The Haas Effect

stepXinXtheXmix

stepXinXtheXmix

New member
Hey all, I have been doing some in depth studying on different mixing techniques and came across the Haas effect. VERY interesting to say the least. Has anyone ever used this method, if so what did you use it on and how did it turn out? I've yet to try this out, but kind of exciting to put it to practice.
 
I'm not sure I understand what you're asking. All stereo mixing uses the Haas effect -- that's why stereo can produce a full sound field with sound sources discretely located within it. I use slap echo from time to time which, I suppose, is related in the sense that by extending the period between the two sounds, I am precluding the Haas effect, which produces that nice "ping pong" sound.
 
PTravel said:
I'm not sure I understand what you're asking. All stereo mixing uses the Haas effect -- that's why stereo can produce a full sound field with sound sources discretely located within it. I use slap echo from time to time which, I suppose, is related in the sense that by extending the period between the two sounds, I am precluding the Haas effect, which produces that nice "ping pong" sound.
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Not so much delay that it causes a ping pong delay, but in the 5-6 ms range. From what I understand it's taking a mono signal and rather than panning it left or right, you create a copy, panning one hard left and the other hard right, add a delay of around 3ms to 7ms to add the effect and "slide" it across the stereo field. My question is, how much can you use this before it's too much and what does it work well with?
 
Interesting. I've never heard of that before. I'd be curious to know if people have used this, too. Is there some advantage to doing this, rather than panning?
 
I'm aware of it but never use it.
Rather than duplicating mono tracks, I'd just apply a stereo delay to a single mono track. (Same outcome)
One side would be delayed by 0 and the other to taste.

Like I say though, I don't use it for anything.
 
PTravel said:
Interesting. I've never heard of that before. I'd be curious to know if people have used this, too. Is there some advantage to doing this, rather than panning?
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From what I could tell, you get more fullness from doing it. Instead of sending all the power of an instrument toward the left or right, you have a signal in each speaker, but you perceive the signal without the delay first, or vice versa, not sure. the best example I've found was explained, imagine you have an instrument in the center of a room, when you pan it, your basically taking that whole room and turning it to the left or right. When you use the Haas effect, instead of moving the whole room you're moving the instrument, 'sliding' it toward the side. But it explained that you can run into phasing issue by using it. That's why I was wondering, how much is too much? I realize a lot of it is just getting in there and trying it out, but like I mentioned earlier, I haven't had a chance and I like hearing the elder's(no offense) feedback.
 
Just last month I got to hear one of my mixes on the radio. It was FM but mono because the station is almost all news and talk. Haas effect delays could have degraded ungracefully into comb filtering. Fortunately there were no such delays and the mix sounded fine.

I would like to try it live, delaying the amplified sound a little to emphasize the acoustic sound. Then again, my digital speaker processor may have enough inherent delay to be doing that already.
 
If anyone could point to a recording in which this was done, I'd appreciate it. I'd like to see if I can hear the effect.
 
PTravel said:
If anyone could point to a recording in which this was done, I'd appreciate it. I'd like to see if I can hear the effect.
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Rather, just try it. The simple pan application happens in the first half to one ms! You still get the panning beyond that time but it starts to add in other effects (tone, the comb frequencies it were combined back to mono, depth' effects out at 8 -10ms or so if I recall.
Don't use it myself.
 
stepXinXtheXmix said:
This is a good video that explains the effect. He does a demonstration in there that gives the effect. Very cool

Pro Tools Tutorials: The Haas Effect - YouTube
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Yes that covers it well and a nice refresher. As a side note his time / freq cancellation chart at around 12:00 shows an example of how combing extends lower as you increase the time dif. Good for illustrating what you can expect as you combine close and far mics for example.
 
The problems with the haas effect are that, 1. it produces comb filters when collapsed to mono, and 2. no matter how much you delay the signal it will always pull your ear to the undelayed side because it is appealing to the ears' localization cues. Try it. You'll always feel like the undelayed source is louder. This offsets the stereo effect.

The reason for this is that the ear/brain complex relies on the difference of inter-aural arrival cues of a point source to localize sounds around the head. This is a result of our evolution as human beings.

Personally I would rather put the mono source in the middle and then use short delays or ambience impulse responses to give the mono source some "space".

To me there are better ways to simulate "width".

Cheers :)
 
So after watching the video, I guess if your aim is to create motion and "space" without panning it is a useful trick. Seems like a lot of work for something so subtle, though.

I'm not quite sure what I'm missing because I've never used tricks like this to simulate primary reflections and subtle movement. Then again, I use the LCR method and use ambience plugins to simulate depth and reflection.

Cheers :)
 
Most people miss the point on this.
I have used this quite successfully many times.
It works best on something like percussion that you want panned to one side.
In my case- I've used it on a Floor tom that came in occasionally and was panned to one side, and was meant to be a little louder than normal. More of an effect than a typical tom fill.
Every time the hit came, the left side of the mix shot up- compressors didn't know what to do with it.
Enter the Haas solution. Printing a copy to the right side, evened out the balance, and made the tom louder so that we could lower the volume on the left side. Then add a few ms of delay the right Tom and the left tom again appeared to come from the left.
Plus, now the levels showed a much more balanced level.
You can test in mono to see the comb effect. By changing the delay and level of the right tom, you can get something quite acceptable.
I wouldn't use this on a constant playing instrument. Only on the occasional, out of ordinary part, that messes with your overall balance.
 
Greg_L said:
:facepalm: :facepalm:
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Greg_L said:
:facepalm:
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Yup. This dumb "technique" comes up every few months unfortunately. I think that just because it has a cool name, it gets way more credibility than it should.

99.9999999% of the time, people are using it as a lazy way to "create" stereo from a mono instrument.

Try it, you'll hate it. Then you'll go back and record your mono instrument twice like you should have to begin with.
 
Lol. Yeah I'm not even gonna get into it. These people wanna entertain themselves with DAW shenanigans so I'm not gonna try to stop them. Ignorance is bliss.
 
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