Panning, While it's not a 'tool' per say, it’s a feature that we should get familiar with. While it doesn’t alter the sound, it does change the sound’s location within the stereo field.
Remembering that we have 2 ears, we can alter the audio to change which ear it hits first. More so, we’re playing with the physics of human hearing and how we perceive sound.
Let’s imagine for a moment that we have 1 speaker right in front of our head.
While we’re looking straight ahead the sound produced by this one speaker will hit both of our ears at the same time. Due to the sound arriving at both ears at the same time. We as humans perceive this as directly in front of us or center. Our ears are very sophisticated mechanisms which we won't dive too far into in this lesson. But our ears can localize sounds, pinpointing where they are coming from. In front of us, behind us, to our left, to our right. They can tell us if the sound is close to us, or far away. Working within the stereo field plays on this mechanism that is human perception and localization of the origin of a specific sound. This is because if a sound comes from our left, it hits our left ear milliseconds before it hits our right ear.
If the sound originates from the right side, our right ear hears the sound milliseconds before it reaches our left ear.
So we know that if we have one speaker in front of us, our ears will tell us the sound is coming from the center. But what happens when we have 2 speakers, one on either side of our head?
Having a speaker on either side of our head allows us to create a physical space, a place that our music lives in, between our ears. We can play with the location which the sound is coming from and in this case specifically, closer to us, further from us, to the left, right, or in the center. How do we do this?
With panning!
Panning gives us the ability to move the sound to the left, or to the right. Gain allows us to enhance this by creating depth. Higher gain is louder which sounds closer, whereas a lower gain is quieter and sounds further away. Just like if you were far away from someone while trying to communicate, they would sound quieter than if they were right next to you.
When we pan a sound, it's not actually moving the sound to the left or the right. What it's doing is reducing the gain in the opposing channel! This is where the play on human hearing works. If we were to pan a sound to the left, the gain of the right channel is lowered or attenuated. This tells our ears that the sound is coming from our left because it sounds louder on the left side of our head, mimicking what would happen in nature when the sound hits our left ear first, and right ear milliseconds later and muffled by our head blocking the origin path.
Wild stuff right?
Before we get too far into panning, I want to explain the difference between Stereo and Mono which we briefly touched on at the beginning of this lesson.
Going back to our speaker in the center of our head.
This is the ultimate definition of Mono. Mono means one, and stereo means 2. BUT what happens when we have 2 speakers on either side of our head and both speakers are playing the same exact sound and it reaches both of our ears at the same time?
Even though there is a speaker on either side of our head, we as humans interpret this as being in the center! So even though we have 2 speakers, due to the sound reaching both ears at the same time this is identical to a single speaker in the middle of our head. It's all a matter of perception, we’re playing with the mechanics of human hearing!
So what happens when we pan to the left side so that it's ever so slightly different than the right side? Well, when we pan our audio, it’s not altering the sound, but attenuating the gain of the opposite side. Again playing with the mechanics of human hearing and perception of localization.
Since the Left side is now “louder” (the right side actually got quieter) our brain tells us that the sound is coming from the left! Just like if we only had one speaker on our left side
The same exact thing happens when we pan in the other direction. Panning to the right, attenuates the left channel. Making our brain believe the sound is coming from the right side
Due to the sound no longer being exactly the same in each speaker, we can then begin to hear our stereo field! Remembering that when both speakers play the exact same sound our brain tells us the sound is centered. When each speaker begins to play the same sound but at slightly different levels, our brain picks up on the fact that different sounds are happening.
Mono is a ‘narrow’ image. Stereo is a ‘wide’ image. Though having too wide of an image can actually hurt your mix more than help it. We’ll get more into why in a later lesson on stereo/ mono correlation (we looked briefly at the correlation meter on Voxengo SPAN which is exactly for this purpose)
Panning and stereo imaging can get deep into the physics of how audio interacts with itself in regards to phase/ polarity, and superposition/ cancelation which you can read about (Here).
For now, what's important to understand is that when a sound comes out of both speakers and hits both ears at the same time, our brain hears a centered sound. When the left speaker is playing something slightly different than the right speaker our brain begins to hear width.
The more drastic the difference the ‘wider’ the sound will seem. Though again, too wide will begin to cause more harm than good due to phase cancellation.
Before you get too carried away with crazy panning. I want you to take a moment and understand that you’re special. Sitting between 2 speakers is a special place. And 9/10 people have honestly never actually sat between 2 speakers in such a way that they’ve been able to hear a true stereo image. I find this dreadfully sad because the average listener will never truly hear music the way the artist intended it to be. Though headphones are a true stereo image, something about speakers pushing the air around you is a totally different experience.
Think of bluetooth speakers that are sat off in a corner somewhere, a home stereo that sits on a shelf, TV speakers, laptop speakers. Most people are listening to music like this.
Even though there are 2 speakers, and they are playing audio in full stereo, our brain can’t perceive the differences in the left vs right speaker. This is because we’re not sitting in between the speakers. Therefore we can assume this listening position to be ‘mono’ because all the sound is coming from one general direction. Remember that the difference between Mono and Stereo is the human perception of the differences in each speaker. Even though the speakers are playing different sounds, if we are not in between the speakers, we’re not able to distinguish their differences.
In concert/ live event scenarios, the audio is in mono. This allows everyone on the left side of the stage to have the same experience as those on the right side of the stage. If the concert speakers were in stereo, the left side would have a completely different experience from those on the right.
These two situations provide weight to the importance of your music sounding good in mono. Stereo is magical and special but mono is equally as important. Your music sounding good in mono is almost more important than your music sounding good in stereo. When mixing, if you make all your choices in mono, and then the last 10% in stereo, you’ll be in a really good place. Making all your decisions in stereo and then finding out it sounds bad in mono just creates more work for yourself.
Stereo is the magic, Mono is the foundation.
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Creating spatial placement and balance in a mix.
Panning is both creative and practical. You can use panning to separate sounds between your left and right, or you can use panning as a creative tool to make things move around and sound more alive.
Think about a drum set. The kick is dead center, the toms are slightly off center, the snare is only on the right side, and the cymbals are at the extreme ends of the drum set. While i dont want you to take these positions as gospel, I do want you to pay attention to the physical world and understand that we live in a 3D place.
Take a look at this orchestra, and imagine if you were standing where the conductor is standing. Close your eyes and imagine how it would sound standing right there. You would hear the physical location of each instrument section.
This is panning in nature
There are no rules when it comes to panning, though keeping it fairly tame will help you maintain order within your mixes. You’ll see charts like these all over and while it's not law, some of them can be very helpful in guiding you in the direction of panning placements that are typical of clean mixes.
Panning can help create motion, space, creative perspective, and depth to a mix. Separating guitars to left and right can help the brain distinguish the fact that there are 2 guitars playing at the same time. Though remembering that in a mono situation you wouldn't hear the spatial separation, and you would still have to rely on tonal separation which leads us into our next lesson. The Equalizer!