I'm starting to record my own music, at least I'm new to trying to get a decent mix and bein able to export this or to give this to people, but I've never understand the position instruments and voices should take in the mix, I mean how far should I pan the voice and the guitar so they won't overlap, if you have tested any models or if there's some kind of guide to follow I would appreciate if you would share it with me

Thanks

--JB

There are people on HA far better qualified than me to comment, but it's conventional to place the lead vocal dead-centre. To make the recording mono-compatible, you should also avoid anything weird like inversion of the left versus right signal for the vocal. Inversions in the reverberation (delayed ambient room reflections that you can simulate in many audio editors).

Also avoid extreme panning (e.g. placing objects solely in the left speaker or right speaker) as this creates an "inside-the-head" feeling when listening on headphones.

I have heard a few effective tips for adjusting the perceived height of the sound-image. A good one is to use EQ to provide a minor boost or cut (1-2 dB is probably all) in the 7-8 kHz region (from my memory) to raise (boost) or lower (cut) the perceived height of the sound (especially when listening with headphones). This is apparently related to effect of the ear's pinnae in differentially filtering sound from below or above the head.

I remember reading an old post on HA in about 2001 or 2002 that explained this, and I tried it with fb2k's Equalizer.

I'd suggest that you listen carefully to a selection of pre-recorded music that sounds good to you, which you wish to emulate, and try to sketch out the perceived sound stage. You can experiment and compare again.

So let's talk about panning.

Panning will bring mainly two things. Separation and depth.

First separation. Panning will help to separate element of the mix because the ear can isolate more easily element at different position in the space. However, panning is not the only way to separate elements. Eq, saturation, delay, ridding faders (manual compression) or ducking (compress one element relatively to another element) are another ways to separate. So if you want mono compatibility, you should consider to have more than panning for the separation (for example you can low pass the guitar at 12 khz and hi-pass the voice at 200 hz).

Second depth. Panning will create a space because you can create a second and even a third dimension to your mix. Panning the guitar for example, will create a second dimension. Now multi take, delay and reverb, can create a third dimension. For example, you can record the guitar twice and pan the first take on the left and the second on the right, it's old trick but it works pretty well. If you don't have two takes you can slightly delay the guitar on the left channel (between 1ms to 150ms). You can also put the guitar on the left and put the reverb of the guitar on the right (you can adjust the predelay to combine reverb and delay in order to widen the effect).

The voice is often in the middle, unless you want a special effect or if it's a backing vocal.

In the end, you have to do what you feel. Separation and depth are not always necessary and it has a price. Too much separation and depth, you can loose the punch and the cohesion (especially in the low frequency). So you have to be judicious. Always ask yourself what is the message/emotion and how you are going to highlight it.

Hope it helps.