The Haas effect

In music making you want to give way to all instruments and sounds in your creations. Since the transition from mono to stereo, beginning in the 1930s, one of the ways is to position the sound source between left and right.

Why not use panning?

Historically and still generally, music producers use panning as a way you place a sound left or right. But regular panning can be a weak tool when it comes to spatial distribution of sound. It doesn’t resemble real world acoustics.

While panning affects the volume of a sound to the left or right, using the haas effect you instead apply delay differences between the left and right ear. This makes the sound actually sound like it comes from a certain direction, instead of just being louder in one ear.

Position a piano to the right using the haas effect compared to regular panning

So what exactly is the haas effect? When two almost identical sounds reaches the ears at slightly different timings, our brains doesn’t perceive them as two different sounds but instead as a single auditory event, with a direction from the sound which arrives first. This only works if the delay is short enough that it’s not passed as an echo, which is typically over 30-50ms depending on the sound. How far to the left or right depends on how long the delay is. This human ability to experience direction of sound, without thinking, is what has made us hear where predators and preys came from (we say this wearing our very serious lab coats).

However, there is one problem with the haas effect. It can result in phase issues in sensitive areas (like bass) or during mono playback.

Haaze is our solution

At Klevgränd we love the haas effect, but are aware of the phasing issues. While the haas effect can be achieved using almost any delay from your daw, we wanted to create a simple tool so you could utilize the haas effect and work around its issues in some clever way. So we came up with the idea of having control over the effect on different frequency bands - this resulted in our baby Haaze. By controlling the haas effect, panning, overall width and gain on the 16 frequency bands you can gently apply the haas effect to the frequencies you desire, making the positioning feel more natural, understandable and pleasant for the ears - while still mono compatible. If all this sounds complicated, Haaze 2 comes with many presets that will help you to get started.

Turn a mono guitar track into stereo

Conclusion

The haas effect is a widely effective tool (pun intended) to position sounds, widen tracks and add depth to your mix, when used with care and consideration. So experiment, pay attention and begin your journey through space and time!

Written by Tove Gustafsson (masters degree in music production, Working at Klevgränd since 2018.)