wider stereo effect for kick drum?

B

bobbycuzin

New member
i was listening to some commercial hip hop tracks and i noticed that their kick drums seem to have more width than in the kick drums in my tracks. i never add stereo effects (reverb, delay, chorus, etc) to my kicks but is this something other producers do?
 
Layering won't make it wider, just louder.

If it's panned central, it's as wide as it can be without stereo effects processing.

By all means try 'stereoizer' tools to beef up the width. They achieve this by introducing controlled phasing. Try mda's Image for a no-frills freeware tool.
 
sellinbeats said:
i dont. maby a kick layered behind it with the bass cut out. you want the bass to be mono.
Click to expand...

this is what i always was told and did my self Mono drums
 
a stereoizer *usually* won't make a mono kick sound wider. In order to get wider, something has to already be in stereo, or be processed with a stereo effect such as chorus or reverb.
 
agreed,

anyway, avoid the use of "stereoizers" or "wideners" on the main elements of a song since they are usually not mono-compatible at all.

a solid mono sound way punshier and accurate than any stereo configuration. use only panning (when needed) on the main elements and use these stereo-effects only in occasional special-fx or less important elements.

i won't use wideners on constantly "repeated" sounds - only on small and unique effect sounds, the effect is way more impressive than a constantly wide mix with a big hole at the center.
 
It sounds like you might just be better off using (or creating) a "bigger" kick drums sound.

One technique I've used in the past is to heavily compress the kick drum in order to accentuate its tail. and then send it on an aux buss to some reverb. I know a fairly common thing is to send more of the snare to the reverb than the kick, but at times I've found it nice to reverse this relationship. You'll end up with a nice extremly large kick sound, however it does end up taking a lot of space in the mix and not leave too much left over for a typical bass type sound. There have also been other times where I found it I layered a pitched down floor tom under the kick, I've ended up with a nice pounding kick. These are just a couple ideas and definately don't work in most cases.
 
I often add stereo spread to overheads and pan accents like cymbals and other percussive elements. I usually keep the kick DEAD center.. might add a little spread to snares and toms. For the most part though I'll add some spread to a grouped drum bus or overheads

like the above mentioned,
just another "idea"
 
straypixel said:
Layering won't make it wider, just louder.

If it's panned central, it's as wide as it can be without stereo effects processing.

By all means try 'stereoizer' tools to beef up the width. They achieve this by introducing controlled phasing. Try mda's Image for a no-frills freeware tool.
Click to expand...

if you wer talking to me then let me clear this up. i was talking about another kick not the same kick. and with that kick turn it down. i dont do this anymore cause ive found no reason. it does make a cool effect tho. but it does get old after listening to it for a while. i moved on to the backround sounds for a stereo effect.
 
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