A thought/Idea that I have yet to try.

[steevio]

you can widen the bass to resolve issues. imo it's not so much of a problem with the frequencies but it's gonna sound flat if everything is dead center on top of each other and you will spend alot of time trying to make it work

before someone says bass is supposed to be mono, the definition of mono is that it's the exact same thing coming out of both speakers, that's it. this is why modern DAW developers like ableton only give you "stereo" channels to work with because mono isn't just single channel audio. you can have a super wide bass that still works in mono. yes for vinyl pressing the subs should be mono but JUST the subs, there's alot more frequency content in kicks and bass that can be played with in the acoustic space. the subs mixing together a little isn't going to be a problem, the problem is when you have two big sounds like kick and bass dead center, the envelopes fight each other much more than just those super lows

just load up your favorite track from favorite artist on a good phase scope and watch it as it plays

there's a ton of badass plugins that do all kinds of widening magic, pair one witha phase scope and it's on

i think alot depends on whether your music is meant to be played in clubs or not. all the fancy stereo effects virtually dissappear in a big club, where unless you're standing dead centre between the sound system stacks, and that might only be 20 people in the whole club, (if the systems are even in stereo)
in fact they might only weaken the sound, and sounds panned widely will be totally lost on one side of the club.

what sounds amazing in headphones, might not translate into the places where the music is meant to be heard.

i'm not sure what you mean by envelopes fighting each other, i call that tightness, and punch. i'm often more concerned about smearing the sounds too much in the stereo field, and cluttering it up. dead centre is also part of the field, and it provides solidity to have powerful sounds residing there.

like you say it is only absolutely necessary to centre the low bass for vinyl pressing, the rest is down to personal taste. i quite like to have a more 'mono' sound to my tracks, it seems more punchy and focussed that way, but i can also appreciate super-wide effects too, but theres no compulsion to use them like everything else inproduction

[tone-def]

i've been thinking about tuning bass to kick a lot recently and it's got me in a rut. my problem is i like my kicks between E (41Hz) and A (55Hz), which is also where i like my bass. i'm starting to think maybe i should have my bass on top of my kick, as i've been analyzing some records i like and they all seem to be like that apart from the odd note here and there. if my kick is a G where should the root note of the bass line be? everyone says they should be a 4th or 5th apart but that doesn't seem very helpful if your bass is a bit melodic and goes up and down in pitch.

[kivetros]

Can you post links to some of the records that you are talking about?

[tone-def]

heres a couple it's harder to make out whats going on down there with youtube quality but most of the bass is going on above the kick.

[steevio]

the kicks in those tracks have really short decays, so you're mostly hearing the mids in them, hardly any sub audible in my beatbox even with sub bass boost on

cool tracks

[hydrogen]

on that dandy jack one it sounds like he's got a seperate sub frequency chained to the kick. dunno steevio... my sub is still vibing pretty hard in here. i mean it could be more intense, but its there.

[tone-def]

youtube isn't doing them justice. you can really hear the sub in those kicks straight off the vinyl.

[tone-def]

anyway. this what the important part in my post

if my kick is a G where should the root note of the bass line be? everyone says they should be a 4th or 5th apart but that doesn't seem very helpful if your bass is a bit melodic and goes up and down in pitch.