Is Mono Bass DESTROYING Your Low End?

Hey everyone. Thanks to you all for watching and supporting the channel. This video has spurred on a very active discussion. 10,000 views in the first 48 hours with very active comments (even saw Dan Worral joined in the discussion). I wanted to offer some additional information that I feel is of benefit: 1) This doesn’t apply to vinyl. I should have mentioned this in the video, but TBH my clients have never asked for a vinyl-compatible master. When mastering for vinyl you’d definitely use an elliptical filter to remove sides information in the lows. Thanks to the folks who pointed out this oversight. Good catch! 2) I’m not the only one speaking about this topic. I highly suggest you watch this video on @mixbustv from the platinum engineer & producer, David Gnozzi: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tGpNAC1x2Q 3) And this video from Nicholas Di Lorenzo at @panorama_mastering: www.youtube.com/shorts/7ZgZjngvaLc 4) Watch this video from Wildcrow: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ld_xTBbzabI 5) There is a new(ish) plugin from Tone Projects with mastering engineer Ian Stewart that does some magic allowing you to recover out of phase sides information in the bass for better mono compatibility. See it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gc7xbYisIo8 6) Another technique to have wide-sounding bass with excellent mono-compatibility is to use a special saturator that can produce harmonics and pan them without affecting the fundamental at all. Look at Wavesfactory Spectre with it’s De-emphasis mode. You can have a bass with some width and not lose anything by converting it to mono. Watch out video on that here: https://youtu.be/SyqG98MSHQU Hope that’s helpful. Happy music making!

Turns out, the reason why my tunes aren't in the top 100 is because there is a conspiracy theory from the top telling me to mono my low end! 🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂

I used to mono bass until relatively recently. I started meticulously referencing low end on some of my favourite tracks and seen the side information on the low-end. It was a lightbulb moment and went against so much of the assumptions that are held as Gospel in much literature. I am never mono-folding the low-end now. I create reggae and dub.

That was a nice video. Shows nicely how important it is to stay open minded about how to approach a track and mix. I remember when monoing bass was pretty much all over youtube and I was kinda suprised to see where you were going in this video. Cudos to you for admitting that you also recommended it when everyone was raving about it.

Amazing video thank you so much for sharing your knowledge.

I always set my bass to mono, but that's only because all of my songs feature bass neutral tones, I think the main difference that pushed your point is that your using bass synths which that feature a lot of information across the frequency spectrum. I also think that 200Hz is aggressive for a cut, the most I ever go is 60Hz because at the end of the day I just want my bass and kick to be as neutral as possible

funnily enough I just got metric A/B yesterday to do referencing of my own mix against a Bonobo track and I noticed this exact thing. I decided to undo the monoing of certain elements in the sub regions and the mix just sounded better. But this was a real aha moment for me, so thought it was even more perfect that this video popped up in my yt feed today XD.

Very useful information! Thank you!

Absolutely brilliant info !! 😁 Cheers for this

This is my "ah-a" moment after seeing THIS revelation of wisdom. I watched a bunch of EQ videos without challenging the overall feel of the track. Thanks a million - sides is a completely new concept for me now!

Great educator, just as usual !!!

Really insightful and that part where you say at 18:07 - 18:26 "strong beliefs loosely held" where you explain a little bit about its meaning. Really describes a family member who struggles to just take that incomplete knowledge and just go for it. He's caught in a loop of never ending education, and I am glad you said it this way because when I am tuned out because of way in which my tone of my voice is widely muted a lot I feel like you're approach can reach people in a way that I have been trying for decades. I also learned a lot I had no idea the phase was pushing the gain higher I always thought something was going on and now I know thanks Vespers!

You can hear the subby stereo on all EDM tracks, if you listen close. We have been taught that this can't be but stereo information is absolutely present and it is audible when played in stereo format. The phasing issue of filters was extremely enlightening. I use a dynamic EQ shelf on the low end sidechained to the kick now instead of filtering. I thought it sounded better and you pointed out why with the phasing issue. Great video!

Excellent tutorial. Thanks for this detailed tutorial. 🎉

Great video. Liked and subscribed

great video !! thank you

I can't thank you enough. Last week I've realised it too but it was just a feeling. I didn't did proper practical research to believe that what I'm hearing is right but you did it. This video was much needed!

Outstanding! Kewl that you referenced mixbustv as well. Thank you for doing your homework!👏

This is exactly what I needed thank you

Wow! The mono low end is one of the last “rules” i always follow when making songs. This opens so much