Davids Panning Triangle Formula

David's Panning Triangle Formula
Copyright © 2016 by David Campos https://www.AdvancedMusicProduction.com

David’s Panning
Triangle Formula
How to Simplify Panning for mixing

DAVID’S PANNING TRIANGLE FORMULA
Oh my goodness, I am so excited because today I am going

to be teaching you a real game-changer when it comes to
panning. We’re going to learn a little secret that I’ve been
using for many years and, in fact, it’s a formula that I’ve
created that I call “David’s Panning Triangle Formula”. So
after today if you have any questions or mysteries about
panning, or if you’re confused, that’s all going to end
because you’re going to know exactly how Panning works.
So, let’s start from the very beginning.
I’ve got this very lovely picture of a head:
This is the top of a head. I want you to imagine this is you.

You’re facing your speakers and you’re mixing your next big
hit song. You’ve got your levels good, you have a good
song, and now comes this mysterious “panning”. What do
you do about panning?
Let’s just zoom out a little bit and have a look.

So this is the perspective; this is Your perspective.
Stereo Spread
Mono
If you’re sitting and listening to your mix, imagine that

starting, like a triangle, at the bottom is mono, and going out
to the sides is your stereo spread.
This your listening perspective.

The centre
The left here would
would represent represent The right
your left Mono or the would
speaker or the centre channel represent
left-most widest the furthest
pan right pan.
Then we’ve got, in between those, -50% and +50%, so it’s

fifty percent left and fifty percent right.
Now, I’m going to simplify this for you and give it to you in a
fundamental, foundational way so you can understand this,
so let’s move on.

What I’ve done is divided this triangle into three sections.
The very first section we’re going to call “bass”, the second
we’re going to call “mids”, and the third we’re going to call
“tops”. I’m sure you’re starting to get a clue now as to how
David’s Panning Triangle Formula works. I would define it
as: The higher you go up the frequency spectrum, the
wider you can pan with it still sounding natural.
First of all, bass is omnidirectional – it exists in many places,

kind of like God is omnipresent and exists all over the world
at the same time, bass is everywhere in the room at the
same time. This is why when you look at HiFi systems,
surround sound systems and all these fancy home theatre
systems, they always have one sub-woofer and not two. You
only need one, because bass frequencies are never stereo.
In fact, when it comes to physics, bass doesn’t exist in

stereo, it exists in mono. As you go up the frequency
spectrum, that’s when stereo starts to become more and
more relevant to the way our ears work. In the "mids"
section, we can pan say 50% left and right, or anywhere in
between, and when we get to the higher frequencies, the
“tops”, that’s where most of the “stereo-ness” or the spread
is living when it comes to your mixing.
Having said that, it doesn’t mean that every single

instrument in the "mids" should be panned, or every single
instrument in the “tops” should be panned completely left or
right, it’s more that they can survive extremes on the left or
right. So top frequencies can be panned quite extremely,
sounds in the "mids" can be panned semi-extremely (let’s
say 50%), but when it comes to bass it always has to be
mono. You can pan according to that, but it doesn’t mean
you have to.
There are certain instruments that are the exception, and

certain instruments that always need to be panned centre.
When it comes to these instruments, and these are the most
important instruments, they should always be panned
centre. So, let’s start.

The first one, staying in the "bass" area, is the kick drum.
The kick drum is

always panned
in the centre,
always panned
in mono.
Number 2, the bass guitar, synth bass or whatever your

bass is, is always panned in the centre and mono.

Number 3, the snare drum, is always panned in the centre,

always in mono.
The lead vocal, which is critically important, is always

panned in the centre.

