ORIGINAL: Susan G

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

Yellow is peak and green is average signal level. Changing one will change the other. If you take a look at the Har-bal forum, all this will be de-mystified.
Cheers
CC

ORIGINAL: Susan G

Hi Counting Coup-

But shouldn't I be able to adjust the peaks and dips indepentently? That's what I understood from the tutorial. As it is, they just seem to operate in tandem.

Thanks-

Susan

Yes. You use the tab key to change.

>> shouldn't I be able to adjust the peaks and dips indepentently?

No. If you lower the peak power (yellow), it will also bring down the average power (green).

Here's an analogy: say you're in college, and the peak score for a math test was 100%, and the average score was 80%. But then the teacher finds out that the student who scored 100% really made a mistake and got one wrong. The student's score should in fact be 98%, not 100%. The change in the peak from 100% to 98% brings the average down from 80% to something less than 80%.
- john

Hi-

I thought that was interesting, but I guess no one else did! Anyway, I like Har-Bal so far, but I'll move my questions over to their forum.

-Susan

Good points. Still, many of us are finding (going in with open minds) that our songs sound better with har-bal than they did before using it. Not wishful thinking, mind you, but clear improvement not influenced by our having invested $90. So, I'm still a believer. But, I still use your Ozone preset! Although since I started using har-bal I don't use the Ozone EQ as much (if any).

I'm always looking for a better way to do things, so I'm curious about Voxengo CurveEQ and GlissEQ, and might just download those demos to see what they can do.

The hype around HAR-Bal is some what over rated.. if you can hear what sounds good and what is flat enough response curve so what for you need tools like HAR-Bal..? I tested and on some songs its main hype to get flat reasponse goes to woods.. If song contains instruments and sounds where ain´t lets say fregs between 200- 500 then there ain´t.. why you have to pull these frecs up to get flat response curve? Of course men behind this sofware knows this but many newbies can step to the dark..

Many good headphones can reveal lets say problems in bass area or mids. Yes speakers are speakers and with full range system you get best results in STUDIO environment but at home bass is many times the BIG problem..

Many times I have used my headphones as a reference when I tune PA stacks.

I use SPAN and speakers and headphones when I "master" my mixes.

Art of Pros not of hybyist.

ORIGINAL: danhazer

Art of Pros not of hybyist.

What's that supposed to mean?

MMmmm i supose the word is... Hobyst (" amateur" ... newbie ?? )

Greets
ROlo

well, pdarg, don't hesitate and you will find that CurveEQ is not only an eq but can do, if you want, an incredible job of giving an analog touch to your mixes. It has serveral coloring algorithms and it has gear-match (which convolutes your stuff with the touch of high-end analog gear).

best, drjee

IMO mastering & tools gets confusing fast. I'm an amatuer for disclosure sake - that means I don't take money or sell services currently - it doesn't mean I can't hear, hehe.

The conversation about Har-Bal and using it to flatten visual peaks shown on its spectrum is going a little wrong from my point of view.

Har-Bal is a parametric EQ (can adjust from full b/w down to 1/6 octave) with both low and high shelf. During Mastering if you're doing more than general wide bandwidth shelving adjustments you've got an unfinished or broken mix IMO, this requires a remix. Mastering is the time for EQ shelving in general. In Har-Bal this equates to using the low/high shelves to nudge your material into the desired bass and treble regions (below approx 120Hz and above approx 4K) for the mids open up the bandwidth and just nudge the lo-mids and hi-mids up or down a bit to flatten the general shape of the curve. Flat in Har-Bal is the same slope as pink noise which is a -3dB/octave slope and is common in various spectrum analyzers like the DEQ2496 I use also.

If you're not moving wide bandwidths that can be described as bass, lo-mid, hi-mid, high/treble then your're repairing or restoring. I do this too. Sometimes stuff can't be remixed and has to be repaired for re-mastering. In this case a single parametric EQ like Har-Bal may not be the only tool you need. In fact the Har-Bal folks know this and even recommend some additional dynamic processing when things are really out of balance.

There's a limit to how far down you can push on a narrow peak in Har-Bal and still have things sound balanced. If I'm doing rebalancing of that nature I'll pull out Voxengo Soniformer2 and a few other dynamics plugs to gently pull the dynamics into shape then balance the EQ curve of the music using Har-Bal, CurveEQ or GlissEQ.

