To give depth to your mixes, it is usually best to start by simulating the panning and frequencies of something like a standard accoustic drum kit. In the diagram below, the positions of the mics, in red, can be used as starting positions for the panning of the drums and cymbals. In this example, you migth want to then try moving the pan for the snare mic to centre.
Chances are that in most cases you will have drum pairs that are fairly excluse - ie, they rarely, or never play at the same time - for example, the snare and kick are rarely played at the same time, other than during fills, and during a fill you might want the combined sound of both instruments together to sound as one.
This also means that 2 other instruments such as lead synth and vocals, or lead guitar and vocals can share the same space in the mix, as long as they are not playing at the same time.
created 01/10/04
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