6 Feb
2014
6 Feb
'14
7:10 p.m.
On Thu, Feb 06, 2014 at 04:15:48PM +0000, Dan S wrote:
My point here is not that the "rule" Fons denies is not an unbreakable
rule but it's an extremely strong convention, empirically demonstrated
in this pop dataset at the least. So yes it's a "rule" in the
colloquial sense, and not just in bass music. I have no idea if the
jump-the-needle argument is plausible or urban myth - I had always
thought it was motivated by perceptual considerations, not by the
medium.
I always thought it was because a) low frequencies are hard to localise, so panning them
wildly left and right won't really do much and b) most stereos are
fairly light on bass so panning low frequencies to the centre ensures that both channels
are drive fairly equally giving the greatest sound pressure level possible.
I suspect having the bassy sounds far off-centre would be uncomfortable to listen to,
because we're so used to having bass and vocals panned to the middle.
Experiment, but consider that we do things a conventional way because it works - imagine
reading a book where paragraphs alternated between left to right and right to left.
--
Gordonjcp MM0YEQ