LCR Panning?

[Gerk]

Has anyone tried this out much?  I'm tempted to give it a whirl but it kind of scares me at the same time ...

For those that don't know what it is, it's basically using only 3 pan positions when doing a mix, hard Left, Center, or hard Right -- nothing in between.  I've been reading a fair bit about it recently and see lots of arguments both for and against it, and I've heard some really interesting mixes that sounded quite huge that used nothing but LCR which kind of blew me away ...

Any mixmeisters here tried this yet?

[Paulo]

Most probably it will work with some mixes, I don't believe it will work with all of them.

[Studioplayer]

I'm not a mixer but I listen to a hell of a lot of music daily. A lot of new stuff every day and I hear many types of mixing. I don't think there's really any rule. I heard a song with drums hard panned to one side and the song actually sounded pretty good. I have usually panned hard left and right and center. I tend to go about 75% left and right for guitars. 100% seems too wide to me. Don't usually like it. For me the best sounding mixes are ones that emulate the band as if you were standing there live listening. Everything's in it's own little pocket. Even the bass to one side.

[NickT]

This makes sense for a hard rock mix. But I'm not so sure for a complex mix of many different instruments.

But what do I know!

NickT

[stoman]

I don't do strict LCR mixing, but I use it almost exclusively on the main elements of a song. Effects, background vocals, toms, etc. get placed in between the main positions.

[CosmicDolphin]

Has anyone tried this out much?  I'm tempted to give it a whirl but it kind of scares me at the same time ...

For those that don't know what it is, it's basically using only 3 pan positions when doing a mix, hard Left, Center, or hard Right -- nothing in between.  I've been reading a fair bit about it recently and see lots of arguments both for and against it, and I've heard some really interesting mixes that sounded quite huge that used nothing but LCR which kind of blew me away ...

Any mixmeisters here tried this yet?

I use it all the time.  Honestly, many of those "in between" panning positions get lost on playback anyway.

I tend to go for a Haas delay if I want it to sound like it hasn't been hard panned, and stuff like reverb will also fill the in between spaces.

[Gerk]

It's really interesting as I've been listening to a lot of mixes lately that use this and it does certainly open things up in many instances, giving some breathing room.  I'm not sure it's gonna work for everything, but I think I might have to give it some more serious consideration.  I've been working with my gear a lot more lately (having done some big upgrades never hurts).  Got some more toys coming later this week ... I've been bitten seriously by the UAD bug ... but dang, that stuff sounds sooooooooo good.  Especially the Unison preamp stuff.  The Neve 1073 on my Apollo Twin preamp sounds freakin' amazing.  You don't even have to do anything with it, just turn it on and things sound better.  Later this week my UAD Satellite Octo core should arrive, which means I'll be able to use a boatload of the good plugins on my mixes, woohoo

[Paulo]

With that satellite you'll be doing huge mixes with lots of plugs...

... Yeh, what really great about the UAD plugs is that you put them ON and the sound is bettert even if you don't tweak anything, the simple fact that the soound goes through them is great...

... That happens also with the pultec eq, the fairchild compressor, the SSL channel Strip and buss compressor and a lot more... Just put them on and dang

[Gerk]

It will arrive tomorrow ... looking forward to it.  Have a few mixes I've ben working on where I'm at 100% DSP -- hit the wall LOL.

[Paulo]

Hey Gerk, did ot arrive?

It will arrive tomorrow ... looking forward to it.  Have a few mixes I've ben working on where I'm at 100% DSP -- hit the wall LOL.

[Gerk]

Hey Gerk, did ot arrive?

It will arrive tomorrow ... looking forward to it.  Have a few mixes I've ben working on where I'm at 100% DSP -- hit the wall LOL.

Yes indeed it did.  I can now fire up a TON of plugins without issue hehe.  I'm going to start a UAD thread here so we can both keep posting to it and find other UAD fans.  I know chime13 that just signed up recently is (I met him on the uad forum).