Finally, the hi-hat is not always panned in the centre, but it’s
usually panned in the centre.
Sometimes people will pan it slightly to the left or right,

usually to the left, though, because if you think of a drum kit,
the hi-hat is on the left.
This makes me think of when I was ten years old and
listening to The Beatles, and I was listening to cassette tape
of all their hits. I remember one of the songs coming on and
the vocals were panned to the left, and the bass guitar and
the harmonies panned to the right, and I remember thinking
that it sounded so strange. Even though I love the Beatles
and the song, I don’t know ,what was George Martin
thinking? Maybe in the sixties they were trying out different
panning techniques? Probably, they were working on four
tracks and thought, “Let’s pan these channels on the left
and those on the right.” Today we’ve become a lot more
advanced, and we’ve figured out that it feels uncomfortable
when primary or foundational instruments, kick, bass, snare
vocals and usually the hi-hat, are not panned in the centre.
And you’ll find, if you do some research, ninety-nine percent
of songs are panned exactly like this.
Let’s move on to the "mids" section. This is where we start

to get pans. This is where chordal elements, melodic
instruments, vocals, etc. live, and this is where we can start
to pan. This is where most of the information of music is.
This is where we can start to get that feeling of space and
spread, and that panning perspective. Things like electric
guitar, acoustic guitar, grand piano, synthesizers, strings or
violins, and many more.
This is where the majority of the instruments sit. As I said,

usually in the "bass" area, it’s just the bass guitar or synth
bass or kick drum, only two or three instruments. However,
when it comes to the "mids" there are so many instruments,
and this is when panning starts.

As you can see in the panning triangle, because the mid

instruments are halfway up the triangle, as the triangle gets
wider and wider, you don’t tend to pan guitars, synthesizers,
pianos, pads, etc. extremely wide. Extreme panning of mid
instruments is very unusual and tends to be jarring. If you
had to take a piano and pan it left, and take a synthesizer
and pan it right, it would sound strange. But if you pan them
50%, or -30% +30% or -20% +20%, that’s when you get a
beautiful spread. Like I said, it’s a triangle, and that’s the
norm, that’s the way to mix.
Now, you might say, “What about backing vocals or choirs?”

It’s exactly the same thing. Choirs and backing vocals are
actually instruments, and they’re melodic and chordal, so
when it comes to panning harmonies and backing vocals,
we kind of work on the same formula.
See it like this: You’ve got your lead vocal in the centre.
Usually with the first harmony, those would be the third
harmony, you’d pan them slightly, with one to the left and
one to the right.
1st harmony 1st harmony

panned panned
slightly left slightly right

Then you’d have a second harmony, which usually is the

fifth, which you’d pan even more, maybe 50% percent left
and 50% right.
2nd 2nd
harmony harmony
panned panned
slightly slightly
left right
Then you’d have a spread, from the lead in the centre,

which is like the anchor, to the harmonies panning
progressively wider and wider. And if you have high, falsetto
octave harmonies, then you can go even wider, maybe 60%
or 70%. You’ve got to use your ears. In fact, in level we do
the same thing, you create a pyramid with the lead the
loudest, then first harmony, then second harmony etc but
we’ll get into that in another lesson. So choir or backing
vocals themselves will be panned in the same panning
triangle, but just see it as a “mini triangle”. You can kind of
apply that to all the instruments in the "mids"; if a sound is
very bright, you tend to find you can get away with panning
it wider, and if a sound is very sort of low middy you’ll tend
to not get away with panning it too wide. Again, it all fits in
with the formula.

Let’s move on to the "tops" now. What kind of instruments

would be in the "tops"? The very first one would be a crash
cymbal.
I’ve just put it on the left here. You can imagine if you’re
playing drums, usually the crash cymbal is on the left and
the ride cymbal is on the right. Very seldom would you find a
crash cymbal in the centre of a mix. What a lot of guys will
do, if they feel it’s unbalanced on the left, is put a different
crash cymbal on the right, so you’ll have a left crash cymbal
and a right one, and hit them at the same time. Also, a lot of
great drummers will have multiple cymbals spread across
their kit, always on the fringes of the left and the right.
Another instrument that would be in the "tops" would be a

shaker, also known as Maracas.
These are Latin American percussion instruments, but they

tend to be very high frequencies.
It’s very strange to take a shaker or something similar and

