One of the ways to add depth to your mix is to focus on your stereo imaging. A well mixed track can create a sense of space from the size of a small room to a grand concert hall.
While panning is an obvious way to manipulate the stereo image of a track, the Hass Effect is another technique that’s popularly used by producers to create the same impact on a mix.
The Haas Effect, also sometimes called the precedence effect, is a psychoacoustic phenomenon that causes a listener to perceive a space and direction of a sound when there is a slight delay between stereo channels. The listener perceives that the sound takes place in the direction of the first, or preceding, channel–even if the delay between the two channels is only a few milliseconds.
It works like this, if you create two of the same mono track and pan one hard left and the other hard right, you can affect where the track sits in the stereo image by adding a slight delay to one of the tracks. If you delay the right-panned channel by five milliseconds, so that it plays slightly behind the left-panned channel, the track will sound like its much more prominent in the left channel, despite the fact that the levels are the same on both.
The more delay you add, the more directional the sound feels. However, once you go beyond around seven milliseconds of delay, it will have more of a widening effect on your mix than a directional one.
Where panning manipulates a sound’s stereo image using by affecting the levels of the left and right channels, the Haas Effect does so by affecting the timing of those channels. You may have noticed that panning doesn’t always cut it, too. A track panned halfway to the left can still sound somewhat in the center in your mix. This is why some producers have opted to only use the LCR method of panning, which has all tracks either all the way left, right or right in the center of the mix.
Some producers feel that using the Haas Effect actually adds more focus in the stereo image than panning. It’s also, however, a great way to add stereo dimension to a mono track without using reverb. When you’re experiencing directional masking in your mix, and panning doesn’t seem to help, applying the Haas Effect to a track can also be the solution that you’re missing.
Many stereo delay plugins work by manipulating the Haas Effect.
The Haas Effect is a great way to add depth to your mix, reduce masking, and improve the stereo imaging and space of your mix. It’s also a great technique to have in your mixing toolbox when you’re not sure how to make a mono track sound more spacious without adding reverb.
So, Why A Membership?
Let’s face it — trying to create professional mixes without the correct knowledge, tools, services, and network is like playing a concert with a broken instrument to an audience of no one.
That’s where the Sage Audio membership comes in — the membership gives you everything you need to create professional mixes consistently.
The membership is the secret to your success — it’s the difference between the 1,929,999,999 of poor-sounding mixes and the .00000002% of mixes that make people say 'WOW!"
There are 7 unique value-points included in your Sage Audio membership.
Let’s go over each one so you can decide if the membership is right for you.
1. Sage Audio University
- SAU Flagship Mixing Course: 23-video in-depth mixing course that reveals the little-known secrets of mixing and matches the needs of the new music industry.
- SAU Flagship Mastering Course: 19-video in-depth modern mastering course that dives into every nuance of making professional-sounding masters.
- SAU Pre-Mastering Course: Concise pre-mastering course that details the latest industry standards for preparing your mixes for mastering.
- SAU is designed for every experience level, ranging from budding mixing engineers to advanced engineers. The techniques and concepts taught can be applied to any DAW to create industry-leading mixes without expensive software or plugins - and free plugin alternatives are suggested throughout each course.
- Each SAU course includes Start-to-Finish session walkthrough lessons for multiple genres so you can follow along with your preferred genre.
- SAU Certification Document, which can be downloaded and showcased on your website and social channels.
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2. Private 1-on-1 Mentorship
- The Sage Audio private 1-on-1 Mentorship gives you direct access to us for advanced mixing feedback, in-depth discussions, and customized guidance that's tailored to your specific needs.
- Unlimited private access to us for advanced mixing feedback, where we provide detailed suggestions for improvement.
- Unlimited private access to us for in-depth discussions to help you improve every aspect of your mixes and masters.
- Customized guidance that’s tailored specifically to your needs.
- Fast communication so you can improve your skills quickly.
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3. Unlimited Mixing Feedback
- Unlimited professional mixing feedback directly from us so you can consistently improve your skills and create professional mixes.
- Mixing feedback is invaluable, and the Sage Audio membership gives you continual direct access to us for real-world feedback so you can improve every aspect of each of your mixes while you're in the process of mixing.
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4. 50 Free Mastered Songs Per Year
- 50 free mastered songs per year with your own dedicated professional mastering engineer so you can get all your mixes sounding like professional songs.
- You get your own dedicated Sage Audio mastering engineer to create custom masters that are specific to you and sound exactly how you want.
- Unlimited revisions with your dedicated mastering engineer. As a standard of our service, we are not happy until you are happy with the sound of your masters.
- All masters are delivered as commercial, industry-standard high-resolution 24-bit HD WAV masters so they will sound clean and clear on every platform.
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5. Community
- The Sage Audio community is a tight-knit community of passionate audio engineers who can provide you with additional real-world mixing feedback, meaningful discussions, networking, collaborations, and more.
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6. 70+ GB of Curated Sage Audio Downloadable Content
- 36 multitrack sessions spanning multiple genres for mixing practice.
- 57 un-mastered mixes spanning multiple genres for mastering practice.
- 62 Recommended Free Plugins List (vetted, tested, and approved, so you don’t have to).
- 39 Recommended Paid Plugins List (vetted, tested, and approved, so you don’t have to).
- 71 Sage Audio custom plugin presets to improve your mixes and masters.
- Sage Audio Membership Badge to showcase on your website, social channels, and portfolio.
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7. 800+ Video Catalog
- Access 700+ in-depth Sage Audio mixing and mastering videos - curated and organized into categories so you can easily take a deep dive into all aspects of audio engineering with thousands of hours of concise, expertly crafted Sage Audio videos to continually improve your skills at your own pace.
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