musician question from a non musician

When drums are recorded, cymbals and some drums are different in the left and right channels. From a drummer or a general band point of view - is the listener hearing them as if they are standing in front of the drum kit, or standing behind it.

In other words, in most recordings are they done for the audience's point of view or the bands?

Someone'll give you a really knowledgeable answer, but until then here's mine. You can choose how you want the drums to be imaged in stereo. Either you care as the recording drummer, or the engineer will do what they like. I think both angles (listener in front, or listener oriented same as drummer) are about equally common.

I believe it is currently normal to have common voices mixed center (kick, snare, hat, and ride) which means your only clues on a recording are toms and other cymbals. Otherwise, the hi-hats are often the key to being able to tell.

If I was picking, I'd do it from the listener-in-front point of view, but that's just my own preference.

cool thanks. being a non musician I always feel as if I am standing in the band when I really like stuff. ( I most often have headphones on to help with that impression). But in reality, what I am listing to could be created to give the listener in front.

My short lived career as a sound engineer (6 months at StraitJacket Sound in 1995) I used to mix whatever the song needed. With music that has more dynamics than metal it makes all the difference where the cymbals are in the mix, not so much with metal/punk/heavy, where wall of sound is the usual approach

With wall of sound mixing, I always had the hi hat in the left and the ride in the right, maybe cuz I played drums and thought of it as how I was looking at them while playing

Depends on who is doing the mix. Think I read tha a lot of americans mix from the audience perspective while a lot of europeans mix from the band perspective in regards to stereo panning. This question would be better asked in a recording forum.

I usually do audience perspective... that being said the most common drummer I record is my own, who is left handed with a backwards kit, so to most this would seem like drummer perspective... I'm baked and I don't know where I'm going with this. I like drums.

it's just preference of the person mixing. you decide what you like best over time.

As long as they're panned at all, there's no rules. As a drummer I like the mix from the band's perspective.

The question in this thread not being answered is the difference between back/forwards and left/right.

There's only that left/right axis directly available when someone pans something in the studio, there's no three dimension room control. While a good mix of pans and a good stereo with surround sound can help create a three dimensional effect, at the end of the day if you have two stereo speakers pointed at you playing the CD without surround, the drum kit is going to sound in front of you. As to the spirit of your question, it actually would make little sense to hear the drums from behind you intentionally, because approximating audience sound is better than if one were to approximate onstage sound - which always struggles to be as good.

Since I know absolutely nothing about the subject:
Overhead mics are placed in the location of which they serve the drum sound you are trying to achieve best. They are also panned in the same fashion. There are no hard and fast rules to this matter and I will fight any of you if you say differently.