Drum Panning

smudge_lad

hey guys, heading back into the studio tomorrow to get our first track finished. One thing I’ve noticed is that the tom drums are panned high>low left>right, but we’re also making a video for this track which got me thinking - shouldn’t the drums be panned right>left so that it fits with what we’ll see in the video?

also, this represents what the audience see’s at live shows, and even though hearing the drums will be a fairly mono experience for the audience live, they’ll still SEE the drummer moving right>left, so won’t they expect to hear the same in song mix?

I normally stand to left of the stage from the audience perspective, and my guitars are panned left in the mix, so the drums moving right>left would fit with this also

octatonic

It is up to you.

Some people have what is called 'audience panning' (where the hi-hat would be on the right for a right handed drummer).
Some people have what is called 'drummer panning' (where the hi-hat would be on the left for a right handed drummer).

There is no right or wrong here- it is an artistic choice.
I would suggest sticking to one way or the other for a particular album.

It is also up to you how wide you go.

I tend to go fairly wide but not hard panned.
I also prefer panning from the drummers perspective.

prowla

Famously, Made In Japan had the channels the wrong way 'round.

Cirrus

I bet no matter which way you pan the drums, be it L->R, R->L, Wide or Narrow, 1 person in 100 who hears your song will notice and nobody will care.


My view is, when you mix it, just do what feels natural and don't overthink it. That's not to say panning doesn't matter, it absolutely does, but as long as you do what feels right for the song nobody will notice or complain. Very few listening environments even give you a chance to notice what the panning's doing; car stereos usually have very smeared stereo images, phones are a lost cause, there's been a rise in mono cylindrical speaker use, TV is basically mono usually... basically, it's not going to matter.


No intellectual argument for drum panning survives contact with the existence of left-handed drummers anyway, so you can't think your way out of this one.

merlin

I like drums to be central in the mix with little or subtle panning only so it sounds "three dimensional" but natural. And I prefer high to low as right to left, as if I were in front of the drums (for a right handed player).

And as saud above, if it sounds good  few if any will notice a discrepancy  

maltingsaudio

As a listener the main thing is not too prominent so I don’t fixate on it, I really hate listening to tracks where the hat is obviously off centre or any other main percussion track . I tend to lock in on it and miss anything else. Mrs M never notices until I point it out then has the same reaction!

Musicwolf

As has been said -  no right or wrong, it's an artistic decision.  The spread can, however, make a significant difference to the over all feel / balance of the track so it's worth experimenting during the mix.  I usually send all of my drums and drum effects to a stereo group fader (rather than using VCAs).  I pan the components of the sub mix 'wide' then reduce the width of the group bus.  It is a simple matter to just widen or narrow the spread of the final group bus during the mix stage to see what works.

My personal preference is to have the kit from the audience perspective (high hats panned to the right), it sounds weird to me to  have it the other way, but that's just what I'm used to.  Kick in the centre because it makes sense to have the low frequency stuff in the middle as it carries all of the energy plus it is quite difficult for the ear to recognise where the low end is coming from anyway.

Cirrus

Musicwolf said:

My personal preference is to have the kit from the audience perspective (high hats panned to the right), it sounds weird to me to  have it the other way, but that's just what I'm used to.

Cirrus said:

No intellectual argument for drum panning survives contact with the existence of left-handed drummers

Branshen

I always do "drummer panning", as that's what I am used to hearing.

The track playing in my ears now has the "audience panning". Throws me off a bit now that I've noticed that the ride is in my left ear, and hi hat on my right. 

kennedydream1980

I always used to pan the kit to the drummers perspective, but I was watching a Simon Phillips studio tour on Youtube and he said he always mixed to the audience perspective of the kit. He said it sounded more natural for him as If you are stood in front of a live acoustic kit in a room watching and listening as an audience member, that's how your ears would hear it. Kind of made sense.

Cirrus

Two thoughts here, and I hope nobody minds if I go off on one.

First, both @Branshen & @kennedydream1980 , how would a left handed drummer factor into your definitions of "audience panning" or "Drummer's Perspective"? Would you pan such a drummer "drummer's perspective" with the hi-hat on the right and just accept that listeners, if they notice at all and have an opinion about drum panning, might say "that's wrong"? Or would you pretend it's a right handed drummer and proceed as if it was?


Second, this kind of question, and the resulting mental high jinks required to form an opinion, highlights that Stereo isn't how we hear. If some recourse to "what it actually sounds like in the flesh" is required, stereo is not how we perceive actual sounds at all. Most drum kits are either almost mono with a room reverb from the space you're in that envelops you 3-dimensionally, or in a live gig however the sound man chooses to pan it in conjunction with the (almost mono) stage sound/ 3d ambience.

Even if you're right at the drums, even if you're *playing* the drums, the overwhelming experience of that (frankly awesome) sonic event is not that the drum kit is panned L-R around your head. Not even remotely. What actually happens is that your brain works on very complex and subjective psychoacoustic principles to turn the multiple spot sources arrayed around your body into a coherent 3-d sonic picture where you have the ability to consciously focus in to whichever part of the sound you want to pay attention to. And yes, you know where that sound is coming from but it's not some politely panned left-to-right signal. For starters, your head is moving all the time and most drummers turn their heads left and right as they play. But nobody would say that the experience of playing drums is that the whole kit aurally swings wildly from side to side, because it turns out that our perception of real sound in real environments is fundamentally tied to our other senses - including our sense of proprioception!

So what would a 2-channel stereo representation of that experience be? My honest answer is, there isn't one, short of fucking about with binaural/ 3d trickery recording techniques. So at that point, working within the paradigm of mixing to 2 channels, you have practical considerations (loud transients and bass energy can be louder if they share equally the power of both speakers, and you can even get free power from acoustic coupling of stereo systems if the speakers are close enough) and artistic considerations - w i d e r  sounds more exciting at the expense of making your brain feel like the components of the kit are less connected, nrwr sounds more like the whole kit is one sonic event, unbalanced (more happening one side or other) creates emotional tension that can be exploited to produce a pay-off later in the song when the balance is restored, panning the whole kit off to the side gives the listener the sense that the drums aren't the most important part of the song...

So, there's absolutely loads of good reasons to decide how to pan the drums, but I can't think of a single good reason for it to be panned hi-hat left or hi-hat right, other than "it feels right". So do what feels right, and move on to much more important things like cursing the drummer for not being able to play in time, or hit consistently, or hit the snare louder than the hi-hat, or tune his own fucking drums, or pick cymbals that aren't louder than a nuclear explosion.

Branshen

I've never played with a left handed drummer. All kits I've seen/helped set up are hi hat left. To me, it's a preference thing so won't hold it against other people who like the reverse. 

axisus

Funkfingers

Cirrus said:

I bet, no matter which way you pan the drums, be it L->R, R->L, Wide or Narrow, 1 person in 100 who hears your song will notice and nobody will care.

This.

Cirrus said:

Most drum kits are ... almost mono with a room reverb

The strange thing is that this approach to panning creates an audio illusion not unlike being in a room where somebody is playing a drum kit. 

On many of the all-time classic popular music recordings, the drum kit is entirely in mono. Does this spoil our collective enjoyment? I think not.

PolarityMan

Not matching the panning in the overheads with the spot mics is prob the only thing thats a bit weird.

Gadget

I doubt it would matter, unless your video features close-ups of the drummer playing loads of high-hat or ride, etc. with the audio panned to the opposite side.