Mono'ing Bass In Mastering stage

[Ethan Winer]

There's Beatles-stuff were the bass is panned hard. So it seems to be possible without the pickup skipping or dancing all over the place.

There are bass instruments and bass frequencies. Often the part of a bass instrument that's most audible is above 100 Hz or even higher.

--Ethan

 

[rayc]

The Beatles early stereo mixes sound awful. They are truly great examples of a mix engineer/producer growing up in public with regard to the relatively new fangled stereo for pop.
As Ethan says - the bass guitar may appear to be to a side but that's the higher frequencies that cue position in a stereo or multi image.
If it were the full bass guitar freq range (without a n HPF or a split) the stylus & cartridge would dance all over the place.
I've been listening to a lot of CD, FLAC etc with h/phones lately and the ones that haven't the kick drum and bass guitar centred give me listening fatigue very quickly let alone bothering the hell out of my preconceptions

 

[grimtraveller]

The Beatles early stereo mixes sound awful. They are truly great examples of a mix engineer/producer growing up in public with regard to the relatively new fangled stereo for pop.

I still love those records. I never thought of them as sounding odd when I first heard them and as I grew up with them {and not only them, lots of 60s stereo mixes~interestingly, not Motown~} I just accept them for what they are. If any band's mixes from the 60s are sonically lame, it's the Stones, all the more surprizing because they were recording in American studios years before any British artist.

I've been listening to a lot of CD, FLAC etc with h/phones lately and the ones that haven't the kick drum and bass guitar centred give me listening fatigue very quickly let alone bothering the hell out of my preconceptions

I can only think of two pieces of music that have given me listening fatigue. One was the first piece of music I ever heard from someone on HR.com {I didn't take note of who it was by and I can't recall who it was, but it was a whole album on his site. All I can remember was that the imagery was jungly and green~ish} and the other is a song I adore ~ "Dancing days" by Led Zeppelin. Otherwise, I've never experienced it. Strangely, both bass and drums are centered on both.
I don't mind panned bass and drums but on my own stuff I can't stand the bass anywhere other than middle. Anywhere else and that hurts !