HAR-BAL

ORIGINAL: pdarg

ORIGINAL: danhazer

Until the end of the year I am on 9th and Marquette in the AT&T tower. My cube pretty much looks right at the word "Foshay"

Howdy neighbor. I'm in the AEFA Headquarters building @ 3rd & 7th. You're about 3 minutes walking (skyway) distance from me. Cool huh?

Wow! Too much! THREE GUYS FROM MINNEAPOLIS on the same thread!
Two out of three love Har-Bal, me . . . still undecided.

But the recommendations from fellow Minnesotans goes a long ways. Har-Bal has a 30 day try-refund policy, so I am now leaning towards just taking the plunge.

I'm stuck in the 'burbs so I'll have to take a rain check for lunch.

Real men work in the cities!

Oh, and I know Earle and Paavo, they have their trial period, and they honor it. They are good people and honest people...I consider them friends...but honestly I wonder if anyone has asked for their money back?

I think I'll ask next time I speak with them...I can't imagine anyone not loving it...

ORIGINAL: Counting Coup

Dan. What you might like doing with your drums is to get the mix up the way you think you want it. Export the drums to a stereo pair, Har-bal against a reference, note the changes, re-import the stereo pair and use as is OR tweek the individual drum tracks using the notes you made. This could work around the room issue. I do this always with bass to great effect.

Edit: Sorry Dan, confusing my forums. It's early in the morning here.

I assume you are making refference to my post over @ HarBal. You have a great idea, and believe it or not, I had thought of that...Hey, great minds think alike.

I'm just going to repeat this so it doesn't get lost:

Can someone clarify something for me? Does Har-Bal actually have over 8,000 "bands" of EQ?

I assume then that the parametric nudging cursor is a simplified way of dealing with such resolution??

Also, why is there nothing showing over 10k? Is that just the demo, and the real version goes above that?

there really aren't "bands", it's not a graphic or parametric EQ, it's a continous, very high resolution view of the EQ spectrum that you have complete control over.

ORIGINAL: Dave

BTW, you might be one of "those people" with a great set of ears, and able to achieve a mix that many others only dream of, seriously. So if you nail it, you nail it.

..., I'm finding it very educational to load up real tracks of commercially released music, and have a look at the spectrum. Then I begin making changes to it, as if it were my own mix. Sometimes, it sounds better, sometimes it doesn't, and that's where the education is.

I think I agree with you on your whole comment. My contribution to this thread was really for people like me who don't want to be left out if there is some secret tool to creating great sounding mixes.

Har-bal is a great tool to help you get there, but its not a requirement. You might get more bang for the buck in results from a mastering suite, but, you are probably most likely to learn the most from using Har-Bal.

Eric

ORIGINAL: pdarg
Can someone clarify something for me? Does Har-Bal actually have over 8,000 "bands" of EQ?

I assume then that the parametric nudging cursor is a simplified way of dealing with such resolution??

Also, why is there nothing showing over 10k? Is that just the demo, and the real version goes above that?

Har-Bal has a 8192-point linear-phase digital filter which can be manipulated via either the parametric cursor (down to 1/6 octave b/w) or the shelving cursor (both low and high shelfs).

There's a view you can select to see the final 'curve' you have constructed after poking around with the cursors and listening (yes you have to do that too!).

The Har-Bal purchased product includes access to the full audio spectrum - I thought the demo was only 8-bit limited not freq limited also, that would make for a pretty crappy demo.

Well, I did my experiment and har-bal'ed a track to har-bals "rock" reference curve. Then I analyized that track with Curve EQ and got a spectrum to use from it. Applied that spectrum to a "un-eq'ed" song in sonar and exported it. Then bought that song into har-bal and anaylized it to see if it matched up with the original "rock" curve in harbal. It was pretty close but not right on. I assume because curve EQ matches to 70 bands and not a continuous curve. But now I have a good enough Curve EQ spectrum to try out some stuff in sonar.

Hi Spinedoc,

I am a user of CurveEQ and downloaded the rial of Har-Bal. But the latter is very much limited so I thought it is not woth while spending to much time on it. Whjat I understood though is: basically it is standalone linear phase spline equalizer which allows spectrum catching and comes with some reference spectrums already. It also has loundness compensation. That's cool but not really an issue if you apply the eq before limiting (whicxh is the usual fx chain).
so it does not oofer anything more than CurveEQ but some reference files and loundness compensatiuon. But it lacks the great coloring possibilites of CurveEQ (saturation and gear-match) and, so far, it is not available as a plugin. Or did I miss anything? If you got CurveEQ, why would you need Har-Bal if you don't need loudness compensation and are ready to create your own reference spectrums from mixes that you like? I am asking you since you have both products and limitations of the demo make it impossible to check the sound quality.

best, drjee

Okay, I bought it. I have a 30 day trial so I can really hear what it does.

