Bass | the wider frontier: low-end stereo placement for headphone listening

Abstract

The placement of low-end spectra in popular mixes has ranged from dogmatic centrality to extreme staging, but current developments in production workflows, stylistic evolution and increasingly personalised modes of consumption have resulted in alternative—if less polarised—approaches to low- end production. The authors question how contemporary practitioners ‘sculpt’ bass in their mixes, the strategies that are deployed to secure translation, and the relationship between innovation in the bass spectrum and sensible mix architecture. The aim is to investigate the aesthetic and pragmatic causality behind the phenomenon, but also to examine and theorise on the creative possibilities for future bass staging