question about panning bass

N

needmyownstudio

New member
i dont hear much about panning bass in hip hop? do you stick to the same averages as in rock and then just play it by ear? or is it severely different as i would imagine. cause the bass makes a much bigger difference in the feel of a hip hop beat, so whats up?
 
I pan the bass all the time in Hip-hop. I usually put it panned oppisite the kick. so, if I have the kick at roughly 11 oclock I will put the bass at about 1 oclock or so. i usually have more than one bass on tracks so i will pann them around a bit. sometimes I will trigger two or three different bass sounds from vsti or reason with copies of the same midi track and pan them arond a bit as well. Dont go to extreme though. I somtimes will severely pan the bass during a breakdown or something for effect but thats it.

Hope I helped.
 
I pan everything and never once thought to pan the bass. I gotta try this. You notice it comes much clearer or what?? I am always strugglin to really define the basslines in my group's tracks...
 
It definitly becomes a little more defined. a little comp and a touch of som eq works well too. Just mess around with and it will come to life. I try to separate the bass and kick cause I had definition problems in the past. you dont want to go to far with the pan.
let me know how it works out for ya.
 
Will do. I like to mess with the eq a bit to carve a spot for the basslines. Cause its hiphop lets be honest if it has no bassline or bump for the ride then what good is it. But I'd like to get them more pronouced with less eqin. I am gonna try this tonight...
 
hmmm

i was always taught to never pan your kicks in a hip hop instrumental, from day one. have i been taught wrong here or what? 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.

by the way to those that have thrown in their two cents so far i appreciate all your efforts.
 
here is a thing that I do.
I do pan my bass about like you to about 30% and the kick opisite a bit out as well. but i will have another identical bassline with a slightly different sound ( maybe the original has a real snappy top and not a bunch of low end) and I make the new bassline with a lot of low end and no snap and pan it the oppisite. then i pan my kick to the side it sits better (depending on the sound of the kick I am using). sometimes I will make a identical kick line and use a big bottom kick on the side of the bass line with no bottom and the snappier kick on the big bottom bass side.
This doesnt work all the time but in certain cases work great.
making space vocals is the key and I try to here that space as I am producing so i dont run into problems later.

I hope this all makes some sense. let me know How it works out.

The Noble Sir Bergersworth
 
iceberg. youve been more than helpful. when i was working with the panning on bass i had always been taught to pan. unfortunately i knew/felt that the bass in hip hop should be nearer to the center channel. i was asking in the other forums as well and they recomended i keep the bass dead center. ive been fucking with that and ive been real pleased with the results. it takes more eq to carve out the sound you want but its absolutely worth it. the bass rides through both speakers equally now and gives you such a strong beautiful sound (with a compressor).

thanks everyone
 
iceberg said:
here is a thing that I do.
I do pan my bass about like you to about 30% and the kick opisite a bit out as well. but i will have another identical bassline with a slightly different sound ( maybe the original has a real snappy top and not a bunch of low end) and I make the new bassline with a lot of low end and no snap and pan it the oppisite. then i pan my kick to the side it sits better (depending on the sound of the kick I am using). sometimes I will make a identical kick line and use a big bottom kick on the side of the bass line with no bottom and the snappier kick on the big bottom bass side.
This doesnt work all the time but in certain cases work great.
making space vocals is the key and I try to here that space as I am producing so i dont run into problems later.

I hope this all makes some sense. let me know How it works out.

The Noble Sir Bergersworth
Click to expand...
i do exactly the same thing as iceberg which essentially means keeping the bass at 12 o'clock since the panned sound is usually a duplicate and is lower sounding than the one kept at dead center as explained above, merely an accentuation. it really does help define the kicks and bass

good job sir bergersworth
 
I was always taught kick and bass should be dead centre. They are the driving force of the track. Everything else can be panned around them, on a higher frequency, pushed further back etc. I seperate the bass and kick using EQ / side chain compression / choice of sounds. I think panning bass and kick is quite simply, wrong.
 
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