backwoods
Man, that is right there DD! [bows in general direction of New Jersey]!
I was interested to read amongst the testimonials to that HARBAL thing a guy named Paddi Addison who now works in New zealand. He used to be the main FOH guy for pink floyd and the HARBAL site has him writing some nice things about the plugin.
mostly what I was interested in that mastering tut was the explanation of how to set up the multi-band compressor. I have always been intimidated by those things and was trying to get a gauge of whether or not the advice was solid.
Hahah glad ya liked it, thanks! (Thanks to Geno too!)
Well it's like this, if someone can find a use for something and they get good results, I'd never knock that person. However for me, I just don't think the program is good for mastering. As for multiband compression backwoods, don't let it intimidate you.
In all actuality, you shouldn't be using a lot of it anyway in a mastering situation. I use the best MBC on the planet IMHO (UAD Precision Multi-band) and I use it along the lines of it being a border patrol cop or in some instances, a riot control cop. Meaning, it just sort of sits there waiting for something to jump over that line so it can transparently keep it in check so it doesn't cross that line.
The best practice in my experience using a MBC, is when you don't hear it. Just like a compressor. The idea though, is to make sure you hear frequencies that need to be controlled before you use it. This thing works with compressing individual frequencies, so it's a bit different than a compressor. When you jump on it too much, it sort of turns into an eq and you really don't want to use it that way unless you're forced to. In my opinion, you're better off with something like the Sonar LP 64 Multiband (which is a killer little plug now that Noel fixed it so it doesn't glitch when you tweak it) over anything you'd use in HAR-BAL. But that's just me....you using HAR-BAL may give you totally pro quality.
I've just spent a numerous amount of time in my years with HAR-BAL and can't make enough of a difference with it that makes me happier to use it over my mastering chain. When I use my UAD version, it's sort of like the fine tuners on my Floyd Rose. I eq my song that I'm mastering, compress lightly to tighten it up, and then lightly apply the MBC just to keep things even tighter so no rogue frequencies cross that line. It's been a winner for me for many years. But as soon as you jump on it too much, the artifacts will make you cringe and you can really mess up your eq curve if you're not careful.
Another HAR-BAL warning: It relies heavily on the graphs presented. If you watch them too much and try to tweak things to where they look good, you end up with something that doesn't sound very good most times. When we use graphs, charts or any type of analysis type tools, we need to know what to look for of course, but most importantly, what to listen for.
I've seen eq charts that looked so bad, I cringed yet the songs sounded fantastic. I've seen charts look incredible, yet the music was lacking. So you can't always depend on what you see. The only time I even look at a chart/graph is when there is something bothering me that I can't quite pin-point. I don't just run them and fix every little thing that looks wrong. You will just about always remove something good if you go about it that way.
Using pro curves in HAR-BAL: This just won't work. You can't load up the mastering cruve for The Beatles White album, apply it to your material and expect to sound like The Beatles. You can't do that with ANY pro mix. The reason being....your instrumentation is different than theirs. You can come close if you go through the pains of hell to be authentic, but even there...you'll need to make some manual tweaks.
For example, Marc and Robbie posted a version of Van Halen's "Dance the Night Away" on the songs forum. They went through the pains of hell to make the song sound super authentic in the instruments they chose. If they would have run that song through HAR-BAL using the curve from the actual VH tune, they would have faired incredibly well. They still would have needed to tweak a few things, but in a case where you really try to cop something, applying the curve can be helpful. But 8 times out of 10, using this method will fail for most things.
So other than a good analysis tool or something to help you cop certain things, HAR-BAL hasn't impressed me in a mastering situation at all. I don't think the tools provided are very good and I've never came out with something better than doing things my normal way. That's not to say it won't work for you or someone else though. Just giving you my take for what it's worth. :)
-Danny