From the course: Audio Mixing Master Class

Unlock the full course today

Join today to access over 22,600 courses taught by industry experts or purchase this course individually.

The secret to panning background vocals

The secret to panning background vocals - Pro Tools Tutorial

From the course: Audio Mixing Master Class

Start my 1-month free trial

The secret to panning background vocals

“

- [Instructor] Most background vocals are doubled or tripled while recording to make them sound bigger but the way to pan them also has a big effect on how big they really sound. Here's a way to get the most out of those backgrounds using a very simple trick. First of all let's listen to the background vocals. They are all panned straight up the middle and there's six of them. ♫ Day la la la ♫ They sound pretty good but what we really want to find is where the high voices are, where the low voices are and where the mid voices are so let's sort of listen to these one by one so we start to find out where they're all at. ♫ Day ♫ That sounds like it's a low one. ♫ Day ♫ Also a low one. ♫ Day ♫ That's a mid one. ♫ Day ♫ Another mid one. ♫ Day ♫ That's a high one. ♫ Day ♫ Now what we're going to try to do is pan these in such a way that it supports the lead vocal and also has the most dramatic effect. So usually the best way to do that is to pan the lowest vocals more towards the middle and…

Contents