staging instruments

[cubby01]

Not sure what to call this question. Symphony Orchestras are laid out in a fairly standard way, for example violins stage left and basses stage right, but is there some convention for rock and jazz that had instruments placed across the sound stage in any kind of order, for example drums predomenently left channel (or right) and piano predominantly right channel (or left?), etc.... such that you would know right away that the left and right channels were correct or swapped?

 

[JonL]

No, there is no convention for rock and jazz.

 

[timofred]

Rock I've seen tend to have drums centre, bass left, guitar right.
Jazz tends to be same with brass on the right.
This is from the audience perspective.

 

[resound]

Do you mean actual or percieved?

Recorded music does have standards for stage (percieved) placement. Getting it right or going beyond the norm for whatever reason is what a production manager/sound engineer does.

As far as actual live music goes, I think its more of a balance of visuals vs. gear vs. stage size. The percieved stage at a live show can be adjusted from the mixing board, no matter where the actual gear is placed on the stage.

 

[cubby01]

Do you mean actual or percieved?

Ok, this is where the question comes from. I queued up Brubeck's "Take Five" one day after swapping out a turntable and due to familiarity with the piece it was obvious the cables were switched. Joe Morello's drums were coming from right instead of left. That piece is a pretty severe example because there is very limited mixing across channels, but it got me to thinking if I had not known the piece how long would it have been before I relalized the cables were reversed? Is there enough convention here that it is almost immediatly obvious to some people?

Another way of looking at is does it matter if the channels are swapped for music that you have never heard before.

 

[resound]

Aaahh. You said Dave Brubeck.

This time frame in stereo was the discovery period and there are many recordings with less than optimum recording techniques.
Also, it may have been done that way on purpose to highlight the music in some way.

The standard nowadays is Drums dead center and lone vocals just off center one side or the other. Bass left, rhythm left cntr, backup vocals off center right and lead git right. The engineer goes from there and sometimes with some imagination can mix an outstanding cut.

Thats how a production team can pull a grammy