How & Why Hard Panning Could Ruin Your Mix

In this 5 minute video tutorial, Joe Albano explains how and why it's important to avoid the common mixing mistake of hard panning.  

The video below from Joe Albano's complete course, 10 Common Panning Mistakes, explores one common mixing mistake: hard-panning.  Basically, hard-panning in most all DAWs sends the instrument/sound to one speaker only and can make it stand out unintentionally in the mix. Therefore, you'll notice it negatively impact the cohesion and blend of the entire mix. 

There’s plenty of tips and useful explanations in this video here that can be applied to mixing all styles of music.

Watch the video tutorial on hard-panning here:

Improve your panning mixing techniques & watch the complete course, 10 Common Panning Mistakes in The Ask.Audio Academy here.

Rounik is the Executive Editor for Ask.Audio & macProVideo. He's built a crack team of professional musicians and writers to create one of the most visited online resources for news, review, tutorials and interviews for modern musician and producer. As an Apple Certified Trainer for Logic Pro Rounik has taught teachers, professional... Read More

Discussion

Guillaume Paillotin
I disagree so much about this article. Lots of big mixers like Andrew Sheps works in LCR, nothing between. And it gives you extra large stereo image. then, the deal is to create different spaces in the mix playing with phases on stereo...that's a real issues of techniques used by big mixers..To learn to students never to hard pan is the best way for them to never find the graal.
Are those your EARS
I wouldn't dismiss any approach out of hand. LCR is a tool you can add to your arsenal. What's true above all else, I find, is that every arrangement won't readily lend itself to being mixed this way. At the end of the day, it really becomes about what's best for the song. I've breathed new life into some of my old mixes with this technique.

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