Stereo Panning: Widen Your Vocals and Instruments

When I began making beats many years ago, I would always struggle to get my mix to sound full and wide.  Although this trick is just one of many things that you can do to make a sound wider, it is a very useful tool to have in your arsenal.

The stereo pan is a great tool to use in the mixing/engineering of your beats.  It’s also a very useful tool for vocal production if you’re doing harmonies, doubles, or just want to widen your lead vocal line.  There are many plug-ins that will allow you to do a basic stereo pan, for example the “SurroundPanner” (see pic below). This specific plug-in is unique to Cubase 4 but every DAW should have a comparable equivalent.

To get a widening effect with the SurroundPanner all you have to do is move the “L” to the left or right as shown in the image above.  This will broaden the stereo image of your sound, changing it from being a mono sound to a stereo sound.

I like to manually do what the SurroundPanner does with a Stereo Multi-Tap delay.  I prefer to use a stereo delay in my beats because it gives you more control over the parameters and with its proper use I feel you can get a greater perceived “widening” effect that you are looking for.

The Waves SuperTap 2-Tap stereo delay is a great tool to do this with.  First put the delay on the desired instrument track.  If the track you are trying to apply this effect to is a Mono track, send the mono track to a stereo auxiliary track and put the SuperTap 2-Taps Delay on the stereo auxiliary track.  I will now go through the proper settings of the different parameters for the SuperTap 2-Tap:

The first thing to notice is that the “Direct” line has been moved down to zero.  This is because the delay time has been moved to an extremely small amount of time.  In this example it is set to 148 ms.  If the “Direct” volume is up than the left and right channel will be overlapping the middle and it will be equivalent to having duplicate audio tracks stacked on top of one another, creating an undesirable phasing effect.

The Left and Right Lines have been moved as far left and right as possible with their stereo fields.  You are basically replacing the initial “Direct” line with 2 Lines, the Left and Right.

Next thing you need to do is create separation between the two lines.  This will increase the perceived widening effect.  To do this move the delay time of the Right line (doesn’t matter if it is right or left, I just use the right side for this example) to one.  There will now be a slight delay in the right line.  This is where the perceived widening is derived from.

You will notice that even though the decibels of each line are equal, your audio will now sound like it is slightly panned to the left.  This is because the ear hears the left side slightly before it hears the right and is tricked into perceiving the left side to be louder.  To counter this, turn the Gain down slightly on the left line.  This will even out your stereo field.  Technically the Right side will have a slightly higher decibel level but will be perceived as even.

Experiment with different Gain levels and delay times until you find something you like.  The longer the delay the easier it is to hear the separation between the left and right channels.

Places to use it in your beats:

• Top Kick:  This technique is found with some of Timbaland’s kicks.  You have two kick drums: the “Bottom” kick, commonly an 808 providing the “boom” of the kick (usually found around 40 to 70 hz), and the “Top” kick providing the “Air” of the kick sound (frequencies for this kick vary).   To widen the kick sound while maintaining a solid boom, try applying the stereo panning technique to only your “Top” kick.  Also shelve out the frequencies of the top kick around 60 hz.  Because that is where the bottom kick is most heavily concentrated.
• Harmonies:  Typically you are going to want your harmonies to surround your lead vocals.  One technique is to record two takes of the harmony and pan one left and one right.  Another strategy would be to record one harmony and run it through the stereo panning.  This could also be applied to doubles.  Although I don’t recommend this because of possible phasing issues, it is a quicker way to get vocals to sound thicker.
• Lead instruments:  Say you have a lead instrument in one of your beats that is composed of 2 different sounds.  The sounds are most likely going to be in similar frequency ranges and competing for space.   You might try putting the stereo delay on one of the instruments.   This will separate the sounds and let the frequencies breathe.  It will also help the lead stand out.  This doesn’t work every time, so use your best judgment.
• In general, Choir’s, Pads, and Harmonies often benefit, especially if multiple instruments are making up the timbre of the harmony.

Hope people find this useful.  Feel free add your comments and experiences with stereo panning below.

Best,
Jake Poore

http://www.GimmeThatTrack.com