I have to confess that to really use it well, it's going to take some learning on my part, so give me a few days here before I render a final opinion.

I will say this, so far the results are pretty amazing. It's true that it's not a plug-in, and the interface/look is a bit old, but what matters is the sound, and so far, it sounds good.

More to come - I guess I know what I'll be doing this weekend.

ORIGINAL: pdarg
More to come - I guess I know what I'll be doing this weekend.

My advise: Print-off the whole of the Har-bal forum. Get in the bath and don't get out till you have read it all. It will make you a wiser (and cleaner) man/woman and your weekend will be a happier one for it!
:-)

Drjee,
Basically to get a more "educational" tool with the visual spectrum, and also the reference curves are averages of hundreds of mixes from my understanding. 95.00 with 30 day guarentee is a great deal.

thanks spinedoc.

I still don't seem to get it. also in curveeq you have a visual spectrum analysis, of course. howe is the har-bal one different? and to reference corves: is the average not just average? I mean to say: does it sound better if you use the har-bal curves than a) adjusting the eq manually b) matching the song to one of your favourite mixes?

sorry for instisting, but I would not feel comfortable first ordering, then finding out it's not much useful and returing it. I really think they should rethink their demo-policy.

best, drjee

Here's a way to check the product out. First, get the full version, because they are offering the money-back guarantee.

Go to the Har-Bal forum "Har-Bal .mfl Filter Bank". Download a few of the songs that are posted there. Convert them to wavs. Then go to http://www.har-bal.com/filter and save the filter that corresponds to the songs you downloaded.

Use these songs and their filters as a real demo of the har-bal system. In some cases you'll be amazed at how Har-Bal transforms the mix from amateur to professional. In other cases, there will be only slight improvement. But there were a couple of songs that sounded pretty good, which were *excellent* after Har-Bal.

Then, as they recommend, save the Harbalized song, import it into Sonar, apply multiband compression and limiting, and it will pretty much sound incredible.

[And personally, I'd delete the music you downloaded beause it is copyrighted material, but that's another post! :-) ]

That's just the tip of the iceburg. They also have loudness matching capability too, for mastering entire CDs.

I'm just learning to use this tool, but so far, it seems extremely useful. I now wouldn't want to be without it. (I must say though that I have not used CurveEQ so I'm not able to compare.)

(I must say though that I have not used CurveEQ so I'm not able to compare.)

that's the point Dave: I have CurveEQ and to me the two products appear to be quite comparable so I wanted to know from people who got both if Har-Bal really makes a diffrence. And: being able to get a refund is fine, but I think it would be better to get a demo which let#s you test things in full resolution. it's ok if things cannot be saved. but how to test a product in 8bit resolution. they are crazy, and that's maybe why I am so reluctant to belive that Har-Bal is any better than CurveEQ which sounds great and even greater. btw, you can download a demo of CurveEQ that allows testing it in full bit resolution, and I suggest you give it a try since it's really magic also for coloring yopur stuff through gear-match that is applying the sound character of analog gear by convolution to your input. that's why it completly makers sense to apply CurveEQ even when to to totally flat but with adding "color".

best, drjee

best, drjee

I find HAR-BAL easy to use and rarely use reference filters for mixes. References are best used to match mixes belonging to an album of songs you are trying to sequence to get them to have similar character and thus give the impression that each song fits together within the album.

Below is a good suggested way to work with HAR-BAL on individual songs (excerpt is from the HAR-BAL forum). If you are not happy with HAR-BAL, it is a sign that you don't fully understand how to work with it. Suggest everyone read the HAR-BAL forum tops and the tutorial.

Don't flatten out your peaks (yellow line), particularly in higher frequencies! Only lower peaks that are usually high and seem odd. The peaks represent your unique recorded sound and the collection of instruments you used in the arrangement.

Do even out your significant valleys (green line), particularly in the mid to low frequency range. You want similar energy across most frequencies...with the traditional down turn on the extreme low and high ends. You don't need a reference file to figure out this stuff.

