Thanks fo that info Ron, Clear, concise & to the point, I haven't actually downloaded the said samples yet, I'll have another go later today. I'm new to using computers for music and not so confident as an engineer, so clues like this are well valuable. On Monday 01 March 2004 6:29 pm, R Parker wrote: > ron-bob07 demonstrates proper panning for building a > stereo field. The remaining primary instruments can be > panned within the drums as though they're on stage. > Exceptions: > * most keyboards are stereo > * lead vox; Noon/Straight up. Backing vox; record > everything at least twice. Unless your name is Brian Wilson or George Martin ... I've been fascinated by the possibilities of the stereo field for some time, it seems one of the most under-used of resources. What you're suggesting here is of course the 'classic' balanced stereo field, I'd put the bass slap bang centre in this case too and possibly leave the bv's dry BMW style. I've spent a while listening to Brian Wilson's use of stereo, remarkable for a man who hears in mono. It was fairly common in the early days of stereo to have the whole band on one side and all the vocals on the other, BW takes this concept several steps too far, combining his bizarre sense of instrumentation with brilliant arrangements. The odd banjo & tuba break could really liven up some of your black metal sessions, don't you think :) On the arrangements side it's worth knowing that the entire song can be held just by the vocals with minimal backing and that well recorded acoustic instruments can be just as full, if not more so, than their electric equivalents. This is particularly relevant for anyone who's ever spent ages brilliantly recording a grand piano and then discovered that it dwarfs everything else in the mix, whereas you could have used a rhodes and it would have sat in real nice. Alltogether I would say don't be afraid of hard- panning things, so long as you have something of a similar energy and pitch to balance it up on the other side. "Mult"ing guitar tracks in this way can be particularly satisfying. Phasing & ping-pong delays can give a nice movement. I'm interested in how to make things sound 'right' in the space, even with wacky pannings, without over-reverbing. Synths can really benefit from bunging through a valve amp and miking, if you have space / gear to do that. I'm interested in how to introduce a degree of 'human feel' into MIDI tracks and also how to build reverb patches with variable delay times that simulate real world environments and are also musically useful, I know to avoid delay timings between 50-120 mS on vocals, for example, as this is approximately the length of a short syllable or at least roughly the length of time it takes to recognise a segment of vocal sound as linguistically meaningful AFAIU. Anyhow, I've just rambled into a big subject, so I'll leave it there before it turns into an egg-sucking lecture or anything. just my ?2. cheers tim hall
