The placement of low-end spectra in popular mixes has ranged from dogmaticcentrality to extreme staging, but current developments in productionworkflows, stylistic evolution and increasingly personalised modes of consumptionhave resulted in alternative—if less polarised—approaches to lowendproduction. 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 sensiblemix architecture. The aim is to investigate the aesthetic and pragmaticcausality behind the phenomenon, but also to examine and theorise on thecreative possibilities for future bass staging.