i posted this in the hip hop forum as well but im still looking for more advice

N

needmyownstudio

New member
PANNING BASS IN HIP HOP

ive spent a bit of time in studios engineering tracks, but i usually only get to work on rock records. it seems to me the hip hop baseline is real important so it shouldnt be panned too much BUT, if its in the center wont it fuck with the vocals ? also depending on which bass and which kick sample you use wont they interfere with each other a lot if they are both panned dead center? that being said i usually pan my bass on average around 33 left or right. the thing that is confusing about this is if i pan less than 33 it seems to fuck with the vox, if i pan more than 33 (on average) the panning seems to noticable. this being said on average a hi hat is usually panned (as i was taught) around 30 to one side or the other also. and if it is a ride or cymbal crash etc it can be panned anywhere from like 50-70 to any given side. it seems to me bass would need to be panned more than a hat, but less than a crash... does this make sense? am i way of course here? someone shed some more light on this for me if possible.
 
If the vox and bass are clashing when centered, you might need the roll off lows on the vox and/or mids on the bass. I've never noticed panned bass in rap, though I'm more into rock.
 
i mix bass dead center(I do mainly hip hop/R&B) if they are clashing then you need to break out the EQ and start carving! ;)

but i still don't see how the bass is gonna clash with the vox.
 
on some tracks i'll pan the bass 5% left and the kick 5% right, but that has more to do with separating the two sounds more so that getting them away from the vocals.

you can't pan them too far because you need both speakers working to reproduce those low frequencies accurately.

i use to think that the bass/kick were cluttering the vocals but what was really happening most of the time was that either they were too loud in the mix (most of the time), or i wasn't compressing the vocals enough (rarely).
 
yes i was panning bass in rock.

to those that helped me shed some light, i now see i should probably not pan bass in hip hop. this was actually, beleive it or not, what i was thinking through my tests but i just wanted to go with what i was taught rather than what sounded good. i appreciate all the help and i will begin to experiment much more with eq'ing the vox and bass rather than panning it!
 
If you're having problems with your bass and vocals competing for space . . . then you've either got one weird-sounding bass, or a vocalist with like 4 testicles.
 
Bass and kick are dead center 99% of the time for me.

use a EQ to move all the conflicted inst/vox out of the fighting space.


Malcolm
 
I think it more so depends on the type of rap joint you are producing. Some Dr. Dre tracks have panned basslines like old recordings used to have. On the other hand, most dirty south cuts have deep dead center bass. The key is to pan when needed, but not too much. I usually keep the kick centered almost always though. Good luck.
 
As I understand it, the tradition of centering the bass came from vinyl days, when a panned bass line could make a stylus jump out of the groove. I sometimes pan the bass, particularly if I have a strong lead vocal and/or a spare arrangement (for example, vocal centered, guitar panned R, bass panned L). The Beatles, God bless 'em, panned the bass whenever they felt the urge.
 
Raydio said:
I think it more so depends on the type of rap joint you are producing. Some Dr. Dre tracks have panned basslines like old recordings used to have. On the other hand, most dirty south cuts have deep dead center bass. The key is to pan when needed, but not too much. I usually keep the kick centered almost always though. Good luck.
Click to expand...

Dre had real musicians to come in and they played over sampled material, meaning he had the option to pan a sample with a bassline a lil, but he had a real bassist or that minimoog running straight up the middle or panned a lil with the sample's low end panned as well.

Malcolm
 
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