What style of music are you making? A lot of producers use a mono sample for a kick, it keeps the whole track nicely centred. You could probably get away with a little bit of room verb...my preference is for centred kicks.

Unless it's done in a very original and effective way (...and I can't think of an example off the top of my head...) a wide kick doesn't sound good at all, to me.

That's my personal opinion.

As far as I know you don't really want to widen the kick in the stereo field. You just want it pretty much mono unless you know what your doing. ( born slippy ).
Otherwise do what you normaly do to any instrument, flange/chorus/etc.

I'm guessing you want to make the kick rounder and punchier?
Play with compressors and eqs.

I just noticed some-one beat me to it whilst typing this reply haha.

trance....
a lot of tracks that I buy I notice are still solid when it comes to the kick, but sounds a bit spread out. i've figured its probably just the mastering stereo widening that has an effect on the higher frequencies of the kick sample spreading them out while keeping the oomph still centered.

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Sample?

quote:

Originally posted by Illumin trance.... a lot of tracks that I buy I notice are still solid when it comes to the kick, but sounds a bit spread out. i've figured its probably just the mastering stereo widening that has an effect on the higher frequencies of the kick sample spreading them out while keeping the oomph still centered.

In trance (and most dance music) the kick will definately be mono

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Can you let us know some tracks where you think this works well? I've heard producers do it from time to time, but it's very rare, and even rarer for it to be done well.

Sometimes a wide hihat will be added to the kick sound. That's more common.

Most common is straight up the centre. It works really well.

Difficult to cut to vinyl with stereo bass/kick as the needle jumps. historically that is why you don't do wide stereo bass.
Also 99% of club systems are in mono (or pseudo mono)

keep it mono and smack in the middle.

Underworld - Born Slippy has some echo and panning on the kick.
I guess it doesn't count since its not the main kick itself being effected. Still cool though.

i guess my post is useless and repetitive but until it hits home with you... leave your kicks in mono, just layer them. some mastering engneers will do stereo widening on the entire track but it will be per frequency so, its best to keep it as mono, layer accordingly and call it a day.

I don't know how many tracks do this, but there's no reason to shy away from it just because it hasn't been done before.

Some people are concerned that vinyl may skip, this is an issue for the mastering engineer, if they think the vinyl might skip they can easily narrow the bass stereo field down. That's part of their job so theres no need for the producer to worry about it.
If a club system is mono, then you still won't have really lost anything, just check your not getting phase cancellation from any widening you've done, then again, that's just good practise for any part of your tunes, kick, pads, bass or lead.

As to how to actually accomplish widening, I would imagine you could get some effects from stacking your kicks and then panning them out a little, don't use a stereo widener, they are never a good idea. Maybe try adding a hihat that triggers with the kick and try pannning it, echoes, reverbs, etc. might also sound good on the kick itself, but be careful not to create too much mud. You could also try some stereo flange or phase but be careful as they diminish impact and send things to the back of the mix.

BT says (and I think I've noticed the same) that panning is much less evident at low frequencies. If you hard pan a hihat you'll get dizzy, but if you hard pan a kick, you may not notice, so take this into account, you may need to pan the lows more than you would the highs to achieve the same amount of percieved pan.
But also remember that bass usually is heard as mono from a single sub, so only the higher range of your kick might end up being heard in stereo.

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well...figured it out...

I just layered up the kick thru a couple of bus tracks, ran some filters on each getting the lows and mid/hi (that snap) distinguished, then ran some eqing and slight wideneing on the mid/hi freq's and now it sounds exactly what I was looking for.....so yea....the low's definitely stay centered, it was just a matter of adding "snap" to the kick and then messing with that. had to think about it for a while and do a lil research

thanks much for the input.

i'll post my track soon that I'm working on soon in the other threads to check out.

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