is this a riddle? a joke? what's the punch line?

it's a mono track ... pan it to the middle.

There's a few plugin that can widen the stereo field of even a mono track (most doubler do it)
1- If you want to do it quick and simple, use a stereo delay, make sure your track is enable for stereo output (depending on your software) and then put a delay (10 to 30ms) just on one side with no feedback (no repeating) and ajust to taste. Once it's done listen to the mix in mono to make sure you don't have a phase probleme (cancellation).
2- You also can clone the track pan them hard left and right and delay one side.

Those tricks will never beat using two mics ;)

problem with that is at delay settings 30 ms or less what will happen is you will perceive the earliest arriving sound as the loudest so to get something that sounds like "stereo" you will have to crank up the track with the delay on it. this will (have intercourse .. starts with f and ends with uck) with your stereo balance at the mix bus. you can also introduce comb filtering effects ....

imo the best thing to do is to reamp the track and mic it up in stereo ...

pcrecord, post: 401295 wrote: There's a few plugin that can widen the stereo field of even a mono track (most doubler do it)
1- If you want to do it quick and simple, use a stereo delay, make sure your track is enable for stereo output (depending on your software) and then put a delay (10 to 30ms) just on one side with no feedback (no repeating) and ajust to taste. Once it's done listen to the mix in mono to make sure you don't have a phase probleme (cancellation).
2- You also can clone the track pan them hard left and right and delay one side.

Those tricks will never beat using two mics ;)

I dont have software. Its analog recording using an eight track and mixers.

Kurt Foster, post: 401296 wrote: problem with that is at delay settings 30 ms or less what will happen is you will perceive the earliest arriving sound as the loudest so to get something that sounds like "stereo" you will have to crank up the track with the delay on it. this will (have intercourse .. starts with f and ends with uck) with your stereo balance at the mix bus. you can also introduce comb filtering effects ....

imo the best thing to do is to reamp the track and mic it up in stereo ...

In three piece rock bands, drums, guitar and bass, I assumed back in olden times they somehow split the one guitar track to left and right so as not to clash with similar frequencies like snare drum and vocals. I dont really want to use things like delay and modulation, or is it necessary?

Record the track you have onto another track (duplicate it) then pan the two however you like. Should be pretty simple if you have an 8 track & multiple mixing consoles at hand. Might be handy to have another tape deck of some sort around for bouncing etc. Having a two-track deck to bounce to and then back to the 8 track will make life a fair bit easier.

Steve

well back in the day, blahh blaaah yada yada yadda ... a lot of records were mono.

look up cardinal points law ... in short it's a theory that everything should be either hard left, hard right or mono ..

this from SOS ...

Cardinal Rules?
Terry Manning, who swears by his ‘Cardinal Points Law’.

Producer Terry Manning proposed the ‘Cardinal Points Law’ technique for panning, whereby he pans monaurally recorded material to extreme left, centre, or extreme right as a starting point for a mix (stereo sources already have a natural place when hard-panned left and right). Although this may at first sound rather like checking things in mono, his reasoning is that you can save the ‘No Man’s Land’ in between these points to place details in the arrangement that you want to leap out of the mix, without necessarily having to resort to EQ or level changes.

Kurt,
So what are you suggesting here? The OP has a single guitar track that he want panned hard Left/Right in his mix... what is your post suggesting he do?
Maybe I'm missing the point of your reply?

SteveMilner, post: 401302 wrote: Record the track you have onto another track (duplicate it) then pan the two however you like. Should be pretty simple if you have an 8 track & multiple mixing consoles at hand. Might be handy to have another tape deck of some sort around for bouncing etc. Having a two-track deck to bounce to and then back to the 8 track will make life a fair bit easier.

Steve

I am afraid I cant bounce the recorded guitar track onto another track, as theyre all full. (Bass guitar, lead vocal, backing vocals, three tracks for drums, guitar, overdubbed harmony guitar)

That's why I suggested you have a second tape deck on hand. A two track deck will work, or any other recording device that can record a track with comparable quality. You generally want to plan these bounces a bit better before you begin tracking, to keep things from getting out of hand, but at this point you'll just have to make the best of it. You've got to choose a few tracks that you can bounce down to another deck and then record back onto your 8track (individual drum mics are a good example.. bounce them down to a single track or a pair of tracks for stereo). These tracks will have to be mixed, balanced and committed to now, so make sure you've got them where you want before beginning the bounce process. This type of recording can be incredibly limiting, or incredibly inspiring, depending on your personal skill set and creativity level when it comes to the bouncing processes. You'll only get better as you experiment more.

Bouncing is a critical part of recording with limited track counts... I would strongly suggest getting another deck of some sort, so you can being to learn how to make this happen. Typically, when you record to an 8-tr machine, you have another deck on hand to bounce down or mix to anyway, otherwise you can only ever listen back on the 8-tr deck, which isn't very practical. What were you intending to mix to in this case? Tape, DAW, CD-burner? Any of those could work to bounce to.

