Panning in the 60's and 70's

Squonk

all this talk about Budgie has got me listening to "Never turn your back on a friend"

"Parents", one of my favourite songs off the album has some typical 60/70's panning, Tony Bourge who plays guitar seems to solo from the middle and then to the right and then to left in quick succession. Quite disturbing if you are listening with headphones.

"In the grip of the tyrefitters" has the rhythm guitar panning from right to left the whole way through. The solo also jumps all over the place.

It seems as though producers in those days couldn't get enough of stereo when it first came out?

DaFiz

Squonk wrote: It seems as though producers in those days couldn't get enough of stereo when it first came out?

Harhar... ? I even recall listening to a record of stereo sound effects like a train coming from the left and leaving to the right... ???

I was listening to Dark Side Of The Moon... on 'Any Colour You Like' the guitar goes from one side to the other... ?

Squonk

Listening to "Baby please dont go" and each vocal line is panned from right to left. The guitar riff sort of starts in the mids then either goes left or right. ???

Bob-Dubery

Squonk wrote: all this talk about Budgie has got me listening to "Never turn your back on a friend"

"Parents", one of my favourite songs off the album has some typical 60/70's panning, Tony Bourge who plays guitar seems to solo from the middle and then to the right and then to left in quick succession. Quite disturbing if you are listening with headphones.

"In the grip of the tyrefitters" has the rhythm guitar panning from right to left the whole way through. The solo also jumps all over the place.

It seems as though producers in those days couldn't get enough of stereo when it first came out?

Possibly. I think the practice may go back to Axis Bold As Love - which also had prominent tape flanging on the drums as they whooshed all over the place.

My guess is that somebody has a hit with a particular effect or technique and then everybody starts copying - often without worrying if the effect/technique/whatever is actually appropriate for the piece or not.

LooneyAtTheGate

Yes and there was some serious hard panning... No one does that anymore.
I guess once you've heard 'Purple Haze' on a sound system with one broken speaker you'll understand why!
There'll be absolutely no guitar or drums, just some slight reverb... ???

raithza

I have an old car, so I have this audio to tape converter which only has the left channel working and it makes so much music (esp beatles) basically unlistenable. also voodoo child with its panning guitar :/ not so much with more modern music.

LooneyAtTheGate

raithza wrote: I have an old car, so I have this audio to tape converter which only has the left channel working and it makes so much music (esp beatles) basically unlistenable. also voodoo child with its panning guitar :/ not so much with more modern music.

Yes i think somewhere along the line all producers decided that they will cater for the 'broken left-speaker brigade' an not pan harder than 30%!

AlanRatcliffe

The older stuff it wasn't a case of bad engineering. In the early days of multitrack (especially the two track used in the '50s and early '60s), everything was still mono. The two tracks were used to be allow recording band and vocalist separately. With the advent of stereo, these records were remastered as stereo simply by splitting the two left and right. Many studios didn't even have panpots until the '70s, so it was either mono or hard-panned.

As for the later records abusing stereo techniques, their only excuse was the combination of "new toys" and drugs. The pro engineers quickly learned that hard panning and fast sweeps were no-nos, but were still often forced to use it on demand of the artists or record companies seeking the fashionable "psychedelic" sound.

So panning was pretty much the Autotune of it's day...

LooneyAtTheGate

Yes all those pan sweeps you hear on the Hendrix records was actually the man himself going crazy, left alone with the mixer.

Its interesting Alan that hard panning actually started out as a necessity for multitracking, wow we are spoilt today...

Jack-Flash-Jr

Resurrection! Listening to Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)... favourite panning example, decided to do a google search on panning examples, click on "panning in the 60's and 70's" without checking the URL and here I am... all roads lead to GFSA it seems ?
Edit: Sabbath's Sweet Leaf cough pan is also one of my favourites...