=============================

Try the process below to establish a workflow.

1. Load a file into Har-Bal and just sit back and look at it for a few seconds.
2. Press the red button on the bottom right of screen (cos you don't need it)
3. Now there are two lines.
a) Yellow (peak) in top shows the peaks
b) Green (average) on the bottom shows the holes.
4. Start with the top line...are there any peaks more than 1/8 inches up to the 3khz region? If so, bring them down.
***********************************
Hint: Hold the left mouse button down while pressing the tab button to switch between the lines
************************************
5. Look at the green line and determine if there are any large dips/holes in the spectrum. If so, pull them up. Notice how you can determine the "Q" width moving the mouse from side to side.

************************************
Hint: Make sure your "eq" button is depressed while making changes so you can hear them.
************************************

The whole idea is to sculpt your spectrum so that you have no major peaks or holes. This will enable your mix to sound great on all systems because the spectral content of your song is correct.

When you are satisfied press the red record button and save the new file. It will be appended with an eq extension.
Old song name "yoursong.wav" becomes
"yoursong_eq.wav".

=============================

BillC

Okay, I bought Har-Bal about a week ago and have been working with it ever since. I promised I would render my final judgment: I like it. The application takes a bit of learning to get used to, but I think that the results have been very positive, and this thing has made it into my mastering chain.

I am providing two short MP3 samples for you to decide for yourselves; If you can't guess which one Har-Bal was used on, then maybe it's not as good as I think it is.

Here they are:

http://www.edusim.net/music/mp3/sample-d1.mp3 and
http://www.edusim.net/music/mp3/sample-d2.mp3

I think that the second one sounds better.

urock

The second one seems to have a bit more high mids in it.
Other than that they are pretty close.
Or is that just my ears.

I got it two days ago.

It seems powerful, but I am having trouble getting the zen of comparing to a reference.

Plan on a long learning curve.

The first one seemed a little smoother overall to me.

http://www.edusim.net/music/mp3/sample-d1.mp3 and
http://www.edusim.net/music/mp3/sample-d2.mp3

Second one was HarBalized, right?

what about soniformer? doesn't that do exactly what harbal does? i.e. - flatten out your mix?


Kind regards

DAve Rich.

Dave, just a quick look at their page tells me that both products are trying to do the same thing, but I'm not sure if they're exactly the same, because Voxengo describes theirs as a compressor of sorts, whereas Har-Bal seems to describe theirs in terms of EQ and gain. But I'm not well-versed in EQ technology anyway. Suffice to say, they both claim to modify the spectrum of your finished or near-finished recording.

Maybe I should download Soniformer's "before" samples, and see what I come up with in Har-Bal. :-)
-Dave

Hmm . . . The reactions I am getting here are mixed.

It is the first one that has Har-Bal. The second was mastered similarly except that a different EQ plug was used in that step in the chain.

Hmm . . maybe it's not as good as I thought . . .

Of course, we may have to take into account such things as what monitor types etc. people are listening to these on.

It is the first one that has Har-Bal. The second was mastered similarly except that a different EQ plug was used in that step in the chain.

Hmm . . maybe it's not as good as I thought . . .

Of course, we may have to take into account such things as what monitor types etc. people are listening to these on.

Don't give up on it that easily. My take was that the first one sounded flatter where as the second was more 'hi-fi', even listening through computer speakers. A hi-fi sound may be pleasing in the right environment, but it generally doesn't translate well to all speakers. I haven't tried HAR-BAL but my take is that it is intended to help balance a mix, not make it sound pleasing. Let the listener do that to their own taste.

I also picked #2 (non HarBal) as the better sounding mix (however, it may not translate well). Of course, it has translated well for everyone so far.

How does the Har-Bal'ed version compare on different system -- car, through TV speakers, boombox, etc.? Does it help in that sense?

In my professional opinion both versions will translate equally to all systems. Neither version had an edge in that department.

Why was there additional EQ after Har-Bal? Isn't the point of it to take care of that chore completely?

I'm an EQ nut (that's 85% of my job!), but I remain skeptical about Har-Bal's claim to proper EQ nirvana via a handful of magic reference curves and a visual display. There are plenty of linear phase EQs out there that will do the job equally as well. If you need a visual display you can get that for free (Voxengo SPAN is very nice). The instant loudness compensation is a nice feature, but it's not that hard to do manually if you know how to use RMS metering.