SteveMilner, post: 401304 wrote: Kurt,
So what are you suggesting here? The OP has a single guitar track that he want panned hard Left/Right in his mix... what is your post suggesting he do?
Maybe I'm missing the point of your reply?

so what you are proposing is really no different than multing the output of the track and then running it to 2 channels on a mixer. bring it up panned left and right ... whadaa ya get? mono. no different than using the pan of the mixer on a mono channel.

you have to create some kind of difference signal ... mono is mono no matter how you pan it. the difference between a mono signal and a stereo signal is "difference signal". here is an article i found that explains this : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereophonic_sound

the only real way to get that after the fact is to re amp it and mic the amp in stereo like it should have been in the first place.

another solution is to run it through a room reverb with a very short pre delay and a reverb setting of less than 100 milliseconds and take the outs of the reverb back to to channels on the mixer. use the wet / dry controls on the reverb to get the desired balance between mono and "stereo". this will "stereo-ize" the signal.

SteveMilner, post: 401311 wrote: That's why I suggested you have a second tape deck on hand. A two track deck will work, or any other recording device that can record a track with comparable quality. You generally want to plan these bounces a bit better before you begin tracking, to keep things from getting out of hand, but at this point you'll just have to make the best of it. You've got to choose a few tracks that you can bounce down to another deck and then record back onto your 8track (individual drum mics are a good example.. bounce them down to a single track or a pair of tracks for stereo). These tracks will have to be mixed, balanced and committed to now, so make sure you've got them where you want before beginning the bounce process. This type of recording can be incredibly limiting, or incredibly inspiring, depending on your personal skill set and creativity level when it comes to the bouncing processes. You'll only get better as you experiment more.

Bouncing is a critical part of recording with limited track counts... I would strongly suggest getting another deck of some sort, so you can being to learn how to make this happen. Typically, when you record to an 8-tr machine, you have another deck on hand to bounce down or mix to anyway, otherwise you can only ever listen back on the 8-tr deck, which isn't very practical. What were you intending to mix to in this case? Tape, DAW, CD-burner? Any of those could work to bounce to.

please explain how you would keep the 2 tape machines in sync?

what you are describing is what we used to call wild sync or wild flying. it works best with short passages like vocal stacks / ohhs and ahhhs but not real well with parts that are percussive and reliant on critical timing ... and definitely not on tracks over a whole song. you're lucky if you can get sync for 10 or 15 seconds before wow and flutter put the 2 machines out of sync.

frosty55, post: 401291 wrote: How do you pan a single guitar left and right in a mix?

By panning the mono guitar to the centre of the sound field, it will be coming out of both the left and right loudspeakers equally. That's how a sound in the image centre is produced.

If you want different versions of that track to come out of the left and right speakers, you can do one of two things: (a) play around with the timing between the same track sent to the left and right channels (usually horrible), or (b) put the track into a reverb unit whose stereo output is sent to the left and right channels.

heeeeyyyyy .... that's whut i said. :confused:

Kurt,
Re-reading the OP, it was a question about how to PAN a single guitar track L/R. There was nothing asked about recreating an accurate stereo field, nor was there anything saying that he would pan them equally L/R.. just that he wanted to pan a single track both to the L/R sides.
As far as keeping machines sync'd ... I'd agree, it's far from a perfect method, but has been used successfully in project studios for decades... hence my comment about (your skill and creativity being key to your results) along with my comment about planning your bounces prior to starting to track, so you don't end up with your whole 8-tr full with no-where to go except an external machine.

stevemilner wrote: Kurt,
Re-reading the OP, it was a question about how to PAN a single guitar track L/R. There was nothing asked about recreating an accurate stereo field, nor was there anything saying that he would pan them equally L/R.. just that he wanted to pan a single track both to the L/R sides.
As far as keeping machines sync'd ... I'd agree, it's far from a perfect method, but has been used successfully in project studios for decades... hence my comment about (your skill and creativity being key to your results) along with my comment about planning your bounces prior to starting to track, so you don't end up with your whole 8-tr full with no-where to go except an external machine.

i am fully aware of bouncing wild syncing etc. done it bunches of times ... still what i said. it will not work for a track over a whole song unless the machines are synced together with smpte or midi. you are not alone in working with 8 track machines ... hell i started on stereo machines bouncing from one to the other ... moved on to 4 tracks filling the 4 and mixing them down to one on a second machine then adding 3 more tracks much like the Beatles used to do ... i know all about bouncing and wild syncing. i once had the owner of an 8 track studio introduce me to people as "This is the only guy I know who can make 8 tracks sound like 24".

while you are re reading the ops original post, re read my original reply. yes he asked how to pan the signals to the left and right ... and i said what you will end up with is no more that you would get by panning the track down the middle.

you will not create a "hole in the middle" like you would get with a stereo signal. also i have to assume the op was interested in generating a stereo signal, otherwise why would he ask the question in the first place.

cheers!

Kurt Foster, post: 401292 wrote: is this a riddle? a joke? what's the punch line?

it's a mono track ... pan it to the middle.

hehe.

