Positioning sounds in a mix, part II

After reading my post about positioning sounds in a mix, our dear friend Christina had some follow-up questions. I thought they might be illuminating for the group, so I’m replying here!

Delving further into this: do you move the position of the instruments/sounds to different places over the course of one song/track, or do you pick the position for the sounds, and that’s where they stay through the track?

The latter. I tend to find a place for each sound, and build my mix architecturally. This sound goes here, but it only works because it is supported by that sound being there — that sort of thing.

For example: I won’t pan an element with a lot of energy way over to one side if there’s not something to balance it on the other side. That balancing element doesn’t have to always be in, or come in at the same time, but it’s important for me, for the way I hear things, for there not to be an element in the mix that’s unbalanced for the entire length of the song; I find it distracting as a listener.

But of course that might be your favorite thing. I don’t make the rules! I’m just sharing my experience.

Also, it can be completely valid for sounds to start in one place and end up somewhere else. That can be powerful! It might not be that great for, say, pop, but it might be amazing for ambient or experimental music.

Or it might be amazing for pop. Again, I don’t make the rules, and also there are no rules. You can do anything you want, as long as you do it excellently.

Of course, a sound with an ongoing panning/movement effect will change position all the time.

True. In situations where I want to have a sound moving, an important part of my thought process is that I define the specific area in which that sound is wandering. If we’re looking at a room, is that sound walking all the way from the left wall to the right wall and back? Or do I narrow the pans considerably, so she’s making a little two-step loop between the chair and the coffee table, kind of over to the left of center?

As with the rest of my panning, I personally tend to define auto-panning widths very precisely, so things aren’t getting in each other’s way.

And I actually do auto-panning a fair amount! One of my favorite things is to put the hi-hat on an auto-panner, timed to the fastest note subdivision it’s playing — but to have the width only be like 10%. So you can’t even really tell it’s moving around, but it just gives the part so much more interest. I’ll do this with the hi-hat mic in a live drum kit just as often as I will with programmed hats.

And do you think about a different position for the sound elements for each song on an album, so as to make each song/track different from the others?

Personally, I approach every song on its own merits. Each song has its own personality, so all the different songs’ rooms are going to be laid out differently, you know? In my experience, focusing on who each song wants to be, and working as hard as possible to help it be the best version of itself, will naturally lead to each song having its own layout.

And then the fact that it’s me mixing all of the songs on the album will tie it together sonically, because I hear things in a certain way and can’t help but bring that perspective to my work. Working this way, I tend to end up with albums that are cohesive, but with each song having its own unique thing that it’s doing.

There. No, there — jamie