Violating the "Bass in Center of Mix" rule

[trodden]

Funny, I always run it up the middle. Vaguely I have the idea that we need to let the two speakers share the work. But really, vinyl is pretty much gone and I should probably rethink/get over it.... Interesting thought.

oh oh.. its far from gone. But don't let the format limit your ideas!

[standup]

I know vinyl is not gone or anything, but nothing I've ever messed with has gone to vinyl, I don't think. I'm in my 40s and have hundreds of LPs from early 80's on, yeah and some 50s jazz and misc. 78s. I adore the round thing with a groove in it. But I'm not recording music for that medium, ya know?

[doctari]

The white album has very good examples of bass panned to one side helps the bass stand out and display the cool tones. I now want a nice jazz bass.

[Kel]

I've found slightly panning the bass slightly left or right sounds kind of cool. It also helps both the bass and kick stand out more with its own distinctive space. Course when going to school I generally kept it center or hard panned. Have been experimenting lately though.

[casey campbell]

panning the kick just a hair one way, and panning the bass just a little the other sure does give alot of separation between the two, and can really save a mix.

[Peterson Goodwyn]

Does not Andy Wallace use a subtle phaser on the bass to spread it out around the center? Think I read this in a Sound on Sound interview once.

Seems like a cool idea, but kind of strange since I've never heard a bass that I thought sounded "too localized." Usually the opposite.

[das]

thanks for the explanation.

Vinyl aside, the reason for bass to be in the center is the same reason that an SVT is 300 watts: those low frequencies require more power. So the thinking goes that rather than have the left speaker working twice as hard as the right, put it down the center and have both speakers working together to get the same amount of fullness with more headroom. (as was mentioned earlier, bass frequencies tend towards the omnidirectional anyway, hence the headroom taking priority over stereo positioning) It's not a hard and fast rule, rather a fact that is sometimes useful and sometimes not.

[thebunker]

Another great example of hard panning are those Miles Davis Quintet records (Miles Smiles, ESP etc) from the 60's with Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter and Tony Williams. I can't remember exactly the pan scheme but the drums were definitely on one side maybe with trumpet, bass on the other with piano...i'd have to go back and check though. This works so well with jazz as the upright bass doesn't have much going on in the lows on these records, and there's some bleed as the band was playing in the same room.

[gustavobill]

On his book, Geoff Emerick says that the pans on the Beatles albums were kinda ramdom. The stereo wasn't so common on people houses so he invested more time doing the mix in mono. When the mono mix was done he just juggled around the pans knobs, not really worrying about it.

it's very bizarre to hear that a stereo image you are so familiar (and became a reference for so many people) was just "juggled around"