[Soundtrack] Conspiracy (.mp3) Suspense/Mystery

[TennMusMakerAdam]

http://www.mediafire.com/?jyieyml0dny

Taking some advise from Jojo, I've attempted to add a greater amount of panorama to this piece. (Each instrument had two channels, with opposite panning.)

Also, I'm not always sure were I draw my inspiration from, so if you recognize something from this track as being ripped off, please let me know.  There are a vast amount of musical pieces and it's difficult to stay original.

[Oliwerko]

Each instrument had two channels, with opposite panning

This does not ensure panorama. Having two same channels play one on hard left and one on hard right may often sound the same as having only one played on center.

Moreover, in this song there are sections where left channel ceases to play while right continues, which is pretty disturbing (given the fact that it's panned hard right) - 0:38 for example.

This song in particular has little amount of instruments, and number of instruments is important when panning them. The more instruments, the more possibilities.

I would suggest having more instruments do different things in different place. That is, for example, two violins, one panned half-left and the other half-right, and at the same time playing different melodies. That creates the space that is still lacking if they are playing the same melody (and are, in fact, the SAME instrument).

I hope that helped a bit.

[TennMusMakerAdam]

To be honest, I did the entire track while wearing headphones.  I guess that's not the same as with speakers.

I found the part you mentioned were the left channel stopped.  That was supposed to be somewhat of a refrain, but both channels were still supposed to be functional.

Are you just using two pairs of speakers or are you using more?  My headphones have stereo, but I can go to speaker to test the music if you think that is a better test of its panorama.

As for more instruments,  I'll see about that.

[Oliwerko]

It's surely different composing with headphones and with speakers.

I'm using only two speakers. However that's enough to create panorama.

While having two copies of the same channel playing one hard left and the other hard right as you did can be better than having one in center, that's not my point.

My point is that in a full song with let's say eight channels where every channel does a different thing, you pan them differently.

This may serve as a (bit exaggerrated so you can clearly hear it) example:
I have two flutes, high and low. I pan the low half-left with -1.5 dB, the high is panned half-right with 0 dB:

http://oliwerko.ic.cz/Flutes1.mp3

This is the same arrangement with both flutes panned at precise center:

http://oliwerko.ic.cz/Flutes2.mp3

Note how this sounds much more flat than the first one, and that's only because panning. Of course the first case is exaggerrated, normally I panned it half the amount to L/R.

You don't have to have a lot of instruments, but copying one channel to hard right and hard left is not enough. Actually, there are very few cases of anything panned completely to the left or completely to the right. Usually only a slight change is enough.

I hope the example cleared it up a bit.

[TennMusMakerAdam]

Alright.  Thanks for helping me.