Any rules how General MIDI drum kit should be panned?

The Roland standard for the last 25 years is hi-hat right, low tom left, or audience perspective of the kit, with no set sides for cymbals other than putting the ride and crash slightly opposite each other.

I personally prefer drummer perspective, because many of my favorite albums were panned that way. It also gets the hat off the high notes of the piano if that's in stereo too.

Lastly, in Hip Hop and R&B, the hi-hat is dead center of 90% of the tracks I get.

KVR/eSoundz: Xenobt

Thank you for the info! I actually have a a stereo piano in the track I'm working on now, so definitely going to pan the drums drummer perspective.

Drummers though do keep the beat on the ride too, especially during choruses.
Anyway, I always mix the drums audience perspective for purely political reasons.

Politics? In Greece!?

The chorus thing might make a good point for keeping the ride on the same side as the hat, and pan your main crashes opposite both, if the piano is the main focus. Otherwise, pan it opposite the hat and the stereo animation you get when you go back and forth can add some nice earphone candy.

In real life, most drummers I work with put it over the 2nd rack tom and the floor tom, and the crash between the hat and 1st tom. And splash cymbals work great centered, especially for dance stuff.

And I prefer drummer perspective cuz tom fills going right to left is just WRONG!

KVR/eSoundz: Xenobt

Ha ha, well, since Man is a political animal I guess you can find politics everywhere.


Yes, that could work with artificial/sampled drums. Unfortunately, with a real kit the overhead mics kind of dictate your panning.

True enough, sir! And I know some GM sets give you some control of panning within the kit, others, HELL no!

But on jazz and metal sessions, I've spot mic'ed the ride with a KM184 to a separate track to get a little more control of placement and eq in the final mix, sometimes even ducking the overheads between crashes.

It can play hob with the rack toms and overheads phase though, so try using the 1:3 distance rule and phase reversing it to see what sounds best. Soft tools like Waves InPhase can really help here too. Same with top and bottom snare mics, and blending bass DI and cabinets.

KVR/eSoundz: Xenobt