Har Bal

RE: Har Bal (Anderton)

Wed, 06 Oct 2004 00:40:32 GMT

I'm a big fan of Har-Bal. I do mastering professionally and find that it makes the mastering process go much faster. But there are a few myths:

1. It's for matching frequency curves to those of well-mastered recordings. No, it's for EQ. You can look at a reference but it doesn't do the type of morphing thing that FreeFilter does. Mostly the references I use are of other tracks I've mastered on the same CD to make sure there's a certain level of consistency.

2. It lets you make well-mastered recordings. Although the visuals show you what's going on with the music, you need to be able to interpret the visuals correctly -- to realize, for example, when a frequency peak is a natural, desirable part of the music, and when it's a "rogue" room resonance. It seems people who are already decent mastering engineers get the most out of the program, but it's also a fantastic ear training tool for those getting into mastering.

The most useful aspect of Har-Bal for me is fixing bass range anomalies. This seems to be one of the most important elements in making a master "transportable." For the first three mastering projects where I used Har-Bal, all the clients commented (without prompting!) on how transportable the masters were. I always thought I did pretty transportable masters, but Har-Bal has definitely made it better.

At least in my studio it's an essential program for what I do. FYI I also got an email from someone who uses it on tracks in multitrack recordings to deal with unwanted room resonance issues.

RE: Har Bal (rallenjones)

Tue, 05 Oct 2004 17:08:07 GMT

And the answer is? I appreciate all the help. I guess I should include the fact that I'm just a hobbyist. However, I write and play very complex, long pieces with lots of instruments (Orchestral rock) and its going to be hard to devote the time to get it all sorted out by ear. The basic premise of Har Bal WAS that it enables a visual "quick fix". If it doesn't, well then, why use it? This kind of confusion is why I still haven't purchased any mastering software other than BBE.
Maybe we should have like some poll or something.
Maybe I should just "master" on SONAR and not try to be "professional" since most people aren't into my kind of music anyway. But, it would be nice to have it sound OK.
More confused than ever. I've been working on SONAR since 2001 and STILL have never gotten one piece done. Maybe I should do as the wise man and sit around drinking Duff's and eating donuts...with sprinkles (drool).

RE: Har Bal (kylen)

Tue, 05 Oct 2004 15:25:46 GMT

ORIGINAL: rallenjones

What's this Har Bal EQ mastering thing? Anybody with any experience?

The support and fixes (when required) are similiar in quality to the great folks at PSP which I think is pretty good. Voxengo holds the number 1 place for plug support & fixes in my universe - nobody touches Aleksey.

Yes - the eyes versus the ears concept. Or the eyes augmenting the ears - very useful and fun for me. Har-Bal is a very useful parametric EQ that includes low and high shelfing along with a couple of other bells and whistles like saturation that I don't use. It's coolness is it's visual interface of course.

I like the way that I can take my favorite commercial CD - snatch a reference curve and then poke & pull my own stuff in an effort to smooth out certain major resonances and EQ the bass like the 'big' boys.

Har-Bal has certainly helped me understand why my ears aren't hearing what my eyes are seeing. In fact I have greatly improved my monitoring and acoustics so that I could hear what Har-Bal was showing me.

I like it mostly to EQ the bass in mixes - to give me a better sounding home 'master' - I hardly ever use it on the highs and use broad strokes in the mids. As far as using Har-Bal to 'push' down on resonances well I've decided that the piece just needs a better mix if I find myself repairing something with a 1/10 octave parametric. Although it is useful to do this on older recordings that I don't have tracks to remix.

In the end when using visual matching or any kind of 'reference' curve you still have to decide which to match and which to leave alone. My best reference is still listening to a particular frequency range on a commercial CD and trying to get a particular group of tracks to play together better - or if I'm mastering a mix using broad strokes. I don't have the kind of tools - or knowledge - in my home studio to do major league repair on a full mix.

