Ladies, Gentlemen and Felines, I have created what is arguably the world’s first lolcat-powered Reaktor effect. I beg your forgiveness.

While working in Reaper I noticed it has a handy Haas effect plugin created in its native JS format. I thought I’d edit it to add some enhancements but decided I was too lazy to learn a new language right now, so I did it in Reaktor instead. It took minutes to throw together – the longest chore was finding, trimming and inserting the cheezburger cat graphic.

The Haas effect is very simple: you delay the right or left channel of a sound by a short amount. This has a few different applications, one of which is faking stereo spread. Taking a mono signal like a guitar and delaying the left or right side a bit makes it sound wider, bigger, more spacious. Use it where you would use a chorus, if you don’t want a chorus but feel it still needs a little something. It can also have interesting effects on a signal where the right and left components aren’t identical.

One thing you have to watch out for is weirdness when the two channels are mixed to mono. It can create phase cancellation and squishy sounding effects. That’s why there’s a “sum” button – it gives you a preview of the mono mix – the left and right summed together.

The other front panel controls determine the amount of delay, which side is delayed, and how the visual scope is tuned. The cat graphic, while not connected to any of the internal wiring, is essential.

Download HaasCheezburger for Reaktor