Originally
published in the Boston Audio Society newsletter, The BAS Speaker,
Volume 26, Number 1
This debilitating mental condition
was first reported in an AES paper in the early 70’s by Helmut
Haas, and became known as the Haas Effect. Highly infectious, this
impaired judgment condition reached epidemic levels in mid 70’s
spread to nearly every recording engineer, producer and AE instructor
in the industry. It impacts the hearing judgment of engineers, causing
them to record talent in acoustic sterile environments, notably
devoid of any early reflections. The evidence of its insidious presence
becomes clearly evident whenever listening to modern recording tracks
or mixes.
Long gone are those early recording days when everybody got together
in one big room, opened up 15 mics went direct to tape in 2 takes,
without headphones or isobooths. No one was worried much about catching
early reflections then, because they couldn’t. It isn’t
a social disease, it is a disease born of isolation. Those early
sessions just happened to be self-inoculated. Flush with hundreds
of low-level cross talk signals and early reflections, the engineers
got some of the sweetest the musical noise floors ever recorded
in history and made great sounding records.
Justified by the Haas report and fueled by paranoid
fears of comb filter coloration, every single reflection near the
mic has systematically been exterminated over the last 30 years
in most recording studios. “The only good early reflection
is a dead early reflection.” With this purge of early reflections
nearly complete, today’s music is now completely composed
out of separate sterile, dry tracks, spiced up after the fact with
the FX rack. Mixing has essentially become the work of a sonic funeral
parlor technicians, trying to bring dead sound back to life, for
just one more show.
Finally a cure to modern, lifeless sound recording
has been found. Inoculation process requires that tracks be recorded
in a Haas Saturated Signal Format, the exact opposite from a Haas
Sterile Signal Format (reflection free zone, RFZ). It requires introducing
some 30 to 60 random time offset Specular Reflections accompanying
each direct signal within the first 30 ms. The resultant signal
complex (statistical assembly of discrete, off axis reflections)
has absolutely no comb filter effect and the track is completely
full of acoustical life, the instrument, voice and the music.
Formerly dead mixes can be remixed through an acoustic
process of sweetening by playing the dry mix through an acoustic
package that creates a similar plethora of early reflections. Caution,
the RT-60 of the Haas Saturated early reflection package needs to
be in the range of 1/10 second and a very early time gap is generally
set at about 3 ms.
This cure was discovered when big studio recording
engineers started fooling around with TubeTraps in the mid 80’s,
endorsed early on by Pete Townshend (Eel Pie Synclavier Sampling
Room) and for the last 10+ years with Studio Traps by Bruce “You’ve
got to hear this” Swedien. ASC remains dedicated to teaching
reflection saturated recording methods and providing acoustic inoculation
packages to recording engineers who recognize that their work suffers
from the debilitating influence of Reflectophobia.