You still gotta use your ears for this stuff!

ORIGINAL: jsaras

Why was there additional EQ after Har-Bal? Isn't the point of it to take care of that chore completely?

Actually, there was no EQ used after the Har-Bal in the first sample.

ORIGINAL: jsaras
You still gotta use your ears for this stuff!

Amen to that! Testing these different tools is hopefully honing my skills in this regard.

I remain skeptical about Har-Bal's claim to proper EQ nirvana via a handful of magic reference curves and a visual display.

It doesn't make that claim. They urge the judicious use of this tool.


Har-Bal good.

ORIGINAL: torhan

How does the Har-Bal'ed version compare on different system -- car, through TV speakers, boombox, etc.? Does it help in that sense?

Pretty much the whole purpose of HarBal is to make it quicker and easier to get the best sound in different situations. I have had nothing but stellar results, and saved me a lot of burned and reburned masters listening here and there...argh...

Plus, its not very expensive even if you think of it only as a linear EQ with no other magic

Eric

Okay, I set up another round for a go. I have found all of your comments valuable - keep 'em coming.

Two samples, one Har-Bal, the other EQ'ed with a different plug - which sounds better?

http://www.edusim.net/music/hor1.mp3 and
http://www.edusim.net/music/hor2.mp3

One thing it may be wise to keep in mind with this stuff is that ultimately you should not be leaving the mastering process the task of "fixing" your mix.

If you have arrant frequencies or dynamics they have a source and it is best to tame them at the source.
EQ sounds with the whole mix playing.
Decide which sounds get to have which frequency ranges.
Subgroup sounds in similar ranges and compress/EQ the subgroup before it goes to the master bus, this will make getting the tune louder in mastering much easier and more transparent.

Try to mix so that to the farthest point possible, your mix needs NO mastering.
And that doesn't mean strapping compression across the master bus while mixing. That's bad imo mmmkayyy. The same thing can be achieved with multiple bus compression/limiting

A step further and in fact more advanced is to track so your mix needs as little mixing as possible. meaning use the right mic placement, guitars, amp settings etc.
Record sounds that fit well together to start with and be militant about getting it right. Spend 3 hours finding the right guitar sound if you have to.

Then, at the end you can listen to your beautiful mix and compare it to a mix of what you think it should be sort of like and use your own ears and decide if you should add the extra annoying hi mids and squsih the **** out of it or keep the wonderful sound you worked so hard achieve because you don't have to bow to no ****head record co executive twits.

Aim for making mixes that sound pleasing and are nice to listen to for long periods of time, it's unfair to the music and it's creators to dump their art into the trashy claustraphobic cannister we hear tunes dumped into in mainstream radio. Please don't subscribe to that soon to be dead horse.

Try to mix so that to the farthest point possible, your mix needs NO mastering.

We should try to do that, I agree. But there isn't a CD on the shelf that hasn't been mastered in some way, shape or form.

ORIGINAL: danhazer

Try to mix so that to the farthest point possible, your mix needs NO mastering.

We should try to do that, I agree. But there isn't a CD on the shelf that hasn't been mastered in some way, shape or form.

I'm not suggesting you skip the step, i'm saying you will get superior results with a a mindset of....

I'm not suggesting you skip the step, i'm saying you will get superior results with a a mindset of....

I agree 100%

Bump:

Okay, I set up another round for a go. I have found all of your comments valuable - keep 'em coming.

Two samples, one Har-Bal, the other EQ'ed with a different plug - which sounds better?

http://www.edusim.net/music/hor1.mp3 and
http://www.edusim.net/music/hor2.mp3

hi, in the previous examples I already found the difference not too big, but still I had the same opinion as most people: no 2 (which was nor har-baled) sounded better to me. maybe, something is wrong with my ears but to me, now, it sounds so much similar that I can't tell which one is better. they are equal. also analysing the files with audition's spectrum meter did not show much difference.

best, drjee

ORIGINAL: pdarg
Okay, I set up another round for a go. I have found all of your comments valuable - keep 'em coming.
Two samples, one Har-Bal, the other EQ'ed with a different plug - which sounds better?

The first one is a touch louder, brighter (actually, a little too much on the treble) and has more bass (perhaps slightly exaggerated as well, but certainly not bad).