pan it to the middle; it tends to not usually work. But you’d
be surprised to find how wide you can pan it. For example,
you can take a hi-hat and pan it left, and take a cabasa or
maracas and pan it completely right. That would work, and
not sound strange. As I said, you can get away with a lot
wider panning the higher you go.
The next one would be another hi-hat cymbal.
Just like I said, usually your main hi-hat should be in the

centre, and sometimes what people will do is pan their hi-
hat just off-centre, maybe just 20% to 30%. Another thing to
think about is having multiple hi-hat patterns, which is very
common especially in modern music. In that situation, it’s
always a good idea to pan them differently. Maybe you’ll
have your shaker at -50%, and maybe another hi-hat at
+30% to the right, and then the combination of the two also
playing different rhythms, it will play like: together, together,
left, right, and it creates that dancing, bouncing sound in the
"tops", making it a very effective technique. You can have
more than one hi-hat pattern in your song.

These are just suggestions and not rules, but they are kind
of the conventional way of panning. Then there’s a ride
cymbal, usually panned on the right.
Next is a triangle, which is a very high frequency, and I

thought it was fitting considering this is called “David’s
Panning Triangle Formula” – a triangle in the triangle!
Then, a tambourine, another very high frequency

instrument.
Just like the crashes, it’s a very good idea to have one
tambourine on the right playing a pattern, and a totally
different one, with a different sound and tone, on the left
playing a different pattern, and play them together at the
same time. That creates an amazing spread, that stereo,
ambient feeling.
Finally, I’ve covered all the instruments in "bass", "mids" and

"tops", lead and backing vocals, but there are still two things
usually missing in the mix at this point. The first one is
delay.
I’ve put “delay” in the "mids" section because usually we put

“stereo delay” on things like vocals and middy instruments
or guitars or things that are in the chordal, melodic areas,
and what we often do in “delay” is pan them. So one “delay”
might be panned completely left, and another will be panned
right, and that is the normal practice in mixing. That is
possibly the exception to the rule with mid instruments, with
“delay” you can get away with panning things quite widely.
The other element is Reverb, which, by nature, is stereo.

What happens is when you’re in a room and you make a

sound, it bounces off the room and then the sound comes
back to your right and left ear differently. That difference of
left and right creates that “stereo-ness” and space, and
gives you that width. Again, reverb tends to be put on things
like vocals, pianos, guitars, etc. in the "mids". I would say, if
we were just listening to “mids”, that the widest thing would
be “delay” and reverb. Generally, 90% of the time that would
be the rule, and that’s what most top professionals do.
So, that’s it guys. That is “David’s Panning Triangle

Formula”. I hope that has helped you. If we look at this, this
is a beautiful picture, because this is the first time, especially
if you’re a novice and you haven’t mixed, where you might
realize this is what a mix looks like as far as panning is
concerned.

Just imagine that you’re standing in front of the speakers,

and you’re looking down the centre, you’ll be hearing kick,
bass, snare, lead vocal and maybe the main hi-hat in mono.
If you had to go a bit wider, what you’d hear is all the mid
instruments: pianos, guitars, backing vocals. If you went a
bit wider, totally left and right, you’d hear the tops: the hi-
hats, the crash cymbals, maracas, cabasas, triangles and
“delay” and reverb. That is how it works.
Another really awesome thing about this picture and formula

I’ve shown you is that it’s a great way to show someone, for
example, who is deaf. So if you were deaf, and we wanted
to try and explain a graphical representation of how we use
panning to create spread in a mix, this would be the best
visual representation.
Anyway guys, I hope that has helped you, and I will see you
in another lesson at …
https://www.AdvancedMusicProduction.com
Copyright © 2016 by David Campos
No part of this ebook or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied, modified or adapted, or used
in any way whatsoever without the prior written consent of the author. All rights reserved.

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Copyright © 2016 by David Campos https://www.AdvancedMusicProduction.com

Copyright © 2016 by David Campos https://www.AdvancedMusicProduction.com