lot more things you can do with cymbals.
Other Percussion- The above are what I consider to be the Main or Base Percussion, but there are a ton of other percussive instruments and even sound effects can be placed here. I usually will pan all other percussive instruments at least slightly one way or the other. If you have two samples that hit in similar frequency ranges, pan them to opposite sides (not necissarly 100% though as sometimes it can be a bit distracting, but sometimes wit works perfectly) For example, if you have a cowbell and a wood block, you might pan the cowbell left 40% and the wood block right 40%. You can also use dynamic panning on these instruments similar to the dirty south snare rolls if it sounds good. Anything that sounds good really goes.


Pitched Instruments:
Bass(es): Same idea as kicks, though I am more likely to stereoize the mid and upper end if I am using a saw or some other synth for bass. Usually what I do to do this is filter off the low end of the synth (which is stereoized) and add just a perfectly centered sine bass on the same note as the synth bass
Pads: Usually don't pan these to one side or the other, but have them be very stereo separated to give a nice big ambience.
Strings: If I use just the general "string section" I like to use a good amount of stereo separation on it, but If I am just using a few specific strings, I try to pan them in a way that resembles how they might be set up in a typical string quartet or other. If I am only using violin, I like to layer two different soundfonts/violin types (Vin I & Vin II) and pan them to opposite sides... but sometimes a solo violin is nice too.
Leads: I like to keep my lead instrument in the middle (though probably some stereo sepparation) for hip-hop and rap. If you pan this dynamically, it can be very distracting from the vocals.
Other Instruments: Similar to "Other Percussion" in what I do with panning. Dynamic panning can be pretty cool if the instrument isn't as present as a lead would be. Panning instruments with similar frequency ranges to opposite sides helps them come out more if they play at the same time.

Hopefully this was helpful a little, I do many different things in different circumstances, but these are some common ways that I use panning/stereo separation.

The easy answer:
Imagine a band on stage playing. Look at where everyone in the band is standing. The drummer is usually in the middle, kick drum in the middle of his set. Snare slightly to the right (from your point of view) hi hat to the other side. THe singer is in the middle and the guitar to one side with the keyboard on the opposite one.

This is panning in a nutshell, it makes your track come alive in a sense. It also has to do with frequency space in your mix.

Imagine ten cars stuck in one lane.. then imagine ten cars on a ten lane highway.. yep, now nobody is having to wait in the line to get through. It's the same with sound, if you cram it all in one place it will loose energy and make it harder for you to get a good mix.

That was the easy explanation. Someone will propably come in shortly and give you the whole theory behind it (Sorry I'm ina kind of a rush atm).

Great stuff, wow... I love this place.   Can we start a F.A.Q. and put the last two answers in there cause.... damn.

lol @ sabotage...trust do what you gotta do man....damn i definitly appreciate all the great feed to my question in a nut shell this deeeeeeeeffffffinitly opened my eyes to alot of things with panning....definitly gotta different way of looking at it and how to use it....thanks yall

damn i luv this site

also look up LCR panning online. it involves with only panning hard left, center or hard right. experiment with that as well. and as was said earlier, for hip hop tracks/rap tracks, you really don't need to do all of that panning with the drums, but you might want to pan a little bit with instruments to make a little bit of room.

Wow great info people thanks much. I think panning is overlooked by a Lot of new beatmakers, myself included until someone taught me recently. It can mean the difference between a good beat and a great beat, timbaland uses a lot of really clever panning in his beats that's how they sound so crazy I think, correct me if I'm wrong? Also experiment with automating panning you can make it sound as though things are circling around you etc, you can get some crazy effects.

Woah, learned alot just in 5 minutes !!!

also keep in mind, when you pan right or left, the volume of the track increases as well. usually a track that is at 0db panned in the center is +3db when it's panned hard left or right. make sure to keep that in mind for mixing purposes.

Good stuff I've been wondering and experimenting with panning for ages.

I usaly pan instruments where i feel is the best spot.
Also when im layering lets say a few strings.
1 20% left 1 20% right for example.

good info. I like Sabotage's response of pretending you are looking at a band. I tend to pan everything at least slightly except the kick. snare and bass. I read somewhere (maybe even here) that kick should not be panned as it sounds whack in the club, of course it was written a lot better than my explanation. thanks for the info. also, if i two of the same instruments , i do what The Fourth says he does.

A lot of what I was going to say was already said, but you also have to remember that people aren't listening to music in a perfect stereo image. If you're in the car, you're a little bit to the left/right, if you're at the gym there's other noise going on around you. You should pan to add to the excitement of your track, but don't let it make or break you.

sounds like Ray has been watching those "5 minutes to a better mix videos" lol.

here's the thing about panning you have to keep in mind. a lot of systems that audiences listen to, are set to mono.for example, the systems in the club are mono systems. they are playing both the left and right channels of the song. thats why it is sooooooo important to check things in mono first. also...recall what i said up there about when you pan an instrument it becomes louder. thats why, once you check things in mono, the volume tends to go down a bit. it also helps you check for phasing issues. you don't want to pan to get rid of phasing issues b/c once it gets played in a mono system, the issue will come right back. you could lose an entire instrument or a vocal. that wouldn't be good. it just depends on the sound you're going for and the genre. the more live the genre, the more live panning you want to use.

Yeah what Pompey said as well in his last post. And yes, I have and I guess you have to lol. At first when the guy said that it sounded like he was talking out his ass, but the guys really smart and has helped me a lot.

oh yeah..he knows what he's talking about. the series is great too.

Fourth - That was a great post.

I am new to mixing, so I'm learning and coming up with ideas

I came up with an idea of a panpot matrix. 3x3. It is based on base 3 number system. Each unit consists of 3 sub-units, and so on. This a type of depth resolution. Increments and decrements of 3.

The first dimension is vertical. This is the frequency spectrum, divided into 3 bands (hi/mid/low). Also called the stage. The stage is raised if the sound goes up and down if it is lowered. Therefore the same frequencies are boost or cut. The FLStudio tool to do this is the EQ parabolic 2. You can move the stage (white line). Units: Db?

The second dimension is horizontal. This is the stereo field; panning from Left-Centre-Right. This is noticed on the monitor output stereo field. Units:0-127

If you added spatial sound - surround sound,3D sound etc, you would add a third dimension. This is depth; moving backward and forwards. Therefore 3x3x3. Off the top of my head I would say it would be some kind of volume analog Db (amplitude) and reverb (wet/depth) ratio; meaning they are coupled with a current pointer, which is the current matrix co-ordinate. I'm not sure on the units of a

At the top-level you move in increments of 3 units. If you take a top-level unit, you can move three units within it, etc and so on. So there are many levels/layers, but it will be finite and not go into infinity.

At the end of the day...You can apply it to (generator/channel/track inserts) or instruments/vocals/sounds, and make them dynamic and not stationery. The problem with automated clips is they are coupled with the song's BPM. Sloping is fixed at the rate of the beat of the measure to song BPM.

Maybe I left something out.

panning your mix adds more life i feel..the only things i dont pan are bass and kick...you can pan an ambient pad and add some reasonance to it..i think thats pretty cool..i feel it also helps because the instruments arent all clashing in the center..i usually just use the pan in piano roll..the skys the limit in the wonderful world of panning but also be aware of how much you apply...

i also noticed about losing an instrument due to too much pan on one side just today actually..im not sure if it was if the note had something to affect it as well? in any event i got it sounding better with some adjusting