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Drum Samples and Panning
In rap and hip-hop music production these days, sequencing is still very important. Panning, though, is fast becoming a skill to really treasure, as it is one way to easily make 20-30 drum samples and sounds fit in a track without crowding the room so to speak.
In the mixing process, the technique of panning is second in line after adjusting volume. While it may seem hard at the start to some, it seems quite the easy deal to others. It all depends on how you like to work. In any case, it becomes much easier with time and experience.
At the very basics of panning is the philosophy of sound distribution. In essence it's about changing the volume of sound, but not evenly. The sound is distributed unevenly among the left and right channels, and this effectively changes the location of that particular sound in the stereo field. This can be done with drum samples, with a string section or an electric bell, the creative part is left up to you, the mixer. When used with drums, a complicated piece is easy to achieve with a bit of practice.
You would pan drum samples to ensure that each has their own space! For instance, the snare and kick could be in the center (I'll show you soon why you shouldn't pan these), the center being 50% on each channel, while supporting drum samples, such as the hi-hat and other rhythmic percussion, could be panned with different degrees of intensity on either side, left or right.
Now, why on Earth would we want to not pan the kick and snare drum samples at all? The reason comes down to sound distribution. This mainly applies to clubs, but there are other instances where it could be a problem. Here it is: clubs often lay out their speakers among the floor not in pairs, but in channels. So all speakers playing the left channel of a song could be toward the front while the speakers playing the music in the other speaker are located in the back. What does this achieve? Well, that depends on the venue, but it sure does not tend to support our own music if we're panning the kick nearly all the way to the left side, and the snare to the right. One half of the venue wouldn't hear the other main sound just hear whatever is on their channel, like the kick or snare. That's why panning is best for supporting sounds and not the backbone of a song.
The frequency of drum samples can also play a big part in the way that you may want to spread out the different sounds. For instance, a cymbal that occurs once every four bars can be moved all the way to the right of the stereo field as it does not occur often, leaving room for instruments that are more active. It could also be the other way, though, with common sounds occupying the far-reach corners of the stereo spectrum and gaps being left with no drum sounds for creative effect.
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