Generate new musical ideas in Ableton Live

Widen your synths with a revamped take on a classic trick

The Haas Effect is a binaural psychoacoustical effect that causes humans to hear two separate sounds as a single one when they’re separated by a very short delay, and are of similar volumes and waveforms. Many engineers have been using this effect to widen mono sounds, or provide the illusion of wide stereo width to a mono (or a too-cantered stereo) sound. The simple trick is to delay either the left or the right channel by enough milliseconds so that your ears will start perceiving it as a stereo signal.

It’s a quick and instant satisfaction tool that works nicely on many sounds. In the example given below, we’ll take the technique a bit further, specifically for synth sounds, adding some modulation of filters and pitch so that your mono signal will sound wide and interesting.

We’ll be using Ableton Live Echo for this, which, thanks to its many possibilities, gives us many options of sonic flavours, and we’ll sprinkle on top some detuning and pitch modulation using the new Live 11.1 device Shifter.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Cristiano Nicolini is a curious and passionate lover of heartfelt music, quality sounds and inspiring tech.

He’s constantly researching non conventional ideas and loves helping others be adventurous with their music. crinico.com