Explain please: bringing mix towards Mono under a certain Frequency.

[rasputin1963]

There are some VST-FX units out there which will push your mix's stereo field to Mono-- or closer to Mono-- under a certain frequency, which you specify.

 

 

What's this all about? Why would you want to do that? What happens if your bass frequencies have too much stereo separation? Are there some music styles (say, bass-heavy Dance) that benefit from this treatment more than other styles (e.g. Folk) ?

[philbo]

Bass is reproduced more faithfully by 2 speakers instead of 1, assuming they are wired with correct polarity, so it is generally panned to center for commercial music. It is as simple as that.

[Anderton]

It's also essential if you ever plan to do a vinyl release. Bass excursions make the needle really move, so if the left and right parts of the groove have different bass information, the needle can literally jump out of the groove.

 

Also, bass is much less directional than high frequencies, so the stereo panning and placement tends to be reserved for higher frequency instruments.

 

Finally, I find when mastering, that centering the bass "anchors" the sound better.

[Beck]

Believe it or not, I was offline writing this out in MS Word before I saw Craig's post, but I'll share it anyway as written. I guess great minds know the same stuff.

 

Historically it was important when pressing vinyl because if the bass energy was too strong on one side or the other of a stereo groove it caused problems. The stylus could literally jump out of the track. Bass was also rolled off in general because if it was too strong below a certain frequency it required more vinyl to cut. It wasn

[MikeRivers]

 

There are some VST-FX units out there which will push your mix's stereo field to Mono-- or closer to Mono-- under a certain frequency, which you specify. What's this all about? Why would you want to do that?

 

 

The general answer is "Why do you do anything to an accurate recording?" Because you can, and you want to hear what it sounds like. This particular process, however, originally came from disk cutting. Out-of-phase information between the two channels make the stylus (both the cutting and the playing stylus) to move vertically. For a given amplitude, the stylus moves a greater distance for low frequencies than high frequencies (it has to do with velocity in the groove).

 

Out-of-phase low frequencies make for excessive vertical movement. When cutting, this can drive the cutter too deeply into the platter, usually ruining the cut and sometimes ruining the stylus. When playing, it makes the needle jump out of the groove (which some people brag about). Summing the left and right inputs and sending the sum to the left and right inputs of the cutter assures that they're in phase so the stereo cutting stylus moves only horizontally. By summing only the low frequencies, you can preserve stereo because the highs are still spread between channels.

 

Another thing, really two things, is that speakers are less directional at low frequencies and we don't hear directionality very well at low frequencies. Sure, if you put the bass in only one channel, you can tell which speaker it's coming from, but overall, the bass direction isn't well defined. And then there's the issue of subwoofers. Bass management in a surround playback system sends all the bass to the LFE channel because it expects that the satellite speakers are smaller and can't handle the low frequencies.

 

In dance/club music, it's just a cheap trick that I guess could emphasize bass in certain systems.

[BushmasterM4]

 

It's also essential if you ever plan to do a vinyl release. Bass excursions make the needle really move, so if the left and right parts of the groove have different bass information, the needle can literally jump out of the groove. Also, bass is much less directional than high frequencies, so the stereo panning and placement tends to be reserved for higher frequency instruments. Finally, I find when mastering, that centering the bass "anchors" the sound better.

 

 

I know the "norm" is to pan the Bass center. But.... Listen to stuff "The Doors" and bands from the late 60's and 70's and you will find the bass every where. Well "The Doors" used a bass pedal on many tunes, but you know what I mean. And truthfully, I find that stuff sounds great and refreshing. If someone tried non conformative panning today, they would be shot !!!

[blue2blue]

As Craig says, the practice comes from the grooved disk era and the desire to pack the biggest sound possible into the grooves and that means either thinning the bass or putting it in the center.

 

As noted perception of directionality goes south (you should pardon the expression) as the frequency descends, so you can play tricks like moving the bass to the center as the frequency goes down with usually minimal negative effect; even if you end up 'spreading' the bass from center to one side, with the higher frequencies and overtones to one side, our expectations will typically cause us to interpret that as one instrument on that side.

 

Also, if you're mixing club music (and the club has a stereo PB system -- which is not necessarily as common as some might expect) and you mix the bass to one side for some reason, it may well effect the way the track is heard differently in different parts of the club. But dance music without bass is... not hardly even dance music.

[A. Einstein]

as lower the frequency as less directional cue has the signal to out hearing, and as higher the frequency as more the stereophonic 3-D cue starts to work in our hearing,

 

so low down we use mono, for example for bass, kick... however when the bass has a stereo effect on it, then record stereo, and of course we do not speak of the room microphone, that is stereo,

 

and re: kick, the single channel (mono) track is the microphne in front, or in the kick, and you don't monoize a stereo track of the kick, you record the kick mono

[WRGKMC]

You can download a free plugin called Optimum Basslane for free

that will mono all bass frequencies. http://www.softpedia.com/get/Multimedia/Audio/Audio-Plugins/Basslane.shtml

 

Its best to try to get the bass frequencies centered through mixing and avoid the additional processing,

but this little plugin can do a wonderful job tightening up a busy mix, especially on mixes with basy guitars of drum toms

panned hard left and right. It will take the bass frequencies from those instruments and center them while leaving

the upper frequencies spread so the stereo effect remains intact.

 

Even if you just stick it in the mains and do an A/B comparison , it can help identify uneven bass issues.

 

The playback speakers are not that much different than an actual piston in an engine. When you drive a car and the

cylinders fire evenly, you consider that to be a smooth ride. Same deal on a mix. If you have bass plugging left and right

and there isnt a good pattern to them, its can jitter the nerves. Centering them makes both speaker pistons push together

so it feels and sounds better to the listener.

[Lee Knight]

Cause bass is bitchen. And more bass is bitchener. Bass evenly divided across two amplifiers and speakers = maximum bass. Maximum bass = maximum bitcheness.