HAAS effect, Pan Law & Panning...???

[Chew_Bear]

A little confused on HAAS effect and Pan Law.

I downloaded some haas effect racks and some Pan Law racks for Ableton and I don't really know 'how' to use them.

1. Whats the difference between Haas Effect and Pan Law...?

2. Are they BOTH mainly used for mixing when its time to pan/spread whatever instruments you want around the stereo field...??? e.g. a shaker more towards the left and a tambourine more towards the right.

3. Which one is more useful for panning instruments around the stereo field...?

4. Am I supposed to use these effect racks directly on a track...or...is it better to setup a return track and than put the effect rack on the return and than just send whatever instruments I want affected to the return track...right...?

5. How about the pan knob on the mixer...? If I decide to use a haas or pan law rack...Do I totally disregard the pan knob on the mixer...? That is...is the mixer pan knob still useful or does a haas/pan law effect totally 'negates' the use of the mixer's pan knob...?

6. How about automation...? Do I automate the haas/pan law effect rack...or...the mixer's pan knob...?

 

[krushing]

The pan(ning) law isn't an effect - it's more like the algorithm that decides how the pan knob behaves. The classic examples are that one attenuates both channels when approaching the center point, while another pan law raises the volume of the other channel while lowering the other. These will affect the track levels in different ways, but I don't think I've ever heard anyone use different pan laws in the same project. I'd say pick one and stick with it.

The Haas effect is a time-based phenomenon - it's kind of like an echo, in a way: when you have two similar sounds coming in with a very short delay between them (I think usually this is between 1-30ms or so), they're not perceived as separate sounds, but the latter sound sort of gives "width" to the former. It's associated to panning because it'll make the stereo image sound wider.

So - panning affects level (and the pan law just says how the levels change), Haas effect affects timing, although the result doesn't seem like a time-based but a spatial effect.