Helix LT - Stereo Guitar Panning (in a 2 Guitar band)

[Joe-1970]

Hello,

 

I can't seem to find an answer by googling, so if someone with better knowledge could please clarify this for me I'd appreciate it.

 

 

Here's my situation:

 

I'm in a band with 2 guitarists (myself included). At practice, we either run live through a recorder/mixer (an old Roland VS-2480CD) to external L/R speakers, or headphones.

 

I personally have a 1 channel mono signal (Marshall Amp > Torpedo Captor > console). Hard panned left.

 

The other guitarist uses a Helix LT, (Stereo L/R 1/4 Jacks > to 2 separate channels in the mixer). Both channels are hard panned right.

 

 

My question would be:

 

Since he is panning both L/R stereo signals to one side... is that effectively the exact same thing as if he were to use only the mono L to one channel? Or no?

 

Is there a benefit if he used only the left mono in this situation? 

 

Does shoving his L/R stereo signal out of one speaker/side hurt his sound? As in maybe some sort of frequency cancellation, or other technical knowledge I don't know about?

 

I ask because my mono signal from My Marshall/Load Box cuts through the mix much more than his Helix LT does.

 

 

Any advice that I could pass on to my band members would be appreciated.

 

Thanks!

 

Joe

 

[rd2rk]

If you're panned hard right, and he's hard left, the audience on the left hears mostly him, and the audience on the right hears mostly you. 

The only part of the audience that hears the whole show are the people in the "sweet spot" in the middle. A bit of panning can help separate the guitar tones, but hard panning is not something I would do.

 

If he's using stereo presets, there might be a negative to sending both signals to one set of speakers. Maybe. Depends on the FX he's using. The only definite advantage he gets from sending a stereo signal to only one set of speakers is that HE thinks it sounds better, and the fact that you're asking this question here (to me) suggests that he's the Alpha.

 

Just sayin'.

[theElevators]

My band has guitar, keys and 2 horns.  We set up the sound so that it's in stereo, but not hard-panned.  For example the trumpet player is panned slightly more to the right, trombone player is panned slightly more to the left.  Keys are panned more to the right, while guitar (me) is panned more to the left.   I run my sound in stereo, but my "center" is moved slightly to the left, if that makes sense.  When the sound system is really crappy, we just run everything in mono and forget about panning.

 

Using the stereo spread helps "unclutter" the sound, but it's never a good idea to do the extreme left/right "Beatles mix".  You know where they had Drums, bass and vocals on one side, and everything else on the other.  That's bad...

 

One more thing that helps unclutter 2 similar sound sources (2 guitars) is to EQ them both differently.  One has more middle presence, while the other has more scooped qualities.  Together they will work and complement each other nicely. 

 

This is one of the reasons I hate playing with another guitarist, because there is always this loudness war going on.  Especially when both are playing rhythm... So 2, 3 guitars will only really work effectively when they are EQ'ed correctly and their volume levels are matching.  If you have 2 rhythm/lead players, it's really tough to get the balance and stage volume right. 

 

True story: I saw Black Label Society ages ago, and Zakk Wylde's solos (as crappy as they typically are) were completely inaudible.  You could hear he was playing something, but could not make out what exactly, because the rhythm guitar was always in the way.  An all-girl metal band that opened for them had 1 guitarist and that sounded 10 times better....

[zappazapper]

On 10/30/2021 at 11:05 AM, Joe-1970 said:

Hello,

 

I can't seem to find an answer by googling, so if someone with better knowledge could please clarify this for me I'd appreciate it.

 

 

Here's my situation:

 

I'm in a band with 2 guitarists (myself included). At practice, we either run live through a recorder/mixer (an old Roland VS-2480CD) to external L/R speakers, or headphones.

 

I personally have a 1 channel mono signal (Marshall Amp > Torpedo Captor > console). Hard panned left.

 

The other guitarist uses a Helix LT, (Stereo L/R 1/4 Jacks > to 2 separate channels in the mixer). Both channels are hard panned right.

 

 

My question would be:

 

Since he is panning both L/R stereo signals to one side... is that effectively the exact same thing as if he were to use only the mono L to one channel? Or no?

 

Is there a benefit if he used only the left mono in this situation? 

 

Does shoving his L/R stereo signal out of one speaker/side hurt his sound? As in maybe some sort of frequency cancellation, or other technical knowledge I don't know about?

 

I ask because my mono signal from My Marshall/Load Box cuts through the mix much more than his Helix LT does.

 

 

Any advice that I could pass on to my band members would be appreciated.

 

Thanks!

 

Joe

 

Theoretically, a stereo signal with both sides panned to the same location should be exactly the same as a stereo signal summed at the Left/Mono jack. So if there were stereo effects being used that would cause the unwanted frequency cancelation you mentioned, it would happen either way. There's no benefit to doing what he's doing but I can't think of any negative consequences either, other than having to connect another cable and taking up another channel on the mixer. 

 

If your friend's tone isn't cutting through, it's because his tone isn't cutting through. It shouldn't have anything to do with how he's connected to the mixer. The Helix is an incredibly powerful device with all kinds of options at your fingertips, both for getting great tone and terrible tone. Even the best amps the world has ever seen have to be adjusted to work in an ensemble situation. That tone that you thought was so great in your bedroom is often masking or being masked by someone else. Your friend has to be willing to adjust his tone to be heard properly in an ensemble situation. 

 

On the subject of hard panning. I agree that hard panning is usually not the best idea, but it's really more of a concern for doing a mixdown of a recording - things that are hard panned get reduced in volume when summed to mono, which might seem like less of a problem than I'm suggesting, except that in the real world a lot of playback systems are mono - anybody listening to your song on their phone or in a bar will probably be listening to a summed mono signal, and you'd hate for your great sounding guitar parts to be reduced in volume by 6 decibels. Also, what you'll find is that the way our ears work, the effect of the pan control has its greatest effect nearest to the center detent, and once you get to about half way to either side, pushing it further to the side doesn't really sound like it's moving it all that much. So with those two things in mind, typically things that you don't want to disappear in the mono sum are panned closer to center. By the same token, things that might make a mono sum too busy and crowded can be panned further to the sides so they come down a bit more when summed. 

 

Now, all that notwithstanding, your situation is completely different. You're playing live, and unless you're recording the master mix and releasing it publicly and it's good enough that anybody wants to listen to it, it's not likely to ever get summed to mono, so that's not an issue for you. On the other hand, panning hard in your situation might actually be the best strategy, since each speaker will effectively be acting like a separate guitar amp, and whatever elements of his tone won't be interfering with yours, at least not electronically. If I'm being honest, if I was in a similar situation to yours, I might pan the guitars hard left and right, and at any rate, I don't think that's the source of your friend's issues with being heard. However, since your friend is connected in stereo anyway, you might as well pan one of his signals closer to the center so that he gets a little bit of the stereo image, and it shouldn't sound like he's any closer to the center than your signal.