Panning confusion when reading CM article.

[talkietoaster]

Hi,

Please excuse the my ignorance on this one but I can't get my head around this basic concept.
I read this in a CM article about not mixing too narrow:
"Pan certain parts to extremes: unusual effects, percussive noises and pads go hard left and right; backing vocals can come further in; main vocals and bass usually sit best in the middle. "

Since panning is just balancing the volumes of left and right (assuming a stereo setup) are they suggesting panning stuff (e.g. unusual effects) 100% into one side so that it only comes from one speaker?
Or are they suggesting having the unusual effect on two channels and pan one 100% left and one 100% right.
If so will that not just sound the same (volume differences aside) as one channel panned to centre?

Thanks

[Fazer]

Since panning is just balancing the volumes of left and right (assuming a stereo setup) are they suggesting panning stuff (e.g. unusual effects) 100% into one side so that it only comes from one speaker?

yes

doesnt have to be 100%

[talkietoaster]

Thanks Fazer.

[Viz]

I read it and thought they were suggesting that percussion etc should oscillate 100% between left and right, whereas vocals should oscillate say only 10% between left and right. I've always thought of panning as being a dynamic effect but I think I'm wrong in that, yes?

[Fazer]

panning just means placing in the stereo field, anywhere from 100% hard left to 100% hard right

i can either be static or moving

static is good to spread things across the field and separate them, like multiple voices, percussion parts, double tracked guitars etc
these are all things with (probably) a mono source

with the moving panning you can either mix it by hand, like a swirling hendrix guitar solo, or have some kind of autopanning which will give you a rhythmic pulse, a nice fender rhodes for example

[Viz]

Yep. Nice.