I've herd many people saying that a good technique when mixing, is having 2 different instances of a vocal or instrumental track, one panned fully left, and one panned fully right. This apparently creates more width and depth than having just the one instance in the centre.

I don't get it though. How is this 'double tracking' techinique any different that a single mono file panned in the centre?

I thought, in a stereo field, anything mono panned centre effectivly comes out equal volume from both cannels; right and left. Now, the same thing panned fully right will only come out of the right channel, and if you pan another instance fully left, that will come only out of the left channel, thus the end result is the same; it's coming out of both channels at equal volume.

- What am I missing here?

It's not two instances of the exact same take - it's two seperate takes.

Most rap does this nowadays with vocals.

See, youre not having the EXACT same instance of something. When they do this with vocals, they generally record the vocals once, and pan that one to one side, and then pan a different recording to the other side. The same goes for instruments.

Two copies of the same track will get you in all kinds of trouble. Don't try that.

Yeah, double tracking adds extra variation, it's not an exact copy. The best way to understand it is to try it yourself, you should hear the difference right away.

Hey JJF!
Double tracking isn't really about hard panning , but the subtle differences you get when you do two takes of, eg a vocal. No human is ever going to sing the same line in exactly the same way twice.
When you pan those two recordings hard it creates a nice, full, "lively" effect, similar to a chorus (but less rigid).

If you take two identical copies of the same take and pan those against each other, now that's going to create tthe "might as well be mono" effect you were talking about.

btw A nice way to simulate double tracking is taking two identical takes , put a deay on one of them and automate some settings along the sequence


Marco

they've said it all

There's a difference between double-tracking and doubling (and I hope I don't embarrass myself by mixing them up wihle explaining them)

One (IIRC, "doubling") is when you take a copy of the original track, put it on another track, and apply FX (ex EQ, delay, chorus, etc) to the copy.

The other, involves replaying and re-recording the track. Because you are human, the 2nd recording will have slight timing differences with the first.

It' simply a kind of "natural" stereo enhancing.

One (IIRC, "doubling") is when you take a copy of the original track, put it on another track, and apply FX (ex EQ, delay, chorus, etc) to the copy.

Without even applying any effects, have the original and an exact copy, and shift the copy very slightly to the right.. but only slightly..

It does produce a cool "doubling" effect that can be desirable, on some vocals especially..

And experiment with the panning..

the dry/wet combo for a stereo feel is as old as fx and just as useful as ever...

One thing I hate is when people invert the DC on one stereo channel for stereo difference. It makes my head hurt! Especially with headphones.

Ok something that hasn't been brought up yet here that should be mentioned is that not only are their human variations present when doubling a take, their should also be some tonal ones. For instance distorted electric guitar: don't use the same guitar, amp & mic at the same settings when doubling. Play around, a darker guitar panned left with a brighter one panned right will just sound fuller, or one less distorted than another, etc. Same thing with vocals, do a few different passes at a few different distances (especially w/ backup vox). This helps keep the sounds unique/different but the same if you know what I mean. Listen to the guitar work on Zeppelin's stuff for good examples of this.

if you dont want to record a new take, copy the original track, pitchshift your copy a few cents (no timealtering shift of course...), pan 90%L 90%R and you got that "unison" effect.

or use waves doubler.