Hi,

I used your two examples to do some further processing with voxengo tools (transmooder > soniformer > curveeq > warmifier > elephant)

I am not sure if I am really satisfyed with the result and also recoding it again to mp3 did probably not improve the sound but, anyway, here is the result:

http://www.power-xs.net/download/voxsample-d1.mp3

http://www.power-xs.net/download/voxhor1.mp3

Har-Bal....

Got mine today....

Deliverance!

Mixes just go from one song to another, one system to another,
all speakers great and small... just like the BIG BOYS.

No more or at least a whole lot less trips to and from my car in the
garage and a lot less waste in CDs.

This is a killer app like autotune.

:LSB

ORIGINAL: drjee

hi, in the previous examples I already found the difference not too big, but still I had the same opinion as most people: no 2 (which was nor har-baled) sounded better to me. maybe, something is wrong with my ears but to me, now, it sounds so much similar that I can't tell which one is better. they are equal. also analysing the files with audition's spectrum meter did not show much difference.

best, drjee

I am driving myself crazy with this!

Actually, in the second example, it is the second sample that is Har-Bal'ed.

I think what I am seeing is that - you gotta get the EQ right, and the tool is secondary to the choices you make in how to use it.

ORIGINAL: drjee

Hi,

I used your two examples to do some further processing with voxengo tools (transmooder > soniformer > curveeq > warmifier > elephant)

I am not sure if I am really satisfyed with the result and also recoding it again to mp3 did probably not improve the sound but, anyway, here is the result:

http://www.power-xs.net/download/voxsample-d1.mp3

http://www.power-xs.net/download/voxhor1.mp3

These actually sound pretty good, but I am getting some clipping on both waves here.

yes. you are right, I reloaded the files and checked them and there are some clipped samples. if I am not completely out of order, this must have happend during reconversion to MP3. very strange, did this happen to anyone else before? I used the fraunhofer encoder which comes with audition since I was to lazy to use lame. Is this a known issue of the fraunhofer encoder?

If the first one was Harbalized, then I'd be interested in a post of the filter file too. Don't forget, no matter how "visual" they say the product is, it always comes down to the ears. And in your examples, there was bottom end richness missing in the first one. That doesn't mean Har-Bal failed you. It means you may have simply not used Har-Bal to put in sufficient richness. Just as with any plugin, you can use it to make an awful sound too if you wish.

I'm not a crusader for Har-Bal, but I can tell you that I have loaded mixes that I slaved over for many hours trying to tweak, and instantly saw the problem when I loaded them in Har-Bal. And for me, any product that can help remove the need for multiple listening environments is *gold*, because it saves time.

I've noticed that if you are already listening to your mixes in a nice room, with good speakers, you may be getting close before using Har-Bal anyway. If your room is excellent, then it is of course possible that *any* EQ will improve your mix in the way you've done. What Har-Bal does is let you *see* it for sure.

I'm wondering, where exactly in the mixing/mastering chain did you use Har-Bal?

ORIGINAL: drjee

yes. you are right, I reloaded the files and checked them and there are some clipped samples. if I am not completely out of order, this must have happend during reconversion to MP3. very strange, did this happen to anyone else before? I used the fraunhofer encoder which comes with audition since I was to lazy to use lame. Is this a known issue of the fraunhofer encoder?

I did a little research and foudthat this is a common thing in mp3 encoding. see the following link:

http://xmixahlx.com/oldsites/soniccompression/questions.html#clip

maybe I did not realize this before since I did not analyse any mp3s and to me it was not audible. when I encode mp3s "manually" I, however, normalize to 98% anyway.

best, drjee

Hi Dave,

Har-Bal is not the only tool offering a spectrum/frequency analyzer. you can get free ones:

voxengo span or elemantal audio inspector

also voxengo curveeq has a spectrum analyser included

but if you ask me:

I prefer mastering in a dedicated wave editor. I use audition, and it has a live spectrum analyser, phase analyser and db meter. you can also analyse the wave and get all sorts of statistical data (and see it in an histogram). you even have a spectrum wave view if you need it. so there is much more visualized information available than in har-bal.

I still don't get what is so unique with it and the examples posted show that the result is not necessarily better than using other tools. maybe even the other way round.

best, drjee

ORIGINAL: Dave

I'm wondering, where exactly in the mixing/mastering chain did you use Har-Bal?

Just after the rough mix is exported in 24 bit/88.2. After Har-Bal, it gets some very light compression/limiting, and then re-sampling and dithering to 16/44.

voxengo span or elemantal audio inspector

I have span - no replacement for Har-Bal. Nowhere close.

