Craig is 'prolly gonna leave now.



:LSB

Well, minus the enthusiasm about the chicks

Oh Susan you hav'nt lived!

:LSB

Hi bitman-

Oh Susan you hav'nt lived!

LOL! There's still time...!

-Susan

Hey everybody, thanks so much for the kind words! I have a great gig :)

I'm here just cause I'm like y'all, a Sonar user who's always looking for ways to get more out of it, and to find out what others are using it for.

I gotta tell you a HarBal story.

When it first came out, the hype was so over the top I was convinced it was snake oil and maybe even fraudulent. So I went to Mitch at EQ and said "Let me review this HarBal thing, I want to expose them." He said fine.

So I got the program and installed it. Whoa! It worked pretty well. Then I took a tune I'd done in the early 80s that was unmasterable. I could never get it to sound right. Thinking it was my mastering skills, I let a hotshot pro mastering guy give it a try. He said "There's something wrong with this, not sure what, but you have problems in the lower mids."

I loaded it into HarBal, and immediately saw the problem: A massive dip and a massive peak, just a tiny distance apart in frequency. No wonder I couldn't EQ it: I just couldn't find a bandpass shape that dealt with one problem while not affecting the other. If I got rid of the notch, the peak got boosted more. If I notched out the peak, the notch got notched more.

Well, HarBal fixed it. Luckily I'd never said anything derogatory in public, so I didn't have to take it back :) But I was impressed.

I've since mastered projects for two other clients and used HarBal. Both said, without any prompting, that these were the most transportable songs they'd ever heard...worked on anything. I really think that has a lot to do with HarBal.

By the way, about the chicks...the thing about the maid, the French poodle, and Mary-Kate and Ashley was COMPLETELY overblown. Besides, the jury agreed that the sheets had been clearly marked "non-flammable." So there! Thanks for giving me this opportunity to set the record straight <G>.

Have a great Thanksgiving, y'all!

I certainly wouldn't argue with using Har-Bal for the situation you just described, but there are other tools, notably Voxengo Curve EQ, that could have been used to perform the same task. All you'd have to do is to trace an EQ curve (spline mode) that follows the average display and then hit the invert button. Although this won't getcha perfect, it will get you to within two or three mouse-clicks of getting the job done. Just a different way to cook the same turkey!

That said, the material that I receive that is unmasterable usually just suffers from basic frequency conflicts. When the vocalist, ride cymbal and electric guitar are all competing for 2k there isn't much I can do to make it sound good. The other classic battle is kick drum and bass guitar. When a bottom-boosted bass drum overwhelms the fundamental tones provided by the bass, the mastering job is done even before it's started.

Craig, you seem to encounter more than your fair share of room resonance problems ;}. What I run into more often are instrumental resonances. Many bass guitars, for example, have a "sweet" or a "dead" spot and sometimes both. I once had a bass guitar track where even the most severe compression or expansion didn't even it out. Creating an EQ curve that tamed these anomalies did wonders. If I didn't have access to this individual instrument track and I only had access to the final stereo mix I doubt that I could have done anything worthwhile with it.

The common thread thru all of this, IMO, is that it's all about EQ! It's great to have a variety of these tools at your disposal to get the job done.

Craig Anderton!?!?!?!

Does anybody know how to spell "genuflect"? (that's as close as I can get...)

From my first Tascam 144, back around '79, thru every change in medium and track count - there's been one (or several) of your books within easy reach.

Thanks for everything you've given us, Craig - I for one wouldn't be anywhere near as good at all this as I am (matter of opinion, of course) wthout your patient de-mystifying of it all.

You Da Man -

By the way - it kicks ass to see you here, Mr. Anderton.

Okay, one last time, I have two short MP3 samples, one was Har-Balized, and the other was EQ'ed with a more conventional plug. The question (as always), is which one sounds best/most professional, etc.:

http://www.edusim.net/music/Dockside-1.mp3 and
http://www.edusim.net/music/Dockside-2.mp3

As always, your totally honest opinion is always appreciated . . .

And of course, a comment from Mr. Anderton would undoubtedly get printed up here and posted on my wall!!

this time my winner is file no 1. was that the har-baled one? analysing the files, however, showed that both seem to have some spectrum imbalanced especially on the left channel around 2000 Hz and, less dramatic, also around 1000 Hz and 3000 Hz.

drjee

So OK - after reading all this (and noting Mr Andertons' comments - no small endorsement to me...), I'm gonna go ahead and buy HB. Sounds like it can do me some good.

A couple questions for current users -

- What's the registration scheme like? Will it be usable from the moment I download, or will I be waiting for an emailed key or some such? As I tend to dump and reload my system at least twice a year, I'd like to know if there's much hassle. (Also, I may be upgrading the hardware soon, is the registration hardware-dependant?)

