How to Make a Layered Stereo Bass

If you have made your track with a lot of stereo elements and different panning positioning, the track might not sound good on a big sound system as it does on your studio monitors. This is especially problematic if you have used some stereo widening tools on the bass sound. What's more, phasing and other problems with the stereo bass will most probably occur during playback. To avoid this, there is a trick that allows you to get the stereo bass sound equally good on big PA systems, as well as on a car stereo system or on your home stereo speakers. In the following tutorial, we will show you a trick on how to make a layered stereo bass with keeping the low-end fat.  

Widen your Bass with a Layered Stereo Bass

Firstly, let’s start with a short bass sequence that I have made in SoundBridge, accompanied by some rhythmic elements. For the bass sound we have chosen Massive by Native Instruments and within it, we have made a sub-bass patch that will stay mono. Here is how the patch sounds solo and after that together with drums.

~Sub Bass Solo

~Sub bass with Rhythm  

Next, we will copy and paste the same bass sound channel below the existing one and start processing it with few effects. Furthermore, we will add a Q10 by Waves Audio on the newly copied bass. This plugin contains a handy preset called 'Pseudo Stereo'. If you like to gain further understanding of the aforementioned technique, please check out our Pseudo Stereo article. After listening to the first and the second bass together let's drag the frequency values left and right until I find the sweet spot between phases.

Creating Contrast and Balance with EQ

Moving forward, let's place an EQ on both of the bass channels. On the first one ( which is sub-bass ) we will apply a hi-cut around 200 Hz. However, on the second bass channel (which is a stereo layer ) I will do the opposite and apply the low cut on 200 Hz. The idea is that frequencies of the stereo bass layer don't interfere with the frequencies of the sub-bass layer. Now, after hearing everything together we can clearly hear the difference and the new stereo space that is introduced to the bass sound. Let us hear it once more with and without Q10.

~Layered bass without Q10 + Rhythm

~Layered bass with Q10 + Rhythm