Comment by jntun

I've heard this is a recommended paradigm for mixing, to only ever pan things R, C, L and nothing in between, but it doesn't make sense to me. Possible because i have to mix on headphones, but it sounds much too extreme to me. Sure, _some things_ can go all the way but i generally enjoy to fill the space between the far edges, and allow some reverb busses to blur the lines a bit if needed.

Is hard panning really strongly recommended like that, or just a hold over that the old heads learned and passed down

That’s totally not true. The original stereo patent from the 1930s is based on M+S signals, not separate channels, and was born out of a desire to position sound across a stage (movies).

By the time the hard-panned records of the 60s were made the technology was already old, it was just a stylistic choice.