Har-Bal download anyone?

[tigerflystudio]

thanks for the advice, guys. Really appreciate it. I bet ya'll get sick of repeating the same stuff to every newb that happens upon this site, but a big thanks goes out to you (and your patience). My attempts at DIY mixing and masyering will start in January, all being well (final stages of recording album in progress), so I'll come back to posts such as this, and others, just to refresh the memory on your sound advice. I guess what I might do is have a crack at a song or three then see if I can get a pro to have a crack and compare the two version. Be really interesting to hear the difference (if it's notable, I'll probably send the whole album out to be done pro).

[mixmkr]

you can get Har-bal for $99 and if you don't like it, they'll refund your money after 30 days.


I'm glad this was said too

Can one do some interesting things with Hair Ball? Sure, just like Blue Man Group can do some interesting things with PVC pipe. You you don't see BMG actually using that pipe for the purposes for which it was originally designed, like plumbing and such. Similarly, one can do some interesting things sometimes with Hair Ball, just they are rarely the purposes for which Hair Ball was designed and is advertised.
In the right hands, Hair Ball could have a place in the tool kit. But those hands are NOT the audience to which Hair Ball is marketed; i.e. they should never be the hands of a newb who has not already developed a more-than-basic understanding and skill set of how this racket actually works. Let's put it this way, if you want to use it as "visual mastering software", then you should not go near it.

Sometimes I think people jump on the bandwagon and slam something but have no idea how to "milk" a product. All they can do is complain that Har-bal messes up the sound of their Art Tube MP preamp and it sounds lousy thru their Opus 77 speakers...or whatever they bought at Sears.

good reply and insight ssglen.

[bunt]

Har-bal used to offer a free demo... maybe 30 days. I forget, but I loaded the demo a while back with huge hopes of magic (yes I'm a noob) and not just magic, but automated magic that would just do all the work for me. I think I asked it to make my recording sound like a (reference) recording, so I loaded the reference, then hit some clicker for "execute" and also asked for a printout. 37 pages later of EQ & compression over & over (and over) it said "voila" you are there, grasshopper!

I listened to the result with great anticipation... visions of sugarplums and dancing fairies & all that

OMG it was horrible. Worse than horrible. Worse than worse than horrible. It honked like a flock of geese, and was squished like a Texas armadillo on my highway to lazy man's glory...

BUT! It has some great merit as well! That being; It made me quickly and completely realize that the magic beans only lead to hungry giants that eat music. It put me back on the painstaking path of listening, tweaking, listen again, try this.. try that, read read read... llisten some more, get input from the experienced, spend a buck here & there, listen again, tweak some more etc etc.. play better & don't try to mask weak playing or weak mixing with a "do it all for you dolly" (It eats! it drinks! it pees! it pukes!)
So my point is, I guess I learned some lessons from Har-bal

[flatfinger]

Humans gravitate twoards nice little organizing principals....( that is when were not being predictably irrational!)........

dichotomous thinking ( gray; we don't need no stinking gray!) has its advantages.

There is no argument about the ears trumphing the eyes in matters auditory. Short term memory being what it is ( don't you wish you had invented and patented the post-it !!) , It's a good ideal to close your eyes and listen carefully when engaged in the buisness of fidgeting around with audio adjustments of great importance.

However , sometimes we watch the meters , or take measurements , or god forbid, admit we own a device that has an RTA associated with its operation !!!

Of course cookie cutter curve matching is stupid ( although specific genres do seem to follow the leader). Voxegno curve eq does it , Ozone does it , and only late in the game ( even though the urban legend is they invented it !).. did hair- ball actually give in to the users pressure and implement it.


I've learned allot from RTA's , although I found that I used them less as I logged more time in front of the desk . I still use the spectral editor in wavelab allot ( not only displays frequency and amplitudes , but time so you can edit anywhere in a .wav file.


Paul Frindel is up to somthing that seems similar to the much disparaged road that hair ball traveled . He has a great pedigree ( wrote or was heavily involved with the dsp code for most the respected SONNEX line of effects plugs).

Will be interesting to see how it goes for him.


http://www.proaudiodsp.com/

"DSM - Dynamic Spectrum Mapper"

•Unique "Spectrum Capture" for better compression

Cheers guys!

[SouthSIDE Glen]

dichotomous thinking ( gray; we don't need no stinking gray!) has its advantages.

On a primitive, survival-type level, yes. But we - and music - evolved past the fight or flight stage millions of years ago.