Another cool tool to visually match with is Voxengo GlissEQ using it's unique or real-time spectrum overlays. I had to comp a vocal track from a few different takes on different days and it helped me 'see' what was wrong with the EQ (I think I ever used 2 differnt mics - doh!) quickly and then fine tune it to my ears.

I use spectrums a lot in my home shack and like them a lot - my goal is to turn them off someday...

2cents

RE: Har Bal (John)

Tue, 05 Oct 2004 14:44:06 GMT

It seems to me that Ozone has similar functions and capabilities.

Best
John

RE: Har Bal (jsaras)

Tue, 05 Oct 2004 14:34:51 GMT

ORIGINAL: UnderTow
The whole point is that these kind of tools are unaffected by any room accoustics or speakers ... But maybe you just don't want people to have these tools. It could get you unemployed. " />

Well, every tool is unaffected by room acoustics and speakers if you want to think of it that way!

To me, Har-Bal is just a spline-based EQ similar to Voxengo's Curve EQ. Neither is sonic nirvana in and of itself.

My point of bringing up room and speakers is that I KNOW that a mix will translate properly when it leaves here the first time because of the overall quality of the listening environment and signal chain. If you don't have that going for you, you should check it on a large variety of systems to make sure that you've haven't missed something. Eventually your ear will "learn" your speaker and room combo and you can get pretty darn good results. By all means go for it!

RE: Har Bal (UnderTow)

Tue, 05 Oct 2004 14:12:54 GMT

ORIGINAL: jsaras

I've tried the demo and I remain somewhat skeptical. The basic premise is that you're using your eyes to achieve the proper tonal balance in relation to an unknown reference "standard" spectrum for a given genre. That's a shot in the dark which may work under some circumstances.

A more educational approach would be to import a wave file of a professionally produced song that you perceive as sounding similar to your song (similar instrumentation) and then use EQ to get as close to that as possible using your ears.

I tried the demo and I didn't even look at the included reference files. I chose some CDs of well produced music in the same genre and style and used those as references within Har-Bal.

I didn't match the EQ curves because that would be more or less pointless but it did show me some interesting things in the bass region. I wasn't happy with the sound of the bass in the track I was working on but after correcting the EQ based on what I saw in Har-Bal AND what my ears heard, things sounded better.

So I see it as a quick tool to quickly find things that need attention.

If you feel you need visual help, you can get Voxengo's SPAN spectrum analyzer for free. The 1/6 octave setting is what I would recommend.

Can you superimpose the spectrum graphs of two tracks like you can in Har-Bal? I find this very usefull. I havn't tried SPAN but if it is free I'll check it out.

I don't see Har-Bal as a replacement for your ears. It is a supplement. Another tool in the toolkit. At least it will be when my next pay check comes in. " />

There are other variables involved such as your speakers and your room, etc., which will impact how well your adjustments translate to other systems. The bottom line is that there is no automatic fix for this stuff....which keeps me employed.
" />

The whole point is that these kind of tools are unaffected by any room accoustics or speakers ... But maybe you just don't want people to have these tools. It could get you unemployed. " />

UnderTow

RE: Har Bal (billc)

Tue, 05 Oct 2004 14:10:20 GMT

jsaras,

I'm beginning to sound like an add for HAR-bal, which I don't mean to do. Yes, HAR-bal is visual based. It helps in at least two ways 1) if you're beginning to learn mixing you can apply EQ quickly and efficiently based on spectrum analysis while retaining volume balances related to EQ changes and 2) if you have a less than perfect aural mixing environment (e.g. bad room or poor speakers) it allows all changes to be applied without reliance on the mixing environment.

You can do similar work with Voxengo's Span, your choice of EQs, volume faders, speaker and room adjustments, and headphone (for a check). However, many will likely consider it easier and quicker to work with HAR-bal.

BillC

RE: Har Bal (2by2)

Tue, 05 Oct 2004 13:59:19 GMT

Yes Bill, you are correct, I use FreeFilter with WaveLab5 to master using other plugins, to get the same result, Normalizer, Meta Normalizer, DC Remover, etc... Sorry for the mis-information, as a great man once said when mistaken - Duh...

