Im having trouble getting bass sounds and kicks to sound full or more present in mixes while listened to on small speakers like a laptop. My first thought would be compression but I'm wondering if there are any other thoughts on how to achieve this. Would it help to pan everything other than the kick and bass slightly off from dead center and try to eq to prevent low frequencies from other instruments eating up the sound space?

I doubt it has to do with the stereo spread, but simply small speakers uncapable of reproducing low frequencies. My monitors, KRK Rokit 5 goes down to 52 Hz, which isn't particularly low but probably ok for 5"speaker elements. To get sub bass I should probably add a sub woofer. Still those speakers are huge compared to what could be found in a laptop.

If you try to mix for laptop speakers your mix will probably sound like €%/# everywhere else.

If you listen to reference tracks, do you find other songs have better kick/bass then you get?

I see what you're saying about little underpowered speakers. The mixes sound fine on my alesis m1 active 520 usb speakers and my mdr-7506 headphones, but I should take your recommendation and a/b my mixes with other folks successful ones. Do you know a good way to do that in ableton so I can better match the sound levels and mix qualities of another track? I never a/b a mix and I have just started to learn more about mid/side listening because my mixes are kinda crowded with not much if any stereo separation elements. I just need to post some music again, get some assessments and work on improving my music.
Thanks

Not sure about Ableton in particular but you can straight up load up your mix inspiration directly into it's own audio track and have yours under it. When you want to A/B... solo/mute accordingly.

Sounds like a simple solution that can/should work in every DAW.

Low frequencies need the help of their higher harmonics to help them be heard on small speakers such as computer or laptop speakers. Sometimes we create a kick or bass that doesn't have many or any harmonics, it is just a low fundamental frequency. Everything needs its own treatment but the idea is the same.

Mix in some sort of distortion to add the upper harmonics. There are many ways to do this. Regular guitar pedal distortion, amp or cabinet simulators, tube saturation, bit crushing, low pass filtering, ring modulation. My favorite is ring mod because I can usually dial in just a small amount and keep the sound unchanged but it will have the upper harmonics it needs to be heard.

It depends how much you are willing to changed the sound to be heard. More intense FX can make thing be heard but they may lose the original charecter they had. I usally run the fx around 30%dry/wet and sometimes two fx.

Give your Kicks and bass a little more mid frequencies through es or saturation. Your laptop speakers are not able to reproduce proper low frequencies.

Just EQ can sometimes do the trick.. try boosting the kick around 3..5 kHz or smth. Although boosting is generally not recommended, but it´s a percussive sound so it won´t make it sound "unnatural" so easily (in contrast to boosting a sustained sound)

Another way is to layer another kick on it, which has more presence in higher freqs. High-pass the new higher kick so it won´t conflict with the old one.

With a bassline I would go with slight distortion/saturation like suggested earlier.

Keep in mind that at low listening levels, the bass (as well as highs) is heard relatively quieter compared to mids.

Hey thanks folks, I have some good ideas to work with now. I'll try it out and see what I can get going.