2 Guitar Bands & Panning - Probably Obvious But....

DavusPG

Do you pan your guitars hard left and right when going through a PA.

For whatever reason we have been middling ours when rehearsing with IEMs and tried panning last night which really opened things up. Almost like a blanket had been lifted off everything. 

I'm slightly embarrassed to say It's one of those things I've never given any thought to, but makes perfect sense. 

However as I'm now going direct with my AX8, stereo is a tempting option to make the most of the lovely effects....is it possible to be panned and still have stereo effects? If so how would I go about that?

Any advice/wisdom greatly appreciated. 

Danny1969

I have everything panned in my IEM's ... my guitar to my right, other guitarist to my left, keys in stereo panned across and the drummers toms panned across. You really can hear everything in that fashion, every tiny mistake. 

Assuming your using 2 aux sends each for stereo I would have 2 lines in from your AX8, left and right and simply put the left into one aux send and the right into another ... it will then be panned into your IEM's like it would be when you plug your cans in 

ESBlonde

Through the FOH mix pretty much down the middle for everything, some panning of Toms, FX and maybe stereo keys sounds but no, mono so everyone out front hears the same. Some stage spill gives girth in smaller venues. IEMs are a different saucepan of poissons and liberal panning works wonders if you have the facilities, separate mixes even more so.

Cirrus

Just regarding front of house sound, panning in the PA just depends on the room, and the layout of the PA speakers/crowd. You can end up in situations where if you pan the guitars hard L/R, people on opposite sides of the room get totally different mixes.

On the other hand, if the setup allows, no reason not to run a stereo mix really.

Personally, I'd look at stereo as optional ear candy with my own guitar rig - when setting it up, I'd test what it sounds like when it's collapsed to mono to make sure you'd be happy if that was all people heard, because stereo panning can mask intrinsic problems with phase cancellation.

Danny1969

For wide stages you can use the pan as anti pan, if you have a guitarist with an amp on one side of the stage you won't need as much of that amp through the PA that side ... as the people on that side  are all ready getting more stage sound. So ironically your using pan to achieve mono sometime

ICBM

In general panning is a bad idea for live mixes as the result then depends on where you are in the room, even more than it normally does. 'Anti-panning' as Danny suggested can actually help with that, but you need to be careful not to overdo it or it sounds very odd.

Mixing by EQ is very effective at separating guitars usually - ie if you have one player with a middy (eg Les Paul/Boogie) tone the other one needs a scooped bright (eg Strat/Fender) tone. That way you can hear both clearly without resorting to mixing by volume on two similar sounds, which is much more difficult to get a good balance with.