# String quartet panning



## TheGruppy (Oct 5, 2021)

hi sorry my bad english, i'm new in forum and orchestration

what is the right panning of a strings quartet?


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## Rob (Oct 5, 2021)

from left to right: violin 1 violin2 viola cello


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## Iskra (Oct 5, 2021)

https://bachtrack.com/files/163147-danish-string-quartet-c-tristan-cook1.jpg


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## jbuhler (Oct 5, 2021)

There is not in fact a single correct answer to this, and different quartets sit differently. The only fixed element that I found when I researched this was that violin 1 was always far left. The other positions were all variable.


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## TheGruppy (Oct 5, 2021)

thank you boys! but when you mix, what is the right amount for esample for violin 1, 50 left?


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## shawnsingh (Oct 6, 2021)

To answer directly:
Panning by "50" may mean different things for different software, and exact amount of panning does depend on how the reverb sounds, too, but I think if you use some reference recordings you can do it by ear and get close to what you want! What people often want is actually more like "stage positioning", but panning and reverb are the tools for stage positioning. For a quartet, if your samples are dry and centered, then perhaps try starting with a true-stereo reverb, and try collapsing the inputs to mono, and then panning each mono to where it sounds right. 


More elaborate general answer, in case it helps:

For starters, many sample libraries already record the instruments in a reasonable stage positioning, then you may not need panning. But I suppose the reason you're asking is when the samples are recorded centered, or they're mono.

So there's at least three panning techniques to consider:

Good old traditional panning, adjusts the relative level of L and R channels.
"Dual mono" panning, for a stereo input, will allow to pan L and R channels independently. This type of panning can help retain interesting information from both channels of the stereo sound while still panning to one side or the other.
"Delay panning" uses slight delays between L and R channels to create the perception of positioning.
combinations of these are of course possible...
And then there are a few things to consider about the reverb being used, which interact with panning:

What is the wet/dry mix going to be - panning on a very dry mix with less reverb may sound very different than the same panning with a very wet mix.
How strong is the positioning effect already present in your reverb - there may be a natural "stage position" already in the sound of the reverb. For example, sometimes reverb plugins will have something like "studio front stage", "studio middle stage", "studio back stage", and you may need to adjust panning if you change between those. 
In fact, there are many panning/stage positioning/reverb combo effects out there, like panagement, precedence/breeze, VSS (may be old in the tooth now), VSL MIR, and several more. These effects would usually do best if you keep the input centered, or even mixed down to mono.
Is the reverb "true stereo" or just "basic mono in stereo out"? True stereo reverbs apply independent stereo reverb processing to the L input as well as R input (i.e. L in -> L out, L in -> R out, etc.

So yes, rabbit hole gets deep very very quickly!


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## TheGruppy (Oct 6, 2021)

oh my god my friend, too much information for a newbie as me

i've to read many times your concepts but at the moment is so hard undestand!! i'm starting with orchestration since 10 days ago, so i'm only trying to reply other songs to try to undestand something (in this case i'm working on "philip glass - climbing the tower")... to use the reverb is a next step for me! the libraries i'm using are spitfire chamber and spitfire solo

thank for all, i need some day to digest all this!!


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## cuttime (Oct 6, 2021)

Listen to some of your favorite SQ recordings as a reference.


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## shawnsingh (Oct 6, 2021)

I'm sorry to have overwhelmed! It's good feedback for me to remember someone's background before answering.

Please don't worry about my explanations earlier. I believe Spitfire Chamber Strings and Solo Strings will already have recorded the instruments in their proper stage position, so it will not be necessary to pan them yourself.


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## TheGruppy (Oct 6, 2021)

shawnsingh said:


> I'm sorry to have overwhelmed! It's good feedback for me to remember someone's background before answering.
> 
> Please don't worry about my explanations earlier. I believe Spitfire Chamber Strings and Solo Strings will already have recorded the instruments in their proper stage position, so it will not be necessary to pan them yourself.


can i leave the pan of all instruments at the center?


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## Iskra (Oct 6, 2021)

You can definitely leave the pan of all instruments at the center, completely untouched, yes. 

My take on that, Spitfire Chamber and Solo strings, you might try to add a little bit of pan to emphasize the already existing position of the instruments in the recordings (Spitfire always - as far as I can tell- record the instrument on their correct placement).
That is, you can take Chamber V1 a pan a bit to the left, V2 a smaller bit to the left, Vla centered, Cellli a bit to the right, basses a slighty bigger pan to the right as well. By a bit I mean like V1 25L, V2 15L, and so on and so forth. This way you will be just 'pushing' the natural placement of the instruments as they were recorded. 
This is what I usually do with SA chamber strings, but it's completely up to taste, you can leave them dead centered and they will do sound good as well. It depends on your taste. 