I still don't get what is so unique with it and the examples posted show that the result is not necessarily better than using other tools. maybe even the other way round.

The other way round? Yes, if you are a know nothing who abuses the tool. That's true of any processing tool available.

I never said that span is a replacement for har-bal. obviously not, since it is not an eq. it is just a tool for visualisation and many people pointed out that visualisation (in combination with eq) is what they appreciated.

I don't abuse the tool. I know nothing about it? well, I tried the demo but for its limitations I was not able to really test it. and from the examples which were posted one could get the impression that not the har-baled but the other versions sounded better.

so, no abuse, I am just trying to find out what people appreciate so much but so far I am bnot really convinced.

I don't abuse the tool.

I didn't mean to imply that. Sorry if you took it that way.

Har-Bal is much easier to use than a spectral analizer like span because it shows an average of what your song looks like over it's span at a glance.

ORIGINAL: danhazer

Har-Bal is much easier to use than a spectral analizer like span because it shows an average of what your song looks like over it's span at a glance.

well, you can set span to display the average. but I agree that it's maybe not as comfortable since you will have to play the whole file to get the real total average. but as I pointed out, I use audition, and in audition you just load the wave file, press the scan button in the frequency analyser (which, of course, also works in "real-time") and there you are!

best, drjee

I'm looking at har-bal. Does it not seem like wishful thinking that one spectrum shape can properly be applied to an entire song? Extreme example, what if the break in your heavy metal tune is to an a cappella verse followed by a flugelhorn solo?

What do I know?

a.

Extreme example, what if the break in your heavy metal tune is to an a cappella verse followed by a flugelhorn solo?

Well, I think that HarBal is looking for frequency response "signatures." For example, suppose there's a wicked room resonance at 300 Hz. If you recorded drums or a flugelhorn or an a capella verse in that room, they would all exhibit the resonance at 300 Hz, and Har-Bal would display that.

Now, of course the process of analyzing an average will not be perfect for every type of material. But overall, most recorded music does have a frequency response signature that HarBal can detect.

I do think it is important to emphasize that HarBal works best for people who already know how to master, because it just helps them do what they do faster. But this certainly doesn't discount the ear training aspect for those who aren't experienced in mastering.

ORIGINAL: Anderton
suppose there's a wicked room resonance at 300 Hz.

Craig, you sure seem to get a lot of material that has room resonanaces! Everytime you discuss Har-Bal you mention this particular issue. Just sweeping a regular EQ would reveal/fix this problem very quickly.

HAR-BAL

I've check this program out and it looks good. I've also read the example tutorial file which explain things very well. However from what I have seen the main aim is the get a well balanced mix. I relatively smooth Curve graph from Low end to middle and top end (All while trying to keep the life of the instruments intact).

The example given in the tutorial is all well and good but what happens if you are making different genres of music? i.e. Drum and bass, Hiphop, ambient (No beats) ect. You will always have a warped graph for some genres like hiphop. I'm wondering if the aim is to get a relatively smooth graph the how can you achieve this with these genres?

Any1 know of any tips and tricks or good tutorial files on this?

Cheers all and apologies as this is not related to SONAR

(I'm no Har-Bal expert but...]

The aim is *not* to just smooth everything off. In fact, that could destroy your mix, making it sound flat with no impact whatsoever.

One aim is to use Har-Bal to visually notice dips and peaks that are not part of the "genre", but are probably anomolies in your room or speakers, and get rid of them.

As far as using Har-Bal with different genres, one of the best ways to do this (for example, in hip-hop) is to load a few tracks from CDs that you know are well mixed and mastered, and which closely emulate the kind of music you are trying to mix. Look at the spectrum in Har-bal, and get a feel for the *look* of the spectrum. If your music is very close in sound (same kinds of instruments, same kind of singer, etc.), then you can even load a well-mastered track as a reference, and actually pull your own spectrum up/down to overlay it (although I would not try to do this precisely, because it could take some life out of your mix - just do it approximately).

There's a tutorial on Har-Bal's web site that does a better job of explaining this than I can! Go to this link.

Hi-

I've been playing around with this a bit, and I'm sure I'm missing something simple. When I lower the peak (yellow line) the green line (dip) changes, and vice versa. According to the tutorial, I should be able to adjust these independently, no?

TIA-

Susan