Can you detect instrument panning of rendered song?

[bencuri]

I wonder if there are any methods to pick an instrument in a finished song and check the pan settings of that instrument? For example you hear a rhythm guitar on the left, and you want to make sure it is only on the left channel, and not appearing on the right channel either.

[Benedict]

Probably not because in most (professional) mixes sounds are rarely mixed with 100% of the sound all on one side. The pan knob may be 100% left (and I rarely do that myself as it feels cack to me) BUT the Send reverb space is probably coming back with content on both sides as the world is not binaural - ie split apart in the middle.

Perhaps you could explain the context and what you are trying to achieve a bit more as the Q feels a bit random.

[lfm]

I've used some software that also used panning to cancel out or single out a certain instrument.
- you wanted to transcribe a part or similar
- or remove an instrument to replace with your own playing

It was in a slowdown software to really hear any instrument part as clear as possible.
- but you could also pan and swap phase, not only change speed

But this was not to get a quality end result, just to hear or cancel certain parts.

But this was long ago, more than 20 years so don't remember the name.

Today I would look at Spectralayers or something that do these things as I understand it.

[jupiter8]

For example you hear a rhythm guitar on the left, and you want to make sure it is only on the left channel, and not appearing on the right channel either.

Just mute the left channel and see if you hear anything of the guitar.

[cryophonik]

For example you hear a rhythm guitar on the left, and you want to make sure it is only on the left channel, and not appearing on the right channel either.

Just mute the left channel and see if you hear anything of the guitar.

Better yet, use a stem separator to remove the vocals, bass and drums, then mute the left channel on the “Other” instruments stem.

[bluesawsq]

You could check a sonogram/spectrogram of the song. In many cases it's quite easy to see different instruments separately. And you can see also panning of each instrument (and also effects like ping pong delays etc) by selecting color scheme where pan positions are indicated with different colors. Like a smooth color gradient from green (left) to yellow (center) to red (right).

[bencuri]

You had a correct assumption. Actually I need this to learn guitar parts of songs. But it often happens that there are 2 backing guitars, they play in the same manner, around the same frequency level. One is panned right, one left, but yet you hear sometimes they overlap, if the panning was not extreme. In those cases it can be difficult to conclude which notes belong to a certain side, and which to the other. Some stronger picked notes from one side may confuse you on the other.

I also use Spectralayers pro for learning songs, but in such cases it can be tricky to differentiate the two guitars sometimes. You can get confused on matching notes, not being able to decide that a pale note on one side is a result of panning from the other side or a note picked lightly.

"by selecting color scheme where pan positions are indicated with different colors."

How do you do that exactly? I don't really get this. I have 4.0 though I am not sure you can do it easily for that.

[bluesawsq]

I also use Spectralayers pro for learning songs, but in such cases it can be tricky to differentiate the two guitars sometimes. You can get confused on matching notes, not being able to decide that a pale note on one side is a result of panning from the other side or a note picked lightly.

"by selecting color scheme where pan positions are indicated with different colors."

How do you do that exactly? I don't really get this. I have 4.0 though I am not sure you can do it easily for that.

Don't know about Spectralayers, but for example Dust Analyzer has that kind of stereo color mapping in sonogram view by default.

[bencuri]

That sounds good. Maybe I will use that as a second aid besides Spectralayers Pro. I will check, thanks!

[BertKoor]

If by simply listening you cannot tell which guitar does exactly what, chances are they play nearly the same and then it's probably not so relevant.

[Samual]

I use PRO Q L/R mode when checking the panning. Not sure if that is suitable for your case or not.