where do you pan rap vocals?
Posted by t0hierry on April 30, 2009
Rap vocals are like the lead actor in a movie. They occupy the center. So you pan rap vocals center. But that is only the beginning. If you do just that, your vocals have no stereo width, they lack space. A couple of things you can do to remedy this.
I favor the do-it-yourself approach, over the use of programs like stereo enhancers. Say you want to strenghten the wings. Duplicate the stereo track, turn each channel into mono, and pan each full left and full right respectively, in addition to the original center stereo track. Adjust the volume of the center with respect to the mono tracks to get the width you want.
Nothing prevents you from increasing the apparent width by making the left mono and right mono tracks different, by equalizing them differently, or using high/low pass filters.
In any event, when you play that game for a while, you’ll realize that one crucial ingredient behind the success of that method is reverb. How much, and which reverb should you use?
That will be the topic of my next post.
