by Navron » 15 Dec 2013 19:22
Panning is one of the hardest mixing practices to get down, but a way to make it easier is to think of panning as a relation to frequency, and clashing avoidance.
In other words, anything in the subbass region (kick, subbass, bottom end of snare, etc.) should be set to mono. The overall snare should be set to mono as well if producing EDM.
As you work higher in the frequency spectrum, you can start to pan your elements farther. I usually use these numbers as rough estimates:
< 250Hz: Mono
250Hz - 500Hz: 10-15% Pan
500Hz - 1KHz: 20-30% Pan
1KHz - 2KHz: 40-50% Pan
2KHz - 5KHz: 50-65% Pan
5KHz - 10KHz: 65-75% Pan
>10KHz - 75-100% Pan
Note that panning (like frequency masking) isn't necessarily required if your mix isn't clashing. One of my biggest mistakes earlier on was masking out too many frequencies, or panning instruments when they didn't need to be panned. If your mix is sounding good and full, don't go cutting frequencies or panning things. You end up ruining the mix and having to overcompensate in other tracks to get the same fullness, and your track doesn't sound right in the end.
If it sounds good where it is, let it be. If it sounds like it's muddy, first figure out which instruments are clashing, solo them to isolate the clashing instruments, and start carefully tweaking the EQ little by little. If it still sounds like it's clashing, start carefully tweaking the panning little by little.
It's also good practice to cutoff frequencies below 30Hz and above 20KHz on your master for the final mixdown. Most of these frequencies are inaudible, but they can cause issues on bigger sound systems and muddy your song.
DAW: Cubase 6.5, Ableton Live 8
Preferred Genre: Industrial/Trance
Hardware: Schecter Diamond Series Bass, Yamaha Acoustic Guitar, BP355 Effects Pedal, Keystudio 49K Keyboard, Akai APC40, Korg nanoKEY2 25k Keyboard