Defining instruments in the stereo spread.

Imagine a painting in front of you. You then paint a little red dot on the right side. That dot occupies only it's location and no more.

Back in my recording days using hi end Analog board reel to reel, the string instruments would occupy a spot in the stereo spread and not bleed over into other areas off that spread. This is not holding true with Digital recording.

I have been trying to find a way to fit guitars into a certain spot on the stereo spread without bleeding over across other instruments in that spread. It only seems to work in the hard left or right position. No luck so far. All percussion instruments do this very well but stringed instruments do not. I want to retain the original sound without thinning it to fit the spot.

What,s the trick?

Logic pro on iMac using Sapphire 40 pre

I don't honestly think there is any reason that solid stereo definition can't be achieved in digital audio.

What monitors are you using? What interface, and are you summing through that interface?

Sony studio monitor phones, Avantone Mix cubes, Yamaha NS-10M studio monitors. It's the difference between hearing a guitar sitting in the +20 position using Analog recording and now it's from 0 to +20 playing in that whole rang even though the software is panned to +20. Digital does not seem to pin point it with out having lots of slop around the edges.

I can make all sorts of digital recordings and pin point the signals where they need to be, but when it comes to mic'ed guitars, vocals, Guitar Rig stuff it does not pin point nearly as accurate.

Well, obviously, your home rig is not be used as an example for all digital recording.

Also, your conclusion that "digital recording" is the problem, and not one of the dozens of points along the chain (the mic, the pre, that horrible, horrible Guitar Rig). I noticed you didn't tell what interface you're using.

You need to do some gen-u-wine trouble shooting here, Doc. Digital recording doesn't automatically smear the stereo image.

The way you describe this also makes me think of a common error: is this guitar track recorded to a stereo track? It you recorded it in stereo, and tried to pan one side of it, you'd get that "0 to +20" effect."

But I'm also curious about your interface. And the fact that you are A-B'ing your current recordings with a memory of a completely different signal chain in another room at another time.