reading the Har-Bal site, I found this link:-
 
http://thehub.musiciansfriend.com/tech-tips/eq-curves-and-musical-style
 
 
By Craig Anderton...

EQ Latest...
 
Hi Peeps (you know who you are...)
 
I've been playing more with SPAN. I am even more familiar now with how this works, including the "edit" controls. I almost understand the Correlation Meter, although I need to learn more about "phase."
 
I have also splashed out on Pro-Q 2. Because I've got a few FabFilter plug-ins now, it "only" cost me £50. And Pro-Q 2 allows you to adjust the "Tilt" (as "slope" is referred to in Pro-Q2) of the spectrum display (0, 1.5, 3.0, 4.5 and 6.0 dB/Octave).
 
Since reading through Dave's article on Spectral Dynamics I've been trying many things.
 
"White Noise" and "Pink Noise" is mentioned in that article, both of which I am familiar with through using those waveforms in sound synthesis. What I wasn't fully aware of, until now, is the frequencies that make up white noise.
 
Yes, I know it's supposed to be made up of all frequencies...
 
But I've always "perceived" white noise as a hiss, which is why it is used to emulate hi-hats and cymbals.
 
Anyway, I have a Sonar project called "EQ_Study," which contains some commercial reference tracks and I have just added a soft synth so that I can create some white and pink noise.
 
I then put that white noise through SPAN and at first I got this:-
 

 
This is because the current slope setting for SPAN is 4.5 degrees.
 
If I set the slope to zero degrees I get this:-
 

 
So, it can now be seen that the white noise signal going through SPAN has equal "energy levels" (dB) through the frequency spectrum.
 
But I still "perceive" the signal as a hiss, and yet the spectrum analyser is telling me that there are "sounds" at every frequency, from sub 10 Hz to beyond 20 kHz. I can't hear anything much below 100 Hz, and I experimented by adding in Pro-Q 2 a Low Cut band, with a steep 96 dB/octave slope and swept it along the frequency range.
 
Realisation dawns... I've been reading a lot about this over the last couple of days, but this kind of hammers it home for me... The lower the frequency, the more energy is required for it to register with our ears.
 
Amazing!
 
It's so much more fun being a noob
 

It's so much more fun being a noob

Nah, learning new stuff is where the fun is. Every time I learn something new I get the same feeling as when I find money in a coat pocket.
 
If it's more fun being a noob, it's only because there is that much more out there waiting to be learned.

BTW, here's what I learned new today: Pro-Q2 has a tilt adjustment. I did not know that, so thanks.
 

Hi Dave,
 
Thanks for popping in again... I hope you didn't find my "elation" too scary LOL!
 

bitflipper
If it's more fun being a noob, it's only because there is that much more out there waiting to be learned.

Yeah, pretty much where I was coming from... Every day is a school day 
 

bitflipper
BTW, here's what I learned new today: Pro-Q2 has a tilt adjustment. I did not know that, so thanks.

 
What do you reckon to that? Do you think you'd bother getting it? I guess you already have tools in the box that does the same anyway.
 
It was the tilt adjustment that swung my decision, along with all the help I've received of you in the last month or so (and even further back than that).
 
I'm having a day of from EQ'ing today... I'm still having trouble with that Nessus toon of mine. I take it to another system and it's still sounding bassy, even though the SPAN curve doesn't look too bad:-

 
At least I don't think it looks to bad!!! hahaha
 
As you can see, I've carried out some serious low and high cut there (try not to laugh too hard  )
 
 
cheers
 
andy
 

this is why i like Har Bal so much,
it's probably the single best learning tool i have.
 
i have spent a lot of time studying pro mixes, mastered finished product, using harbal.
 
it helped me learn my monitors and room.
 
it helped me understand how friggin' different almost every song i've analyzed really is...
 
and that there are no real hard, fast rules about dialing in a good eq for an overall mix,
because it's too variable.
 
 
but i've also learned a lot from isolating certain areas of tracks, that favor, say, just acoustic guitar, or just voice, or just bass and drums, to see how they affect the curve, the freq response of the song, and lets just say that sonic fingerprints require certain frequencies to rule,
and learning how, and why, and when, and where, that's the key.

batsbrew
and learning how, and why, and when, and where, that's the key.

And therein lies the problem... I'm only just scratching the surface really. Each time I get back to my music hobby, anything I've learned previously has gone out of the window. A bit does stick in, but I'm having to go back over old ground. But most of the stuff discussed in this thread is quite new to me.
 
And, yeah, I've been spending literally hours just looking at stuff in SPAN, now that I have a better idea of how it works. I've also been isolating each of my Nessus tracks in Sonar, seeing how the spectrum looks in SPAN.
 
I've got to get off these headphones though... My youngest son is hopefully moving into his own house soon, and I'm going to set up my DAW in another room so that I can get my nearfields out again. I'm definitely not picking up the lower frequencies in my 'phones, and as much as I would like to trust SPAN, I don't think it is showing me everything.
 
 
Thanks for popping back in here Rob, I appreciate your input 

I once took a test mix over to a friend's house to audition it on his Bose hi-fi. He was proud of his setup, which mostly was just for TV. But I had to bite my lip when heard how awful it sounded. Way too bassy and the bass wasn't the least bit linear. Fine for explosions in action movies, terrible for music.
 
Three epiphanies became solidified in my mind at that moment:
1. It was physically impossible to make a mix that would sound good on such systems.
2. As much as I like bass it's better to have too little than too much.
3. The midrange is where it's at.
 
Because my car stereo has similar issues (not coincidentally, it's also Bose), I started looking at records that did sound OK there, to see what they had in common. To my surprise, the commonality was that they were all a little bass-light by modern standards. Dark Side of the Moon, Brothers in Arms, Tom Petty and anything produced by Jeff Lynne. And not just classic albums, but also the best-sounding recent recordings also tended to be less bass-heavy.
 
So if SPAN says the bass is OK, you can trust it. More so than any speakers or headphones, or even your own ears.
 
 

bitflipper
So if SPAN says the bass is OK, you can trust it. More so than any speakers or headphones, or even your own ears.

 
Okay Dave... That's good to know.
 
So, what did you think of my "curve" above?
 
I suppose it can depend on how SPAN is set up...
 
If I'm checking a whole mix just to see what the average is over the length of the tune, I set the spectrum to "average." But if I want to keep an eye on what is going on at each point in the mix, I set it to "real time average." I've decided that the "maximum" values are not as important, because it is the RMS (which is what I am assuming is meant by "average") that gives audio its perceived "loudness." I think I need to check on that...

I agree with Dave when the release is for a broad audience, but when it is smaller, like the band and family, you can mix for their ears.