Panning

[⚖musicalmemoriesuk]

I’ve often read articles from Chello about the poor mixing of style on arranger keyboards. 

During the past few months I’ve been learning more about mixing whilst observing some of the styles tracks I’ve noticed a lot of the tracks are panned fairly widely. 

The thing with panning, is that panning can cause sounds to lose clarity look at styles that have multiple guitar tracks a lot are panned quite widely. 

To me guitar tracks are like the driving force behind a style and should be more focused and up front whereas tracks that are pads more distant. 

Just as it’s important to determine the roles of the sounds you play in your right it’s equally important for the style tracks as well. So now I get what Chello has been saying about the poor mixing of styles tracks.

It’s no good if all the tracks are fighting for centre stage but it’s not always the sounds that are wrong it’s the tracks have the wrong roles

[♔Chello]

Thank you for being inspired by my articles.
You pinpoint the problem with what you say here.

Generally, I pan all tracks so that the sound never comes from the speakers, but from somewhere in between, all the way to the edge of each speaker.

Drums (also) are sometimes panned to one side, which effectively ruins the perspective, and the punch is reduced.
By changing the panning a little towards the middle, the sound changes dramatically, and gets better punch.

This generally applies to all sounds.

The sound image becomes flat if the panning is too much towards one side.

[⚖musicalmemoriesuk]

I’ve also learned that before any effects, panning eq should be last in the mixing chain. If the sounds selected haven’t been assigned the correct roles first.

[♔Chello]

I’ve also learned that before any effects, panning eq should be last in the mixing chain. If the sounds selected haven’t been assigned the correct roles first.

Panning is always the last thing you do.

[⚖musicalmemoriesuk]

I also now in the case of the Pa700 set the master volume to 75% and balance everything all tracks from 0 yes I may mean that the channel levels are lower than what you think.

Whereas normal everyone me included at one time ends up boosting everything now I do the complete opposite. 

It’s surprising how different the channel levels are from what Korg give you in especially the styles like I said before everything is competing, which isn’t great at all.

I’m by no means  pro mixing but my ears are now telling me different.

Almost all the tracks in the styles are initially way to high yes I know you can adjust the drum bass and accompaniment levels.

[♔Chello]

I also now in the case of the Pa700 set the master volume to 75% and balance everything all tracks from 0 yes I may mean that the channel levels are lower than what you think.

Whereas normal everyone me included at one time ends up boosting everything now I do the complete opposite. 

It’s surprising how different the channel levels are from what Korg give you in especially the styles like I said before everything is competing, which isn’t great at all.

I’m by no means  pro mixing but my ears are now telling me different.

Almost all the tracks in the styles are initially way to high yes I know you can adjust the drum bass and accompaniment levels.

What you say here fits very well with my experiences.
I almost always end up at 70-80% or lower.

Korg ALWAYS has a level that is too high, which at best gives a strong yellow effect, but in many cases also red.

Many people think (including "professionals") that it works perfectly with such high levels, but the fact is that the sound image is compressed and the perspective is reduced.

It is always better with a level that is a little too low than a little too high.

[⚖musicalmemoriesuk]

Yes once everything is balanced correctly even if you do adjust the master volume for any reason everything should still be balanced.

A new term I’ve heard reverb being called is the Glue.

Also a lot of the sounds can be improved by adjusting the attack not knocking the sound engineers but simple adjustments to sounds such as making the attack shorter on piano sounds or slightly longer attack to make the piano softer.

But now instead of looking at the names of sounds thinking about what role they can be. Which is also dependent on the register a sound it being played in.

[♔Chello]

Yes once everything is balanced correctly even if you do adjust the master volume for any reason everything should still be balanced.

A new term I’ve heard reverb being called is the Glue.

Also a lot of the sounds can be improved by adjusting the attack not knocking the sound engineers but simple adjustments to sounds such as making the attack shorter on piano sounds or slightly longer attack to make the piano softer.

But now instead of looking at the names of sounds thinking about what role they can be. Which is also dependent on the register a sound it being played in.

The first thing you say here is not correct, because sound pressure follows a logarithmic curve.


If you have balanced everything and turn down the master volume a lot (20-30%), different sounds will be affected differently, and some will barely be audible.

I experience this every single day, because I always deactivate the Limiter, which often gives a strong increase in the total volume.

When I deactivate it, everything becomes different, and some sounds become much weaker than before.
When I, after deactivating the Limiter, turn down everything by 20-30% (which is typical), everything changes, and many sounds have to be amplified strongly to be equal.

[⚖musicalmemoriesuk]

Today’s lesson when we think about panning were told wide for strings etc, but in actual fact you pan for the speaker system your using.

Say your using some monitors or something that are closer together, if you pan narrow the sounds will retain clarity. 

If you pan narrow and say you go and play in a larger space sounds should reatain clarity.

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Incidentally the master eq and limiter remain off. And eq is only used to resolve masking issues if needed