Long story short - With Harbal (or any EQ with a visual averaging spectrum) I don't like to push down on individual peaks during mastering but use broad strokes to 'flatten' the overall general shape of the curve. In this context flatten usually means mids are generally on a -3dB/octave slope (or even have a slight parabolic shape), bass rolls off at some good sounding point, highs roll off at some good sounding point. What's really fun is tweaking a song, make it sound the best you can, then see how it looks in Har-Bal - that's good practice too!

Just a couple of ideas

ORIGINAL: Anderton

One of the coolest applications I heard of for HarBal was from a guy who mixed multitrack projects. He used HarBal on individual tracks to get rid of room resonances for tracks recorded in spaces with bad acoustics. It allowed him to salvage projects.

That might have been me. This morning I'm using it to sort out an Irish bodhron so it will co-exist with a very deep electronic kick.

I've been following this thread with great interest. If I had to go back to hardware, and keep but one SW product, it would be Har-bal. It's the no.8 fencing wire of music technology!

ORIGINAL: kylen

Yes, all of the above Craig ! How can we loose with the cool DAW tools we have now, hehe? Knock on wood...

I guess I was trying to say that Har-Bal is a cool parametric with a unique eq cursor control and visual interface. A 8192 point Fir in parametric clothing! From a layman (non-DSP programmer) point of view...

Har-Bal is a good tool to use during mixing on individual tracks, mastering, and repair/restoration. I think I may use it more after it becomes a VST plugin.

As a VST plug, should I not be able to insert it in my Sonar output bus (ouch) and compensate globally for room shortcomings - assuming I've correctly done all the necessary sweeps etc. A known 240 Hz dip (say) could reflect as the equivalent 240 bump. Or is this a naive or simply bad practise?

ORIGINAL: Counting Coup
As a VST plug, should I not be able to insert it in my Sonar output bus (ouch) and compensate globally for room shortcomings - assuming I've correctly done all the necessary sweeps etc. A known 240 Hz dip (say) could reflect as the equivalent 240 bump. Or is this a naive or simply bad practise?

I would think inserting an EQ such as Har-Bal on the mastering buss would be ok with the mastering police, hehe.

I don't think hyping your Mixing Application to account for room acoustics is a good practice although I haven't tried it. But...

Generally folks use outboard gear that has 1/6 octave resolution or greater for measurement but then use physical objects (bass traps, auralex, etc.) to actually adjust the EQ. I've also been on audiophile sites where in-line EQs are used to adjust for room problems at 1/3 and 1/6 octave - some folks swear by it, others swear at it. I use physical objects and speaker placement myself.

There are also some DAW tools that give you full resolution spectrums to measure acoustic response with so I guess it's not too far fetched to try room correction from within the box using a DSP. I've swept my room and put it in to Har-Bal among other things just to see what it looks like. I tried an in-line DEQ2496 to adjust my acoustics at one point but didn't like it and went au natural using auralex & 703.

I guess you could try it - the trouble with EQ is if you have to set a steep slope (you probably will if you're trying to fix room standing wave comb filtering I think) various digital EQs may whoosh or ring a little depending on some other factors below my radar. I just remember not liking the sound. Maybe a balance of some acoustic treatments and some EQ would've sounded better...

Something to try - it should be a fun acoustic experience !

<I don't think hyping your Mixing Application to account for room acoustics is a good practice although I haven't tried it. But... >>

I pretty much agree. If you can't correct room acoustics acoustically, you'll always be fighting an uphill battle. But I sure think the idea of doing salvaging of pre-existing conditions with HarBal is pretty clever, and yes, I think it was Counting Coup so credit where credit is due!

OK, I am just catching back up here, I think it should be noted that HarBal is not a VST plug at the moment, thought it is being worked on.

For me personally one of the strengths I see is what was mentioned above, it's not always about making a song sound good, it's about making a complete compliation sound good. Harmonic balancing, resonance control and perceived volume control from song to song...which is pretty much what mastering is all about.

That said, I have used it on a single track of a mix and as a parametric EQ as well. When the VST plug version is released it will become infinately more valuable in those kinds of situations.

Craig Anderton?
:: bowing :: "I'm not worthy, I'm not worthy"

ORIGINAL: Counting Coup

ORIGINAL: dbmasters
Craig Anderton?
:: bowing :: "I'm not worthy, I'm not worthy"

Yeah. This has me worried too.

Ya know, I consider myself a pretty knowledgable guy, I am approached by gear manufacturers on a very regular basis to review their products, write tutorials, participate or help conduct beta tests and such things...but I feel like a 10 year old kid that just met my guitar idol when in the presence of Craig Anderton...

Kudos to you. I only hope and try to someday achieve the level of respect that he commands. And the chicks, my god man, the chicks!