Also, as mentioned above, listen to the original recording of the piece you are making the mockup of, and try to replicate the panning of the real recording (in case you want to be really forensic - which I never am)


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## shawnsingh (Oct 6, 2021)

Iskra said:


> You can definitely leave the pan of all instruments at the center, completely untouched, yes.


agreed!


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## TheGruppy (Oct 7, 2021)

@Iskra @shawnsingh thanks guys I will treasure your advice

a little offtopic, at the minute 00:45 how can i replicate this sound growing on left, flautando patch?


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## Iskra (Oct 7, 2021)

I honestly don't hear a growing flautando, just a single violin fading away a sustain D (or flautando if it sound better to your ears) and the following legato same note growing in dynamic and joined by a second violin playing E-F, etc. Viola joins a bit later playing A (if I hear it correctly, I have no perfect pitch!)
Just raise the CC1+CC11 at that point to make a nice crescendo on the first violin and make the 2nd to join it; then the viola
Something like that


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## TheGruppy (Oct 7, 2021)

my ears at the moment are not reliables at the moment for me is hard to undestand if is a cello or viola, viola or violins... i need time. thank you again @Iskra


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## TheGruppy (Oct 7, 2021)

Iskra said:


> Viola joins a bit later playing A (if I hear it correctly, I have no perfect pitch!)
> Just raise the CC1+CC11 at that point to make a nice crescendo on the first violin and make the 2nd to join it; then the viola
> Something like that


viola playing A-Bb i think... i'm trying to use CC1+CC11, i've nano korg 2 and 
is terrible (imho). how can i improve my ears? i come from pop/rock music and I know that kind of sounds very well, with the orchestra it's all new to me


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## Iskra (Oct 7, 2021)

TheGruppy said:


> how can i improve my ears?


The only answer would be: listen as much orchestral music as you can (youtube videos of performances, although YT have issues with sound quality, is good because you can actually see the performers playing and that might help at the beginning). 
If you can read music, take any chamber/ orchestral score from imlsp and follow along a recording, so you can see what you're hearing.
But to be able to identify the instruments and train your ears, there's no shortcut: you have to listen activelly to train your ears. Same way you inadvertly trained your ears for pop-rock by listening to a LOT of pop-rock.  The only difference is that if you listen activelly instead of just listening, you can shorten the learning curve.


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## shawnsingh (Oct 7, 2021)

Please don't feel like you're at a disadvantage from a rock/pop background! Should we mention Junkie XL, Brian Tyler, Danny Elfman, countless others that are impactful in production library music... Actually I think even Zimmer himself.

Totally agree listening more and more helps, also you can enjoy videos about each instrument. The Philharmonia Orchestra had several videos of professionals describing their instruments - 

At the end of it all, most important is to just enjoy the process of learning and making music... Even if it may not take you all the way where your ambitions want to go, It would be infinitely more rewarding to enjoy the process of trying to get there!


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## TheGruppy (Oct 7, 2021)

i can read music at beginner level, so i'm just studings solfege (i hope in english is the write word) to be able to read score without go crazy 
can you recommend something to start listening with or do I write chamber music on youtube and listen to everything I find?


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## TheGruppy (Oct 7, 2021)

@shawnsingh you answered my question before i read you, thanks for the video.... i've to improve my english too


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## Iskra (Oct 7, 2021)

shawnsingh said:


> most important is to just enjoy the process of learning and making music..


That is the biggest true, right there. The process itself of learning and creating music is joyful in itself.


TheGruppy said:


> i've to improve my english too


It is fine to communicate yourself! There are countless of us around here for whom English is not our mother tongue


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## manw (Oct 8, 2021)

The answer is as in most cases, "depends".
If you are going to mix from an audience perspective, hard panning won't do any good, since for a spectator the sound of the whole quartet will be coming from the same general direction (small ensembles are not spread across the stage, they sit rather close together) - in this case, you would get better results with a good stage convolution reverb. However if you want to mix as if sitting in "the middle" of the quartet, then go nuts - i've seen various setups where Violin I and II were on opposite sides, for better effect in regards to some pieces that require "proposta e risposta" - "question and answer". In this case, the setup would be (from left to right) Violin I - Viola - Cello - Violin II. Again, nothing hard panned.
And there are as many variations o nthe positioning as there are instruments in the ensemble. So from a strictly mixing point of view, the idea is if it sounds good (it works) and you achieve to convey whatever you wish to, then it's all fair game!


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