Took me ages to figure out what LCR meant! (Left-Centre-Right, yeah? Only ever pan like that, no in-betweens).
Umm... Well, pretty much, I don't use LCR then :lol:
When I'm figuring out or tracking two parts, that are going to "balance" each other, yeah I'll be panning tham hard Left and Right. But by the time they're tracked, they invariably do NOT sound best in the song when panned that way (and by the way, I'm begining to move away from creating parts just to "balance" each other in the stereo... I seem to have been doing that for ages, and I've learnt that it's restricting me, and not always generating the best results).
I do tend to "pan the bugger if you're going to pan it", but definitely +/- 20% is not centre for me, and I do aim at using whatever space I've got. I tend to think in terms of the band arrayed in a semi-circle in front of me - guitarist A is over there, guitarist B over there, lead vocals right in front of me, backing singers arrayed in a semi-circle behind him, etc.
When panning similar sounds, eg voices, I put lower parts nearer the middle, higher parts near the edges - it just works better for me, sounds more cohesive. If I put two bass harmony voices, singing the same part, panned hard left and right, it just sounds naff. I end up having to track another two so they're not "exposed" like that. Instead, pan the two +/- 20%, and they work together, only two voices needed...