Kurt Foster, post: 401292 wrote: is this a riddle? a joke? what's the punch line?

it's a mono track ... pan it to the middle.

I thought guitars werent meant to be panned centre because of clashing frquencies with the likes of snare drum and lead vocal?

The OP asked the same question in another forum I participate in, and he was given a variety of correct options there too - which he also didn't seem to understand....

He can't possibly be reading the answers.

Boswell wrote:
By panning the mono guitar to the centre of the sound field, it will be coming out of both the left and right loudspeakers equally. That's how a sound in the image centre is produced.

This among other answers that essentially say the same thing.

Duplicating a track, exactly, and then panning is no different than panning a mono track. It's just a left/right balance between the two sides. It is not "stereo", and no difference will be noticed between a single track panned, say, 60% right and 40% left or two duplicate tracks with the right 100% volume and the left the same proportional percentage volume as the 60/40 pan. Either one is the same exact sound louder on one side than the other. As mentioned, it's just like panning a single mono track's volume proportion to the left and right. It's a simple concept. And, as also mentioned, copying a track, exactly, and then playing them both back on two tracks at the same volume (left and right) just puts them both right back in the middle. It's all auditory perception.

As it's a guitar, bass and drums (with vocals), in this case, the guitar will ALWAYS be stronger to one side or the other. To "balance" the mix, you'd have to add a different instrument to the other side (another guitar, keys, whatever), or do something different to the copied (or split) original guitar track. EQ, reverb, delay, chorus...whatever...anything to create non-identical tracks, to pan and level accordingly.

No mention (though already asked) is made of the mixdown mixer, or destination 2-track (stereo) mix medium.

If you had extra channels in your mixdown mixer, you could run that guitar track through something, and create a slight difference, to mix on its way to mixdown to stereo.

You could run it out and reamp it, and mix that into the final mixdown.

Be aware that those are pretty much one-shot options, though. Once you get what you think is right, it's unlikely you'll ever exactly recreate all the circumstances to ever duplicate it, since it's adding an element in real time from the 8-track to the mixdown...with that added element not immediately available for recall if anything on any equipment is changed. It's ONLY there on the mixdown AND it needs to mixed, EQ'ed, etc. at that time to "fit into" the final mix.

You could just play another track in real time, and record it onto the mixdown. Original track, say, left...newly played track, right. You'd have to make sure the tone, recording level and panning, etc. are set to be the final mix, though, or you'll be doing it again, until it is. Again, once it's done..all you have of your "new" performance is embedded into the final mix, so no further processing can possibly be done to it, as any kind of individual track.

But, that's also surely been done before.

WHAT are you mixing down TO, and through what? Knowing that would probably get more useful and imaginative answers.

As repeatedly stated, "mono is mono", and copying a mono track as an exact duplicate to "pan" left and right is absolutely no different than panning a single mono single left to right. You gain nothing, and probably only add more problems (noise, etc.).

Also, you COULD always just leave the guitar, bass, kick and snare down the middle, and get any sense of stereo with your toms, cymbals and background vocals, panned out. But, that depends on the lead vocal and guitar, mainly. You could always just get the guitar out of the way of the bass (where it really shouldn't be in the first place), and the snare is normally a quick enough hit that it may just slightly mask that short duration of the guitar without losing the essence of the guitar. If nothing else, if you still perceive that as a problem, just try moving the snare and the guitar SLIGHTLY opposite each other. In a car, or from a few feet away from speakers, you'll likely not even notice anything of a l/r difference in either, though it will probably show up in headphones.

Anyway...this is ALL speculation.

More info from the OP would help. And, the OP's response that he realizes what everyone is trying to tell him about the sameness(no difference, no advantage) in "mono panning" and "mono track on two channels balance", and that everyone is sincerely trying to offer possibilities, would also be helpful to the cause.

Kapt.Krunch

Thank you for the info chaps. I get the feeling it doesnt matter WHERE you pan a fit a guitar in a mix of drums, bass and lead vocal then...
You asked what it would be mixed down to, it will be a CD recorder.
I quite fancy the idea of panning the guitar to one side and reverb to the other to give some "spread" of sound, but dont know how to do it.

frosty55, post: 401520 wrote:
I quite fancy the idea of panning the guitar to one side and reverb to the other to give some "spread" of sound, but dont know how to do it.

Plug a reverb device into the mixer, and run the signal out of that channel, through the reverb, and back in, panned opposite the original signal, during mixdown.

I don't know your exact model of mixer, so don't know the routing. It could be done a few different ways, depending on the mixer configuration.

Kapt.Krunch

If you can't duplicate de track, a stereo delay is the only way I know to push it in the stereo field.
Other than that you can keep the track in the center but EQ it so it doesn't fight the vocal so much and add a stereo reverb)
EX : make an EQ peak on the vocal (to give it presence) and cut the same frequency on the guitar. The you can make the inverse, peak a mid hi frequency on the guit and lower the same on vocal (around 2k)