- "Standalone app..." Well, does it show up, or can it be made to, in
the "Tools" menu, like Sound Forge does? If I want to grab a track on the fly to look at it - howzat work?

- The promised VST version (or "bridge") - based on current users experience, think current users will get it free, or reasonably priced upgrade, or.....what? Basically, should I be waiting for a bit to expand my options? Obviously not expecting any concrete answer here, just whatever thoughts current users may have........

Thanks all - Happy Thanksgiving.......

ORIGINAL: pdarg
Okay, one last time, I have two short MP3 samples, one was Har-Balized, and the other was EQ'ed with a more conventional plug.

Neither one stood out as being that much better than the other.

Here's a link to pretty close to where I would EQ for this one:

http://audiorecordingandservices.com/dockside_ja_master.wav

I used v1 as my departure point and the volume is matched to the original. No other effects were employed, just my trusty EQ!

ORIGINAL: jsaras

ORIGINAL: pdarg
Okay, one last time, I have two short MP3 samples, one was Har-Balized, and the other was EQ'ed with a more conventional plug.

Neither one stood out as being that much better than the other.

Here's a link to pretty close to where I would EQ for this one:

http://audiorecordingandservices.com/dockside_ja_master.wav

I used v1 as my departure point and the volume is matched to the original. No other effects were employed, just my trusty EQ!

Very interesting. Both Har-Bal and the Firium seem to be pointing towards a high-mid gain and low-mid cut; since they are working in the same way, they tend to sound alike, but apparently both are producing a bit too much treble overall. I thought that maybe the first sample (The Firum EQ) was a bit too dull in the highs, but it would seem that - in comparison to your treated sample - both are brighter than they should be.

I'll keep working with this - I've learned quite a bit in the last two weeks. I still don't know if Har-Bal is the best choice for me, but it's been fascinating journey.

ORIGINAL: ricstudioc

So OK - after reading all this (and noting Mr Andertons' comments - no small endorsement to me...), I'm gonna go ahead and buy HB. Sounds like it can do me some good.

A couple questions for current users -

- What's the registration scheme like? Will it be usable from the moment I download, or will I be waiting for an emailed key or some such? As I tend to dump and reload my system at least twice a year, I'd like to know if there's much hassle. (Also, I may be upgrading the hardware soon, is the registration hardware-dependant?)

- "Standalone app..." Well, does it show up, or can it be made to, in
the "Tools" menu, like Sound Forge does? If I want to grab a track on the fly to look at it - howzat work?

- The promised VST version (or "bridge") - based on current users experience, think current users will get it free, or reasonably priced upgrade, or.....what? Basically, should I be waiting for a bit to expand my options? Obviously not expecting any concrete answer here, just whatever thoughts current users may have........

Thanks all - Happy Thanksgiving.......

- Reg code will be emailed to you shortly after purchase

- Yes it can be registered under "tools" options of different apps using different methods, it's not automatic tho

- VST upgrade will be a free upgrade to registered users.

Both Har-Bal and the Firium seem to be pointing towards a high-mid gain and low-mid cut; since they are working in the same way, they tend to sound alike, but apparently both are producing a bit too much treble overall. I thought that maybe the first sample (The Firum EQ) was a bit too dull in the highs, but it would seem that - in comparison to your treated sample - both are brighter than they should be.

Hi pdarg,

actually, at least I liked both your versions better than the example of jsaras, but his again reveals that sound is also something very subjective.

but I completely agree with jsaras that I cannot see why har-bal is so much hiped. cureq has a very similar approach and it sounds fantasic. the only thing is, as dbmasters pointed out, that har-bal has loudness compensation. but since you usually do eqing before limiting that should not be an issue.

best, drjee

interesting. so you are using mainly sonar as a (pre-)mastering host. I use a dedicated wave editor - in my case audition, since it has very good visualization and statistical tools which give you a lot of important information. so I am exporting the mix without any dithering and downsampling and then all the rest is done in audition using its integrated tools (also very good for restauration) and plugins like ozone (less often) and the voxengo stuff (more often). if needed/wanted I also use some further coloring plugs like warmifier or even lampthruster. so a typical settup would be transmodder > crunchessor and/or soniformer > curveeq (> wamifier or lampthruster) > elephant. I never likesd polysquasher, for me crunchessor is much better, it can be rather clean or give you so many "colors". and soniformer is a beast, I am only slowly lerning to tame. transmodder has become very valuable for me though. especially, when you get stuff which is already compressed you can use it as a kind of decompression tool.

best, drjee