RE: Har Bal (jsaras)

Tue, 05 Oct 2004 13:47:37 GMT

I've tried the demo and I remain somewhat skeptical. The basic premise is that you're using your eyes to achieve the proper tonal balance in relation to an unknown reference "standard" spectrum for a given genre. That's a shot in the dark which may work under some circumstances.

A more educational approach would be to import a wave file of a professionally produced song that you perceive as sounding similar to your song (similar instrumentation) and then use EQ to get as close to that as possible using your ears. If you feel you need visual help, you can get Voxengo's SPAN spectrum analyzer for free. The 1/6 octave setting is what I would recommend.

There are other variables involved such as your speakers and your room, etc., which will impact how well your adjustments translate to other systems. The bottom line is that there is no automatic fix for this stuff....which keeps me employed.
" />

RE: Har Bal (billc)

Tue, 05 Oct 2004 12:56:38 GMT

ORIGINAL: 2by2

I use Stienburg's, Free Filter - does the same thing

I don't think so, according to Sound On Sound or this quote from another review. Similar but not the same.

-- Loudness matching is a way to compare the volume of one track to the volume of another, and match them. Since Har-Bal has been released it has made mastering easier and quicker, but with this loudness matching it has made yet another step of mastering quicker. Harmonically balancing each track individually, so they stand well on their own is one thing, Har-Bal made that easier a while ago, but now, you can work with all the tracks of a compilation to master the entire work.

BillC

RE: Har Bal (2by2)

Tue, 05 Oct 2004 12:52:05 GMT

I use Stienburg's, Free Filter - does the same thing

RE: Har Bal (favance)

Tue, 05 Oct 2004 12:45:29 GMT

For $95, it's a great investment! I learned alot...and it will really help my demo mastering.

RE: Har Bal (billc)

Tue, 05 Oct 2004 11:21:09 GMT

Eric,

Just tried the both links and they worked for me. Regarding Google, make sure of spelling Har-bal

(Note the dash!)

BillC

RE: Har Bal (epytryga)

Tue, 05 Oct 2004 11:10:32 GMT

sounds like a cool program...but the links don't seem to work...and nothing comes up in Google...hmm...

RE: Har Bal (billc)

Tue, 05 Oct 2004 11:04:34 GMT

Check out the web site and the forum.

http://www.har-bal.com/

http://har-bal.com/ipw-web/bulletin/bb/index.php

It's a great product that's easy to use and that will teach you things about your mixes you would be hard pressed to discover otherwise. I highly recommend it!

Yes, it can work as an EQ matching tools, but unlike other similar products it adjusts volume for changed frequencies. Also, the real goal is to overcome difficiencies with either your ears or your mixing room without relying on EQ snapshots from other sources. Such snapshots cannot truly address your particular mix, given the likely difference in instruments and dynamics. HAR-bal will help you learn to independently improve your mix regardless of your mixing aural environment.

BTW, it got great review in Sound On Sound. Also, I believe there is still a money-back 30-day garauntee, so you can try it without fear of spending money on something you don't find useful.

BillC

RE: Har Bal (mtl blue)

Tue, 05 Oct 2004 10:45:04 GMT

It is a eq matching stand alone program.

In a nutshell, take a track that you think sounds great. HarBal will take a profile of it. Now load your finalized mix. Bring in that new reference file. You can simply match the frequencies of that track to yours.

The benefit, if you have bad acoustics in your studio or need help with your ears, this program tells you the difficiencies of your mix and helps you correct it using that great sounding track from your favorite cd.

There are other products that do something similar, Ozone, Curve EQ.

RE: Har Bal (UnderTow)

Tue, 05 Oct 2004 10:42:03 GMT

ORIGINAL: rallenjones

What's this Har Bal EQ mastering thing? Anybody with any experience?

I just tried the demo and it seems very cool. I would say, check it out!

UnderTow

Har Bal (rallenjones)

Tue, 05 Oct 2004 10:31:49 GMT

What's this Har Bal EQ mastering thing? Anybody with any experience?