Drum panning direction?

Is it just me, or does anyone else find it disconcerting to hear changes in the direction of drum kit panning (hi-hat left/ride right, toms right to left) when switching between songs or albums by different bands?

As a (former) drummer, right-handed, behind the kit I'm used to hearing hi-hat on the left and ride cymbal on the right.

OK, back to enjoying the music.

 

That changes from record to record, there isn't a rule to it. And I'm a lefty (all of the set in a mirrored image) - maybe you should just deal with it.

Think about the problems when playing lefty, that's almost a real 1st world problem.

 

Didn't say I couldn't deal with it, only really just thought about it last night while listening.
I have even listened to one concert in which they switched the panning in the latter half of the recording.

I'm sure I just created another useless thread topic

 

Pardon me, I was being a bit of a douche about this.

But yeah, this isn't a real problem for most people.

 

MOST of the time the idea is to make the kit sound realistic, and when you're listening on speakers it's fine because things are panned but the image ends up being somewhat "flat" in front of you. On headphones, if things are panned too hard, it starts to sound like you're sitting on the stool instead of in front of the band and that can get aggravating.

I'll say this, though: any recording engineer who doesn't make sure the snare and kick drum are dead center needs to have their equipment confiscated. That's supposed to be the anchor for the whole thing, if it's tilted one side or the other it's MADDENING.

 

In the late 60's / early 70's stereo-recording and playback was a new thing and engineers & artists went way overboard with it, especially mixing the drums. Hendrix, The Beatles, Zeppelin etc. all have at least a few songs that are totally bonkers and impact-less because of a drumset panned hard left or something else crazy.

As @MrMixelpix said, centered snare and kick are one those rare hard & fast rules in mixing you should really follow, always. Hard-panned toms can be annoying with fast fills, but it's a very minor inconvenience in comparison.

 

I'll keep you company- yes it does occasionally bother me. If the hi-hat is coming from the left side, I assume the recording is made from the drummer's stool. Same applies if there is a drum roll and the floor tom comes from the right. And since there is seemingly little consistency, it leaves me guessing if I'm listening to the band or if I'm in the band. The other thing that weirds me out is when they pan piano key registers so that it makes you feel like your head is inside of the piano. All of this of course is worsened when listening to headphones.

 

Not so much now as when I played (especially if I covered a particular band/song) but occasionally it still does.

I would switch the left/right channels when I was learning a song or playing along with the recording so it would match my orientation while sitting behind the kit.

For me there's nothing like a right to left tom-tom roll to kill the mood...