I made a review video that’s posted at:
Now here are my notes:
The Haas Effect w/ Klevgrand Haaze 2
Named after Dr. Helmut Haas, the man who discovered that when one sound is
followed by another with less than 40 ms or less they are audible as one
source. Also that the direction that sound comes from is perceived by the
first sound.
Why use the Haas effect during music mixing? To add stereo width to mono
sources. Also, to better position tracks in the stereo field. Ideally
recording two or more good takes is better but that’s not always possible,
particularly in live recording scenarios.
Typically I will use the haas effect trick with electric or acoustic
guitars. Synths or violins would also work. There are several steps
involved and it takes a little bit of tweaking to get it to sound right.
Klevgrand Haaze, now in version 2, aims to make this process faster and
better.
Before I get into the technical details, let’s listen to a few samples of
what it can do. I’ll have these handy phase colleration and stereo field
meters on screen at all times so you can visualize what’s going on and see
if it retains mono compatible throughout.
Play samples
Available in AU, VST, AAX and also AUv3 for iPad users, the Haaze 2.0
interface is simple enough. Unfortunately, it does not appear to be
resizeaable.
Under the hood, Haaze uses four main processes to get an otherwise complex
job done. The Haas effect itself, stereo panning, sum and difference also
known as mid-side processing and finally gain. All these processes are
accomplished using frequency bands instead of as a whole.
I’m go through the presets and play the tracks again. Pay attention to the
meters and of course use your ears.
I like the Natural and Musical left/right presets. Yes on some the tone
changes so you just need to adjust EQ after you find a preset that you
like. When panning in a sparse arrangement you don’t typically want to have
the audio fully one channel or the other. These presets make it very
simple. Other presets are good for sound design purposes.
Draw Mode simply allows you to move left and right. Useful for playing
around through the different modes.
Does not have a custom presets ability. In REAPER this isn’t a problem but
it could be in other DAWs.
Can also be used as a utility plugin for mix checks on the LoFi presets.
Check mono compatibility on each instance!
All in all this is a very useful plugin. I highly recommend trying it out.
I’ll definitely be using it on a lot of mixes in the future.
