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Why does panning matter?

  • Published: 2022-06-09 18:57
  • Updated: 2023-02-04 20:36

Music production operates within the limitation of physical and natural bottlenecks: From the bar set by 0dbfs to monitors, headphones, PAs and playback formats. Last, but not least: our ears, brains and human perception.

The goal of mixing is encoding a tracks’ content in a way, that intentionally prioritizes sounds by manipulating each sounds qualities for reproduction. Incorporating the bottleneck of playback-formats and -systems alike. To give listeners the chance of decoding and emotionally perceiving a track the way the artist intended.

Let’s start by segwaying into the key qualities of sound, in the musical sense. They are:

  1. Amplitude – How soft or loud do I perceive…
  2. Frequency – what kind of repeating oscillation…
  3. Location – sustaining from where…
  4. Duration – and for which interval of time?

Play a 50hz sine in through your DAW at 0dbfs for 1 second, and you get the idea. If you don’t pan it, it plays from the center stage of your monitors. That’s its location. Remove any one of the key qualities, and you don’t hear the sine. Fairly straight forward.

It looks like this on a spectrum analyser:

{{< figure src="sine_50hz.png" title="50hz sine" >}}

The entire sound consists of the fundamental frequency at 50hz, playing until the note ends. However, we don’t make music using only bare, simple sines. That’s where things escalate quickly. Because every sound in existence basically is a cluster of sine waves. With that in mind, and for fun’s sake: Let’s put a 909 kick under a microscope.

The screenshot below displays one sample of a 909 bassdrums’ fundamental and cluster of partials:

{{< figure src="909_kick.png" title="The frequency spectrum of a 909 kick">}}

Contemplate this for a second: every line above represents a sine wave. With its own amplitude, frequency, location and duration over time. Harmonically changing their relationships in unison - from start to finish - composing a sound that, when played back at its original sampling rate, makes your brain say: “that’s a 909 kick”.

If that doesn’t make sense yet, check out [Waveform shapes fundamentals and partials]

Our computers aren’t even capable to visualise the sheer amount of data encapsulated in those 20143 individual samples adding up to a sound playing for not even half of a second in realtime. Isn’t it fascinating that the neural network between our ears can ‘simply’ do that? The more elements you add, the more effort it takes.

Okay, now–what did that have to do with mixing?

Think about how many sounds a single project of yours contains. The amount of data you feed your listeners’ brains for interpreting. And that you potentially hope your listener perceives your track the way you do.

The two most important and basic tools you’ve got in your arsenal to structure that amount of data and create a stage are:

  1. Level
  2. Panning

If you think about [[Mixing-is-a-structured-process|mixing as a structured process]] - it starts with those. Don’t get me wrong: some of my favourite tracks are mono, from the Acid/House heydays. Yet, back then, music wasn’t super compressed and densely packed with tons of effects.

It does involve a bit of skill to maintain a good mix balance in mono. I mean, imagine taking a family picture of 10 people standing in a straight line. With the biggest person standing in front. And then you ask somebody who wasn’t there when you took it something like “what color does the shirt of the 5th person have?”

If it was about showing everybody, you’d literally pan them out left to right as well - wouldn’t you?

Panning adds production value

Think about now. If anything, a sure shot to find an audience these days is production value. Read: putting in that bit of intentional, conscious effort to make your mix sound like you had an idea, an intention.

If your track is mono because you ‘don’t care’ - I’m afraid that conveys, too. Even unintendedly.

Unless the entire track consequently carries it with style, as a statement. In the context of Lo-Fi, retro flavoured genres for example. Which means you also took care of the rest of your track to support the statement. Then, of course, you easily get away with mono.

Panning tips for starters

In case you started your production journey not to long ago, and focused on synthesis or something else so far: Do yourself a favour and explore how panning sounds and effects changes the perceived balance of a mix.

If I ran a masterclass, there wouldn’t be any talking about dynamics processors until that coin dropped for everyone 😉

If you’re wondering where to start, look for a situation like this:

  • A sound is either too soft or loud and you can’t find the ‘right’ level? Little push off-center does magic. How much? As much as possible and little as necessary to fix the issue.
  • Automated panning is also a great way of incorporating movement and interest to otherwise boring elements. Whilst helping them to stand out more.
  • Be careful about overdoing it. Stay between 9 and 3 o’clock.
  • Turn them knobs slowly and pay attention.
  • Avoid panning kick and bass. Our brain has a hard time locating that anyway. [[mixing-bass|What’s the struggle with mixing bass?]]