If I had to draw such a line in the sand on this hair ball debate, it would be the use of hair ball and it's ilk as decision engines vs. tools used to help execute a decision the user has already made.

In other words, all the bullshit surrounding the ideas of harmonic balancing, curve fitting, etc.; which is all basically letting the software - or at least the software developers - decide what your mix needs, has to dry up and go away.

Now, if the engineer performs his/her own analysis of what up with the mix, and through their knowledge of how all their gear sounds and works, decides that Hair Ball is actually the best tool for the job, then by all means have at it. I'm sure it gone that way two or three times in the past twenty years .

It *ALL* boils down to this, IMHO (and by ALL I mean basically this entire BBS)} either one is cut out to engineer music or they are not. Not everyone is cut out for it, just like not everyone is cut out to be a cop or an accountant or a basketball player or an astronaut. How can you tell if you're cut out for it or not? If the music speaks to you in a way where you know what you need to do. Now, a newb may not have the vocab down, and may not know the exact techniques yet to get the mix from here to there, and that fine; they at least know how to listen to what the music wants.

If one can't do that, then they shouldn't even be sitting down at the mixing desk and should find another avocation to pursue. And the need to use Hair Ball to make our decisions for us should be a big, huge, stinkin' red flag that maybe one should try scuba diving instead.

G.

[masteringhouse]

I trialed Frindle's plug for a while and got some good results on some material, on others it seemed to muck up the mids. It behaves more like a thinly sliced multiband comp. Ultimately I found it a bit too "tweaky" for my tastes and I'm not one who shys away from tweaking things.

That's not to take away from his work in general, he is a great designer.

[joeym]

If I need a hair-ball, I ask my cat.......

Sorry just couldn't help that...

[bunt]

I should admit that I probably have no clue as to the complete capabilities of Har-Bal. I just loaded a demo, clicked on a feature and had unrealistic expectations. I'm just saying the experience was sobering. I also should admit that I've produced results on my own that aren't any better, but less so as time marches on. This is why I come here. I'm still at a point where I should be doing more reading and less typing in the forum, so touche & all that.

[flatfinger]

I agree with glen that I don't want algorithms flying the plane . To quote Alexander Haig , " I am in control here" here"!

It is a greatly humbling to try and become really good at something ( I should know !!) , and I shudder when I look at how much $$ is spent By the recent tsunami-wave of Audio , home recording dilettantes.( Debt is good for the economy ; no??)

That said , the asking price for Hai-ball is actually quite reasonable for a decent eq , but as Massive has already pointed out , the stand alone only aspect Sucks .But look around a few minutes , and you can find some ridunkulously pricey eq's out there for sure .

As far as the "auto -Pilot " eq functions go , the one in HB often leads you to believe that just like real the world, a breatholizer needs to be built into the yoke !!!!

It is akin to the randomizer in a soft synth ( that analogy is imperfect of course). Sometimes it hits the jackpot . But then there is a long stream of two lemons and a cherry . So If you have the time and patience ( or just stubborness) you can roll the bones many a time (not over and over on the same material and not just on full mixes by the way ) and then , and THIS is the important thing ... When it Does hit the jackpot and makes something sound sweet .. Stop ..analyze .. learn .


Of course you can just as well study about how the ear works , critical bands , masking and the effects of the fletcher-munson -equal loudness contours .....and then train those flaps on the side of your huge cabeza ( thats whats illustrated in the times HB is right ) .

Of course any seasoned mix jockey will be rolling there eyes and saying "DUH" by now ; but hey , learn any way you can swing it .


All in all , I can confidently predict that the end of the world will not be promulgated by the small successes of dsp widgets like HB. There is far greater audio villainy to be laid at the doorstep of say , the look-ahead limiter or the Lossy codec.


Cheers

[SouthSIDE Glen]

THIS is the important thing ... When it Does hit the jackpot and makes something sound sweet .. Stop ..analyze .. learn .

hey flatfinger, you gonna Bogart that big honkin' spliff? . Man, what a wild post! (the actual gist of which I agree with, BTW )

But I quoted the above because this brings up a basic principle behind this kind of cra...er....software that should make the sham of it all a dead giveaway:

If you haven't got the ear to EQ something manually and not need something like a hairball, how can you possibly have the ear to know if/when you or your software actually does hit the jackpot? And conversely, if you do have the ear to know, then why in God's name would you want to waste your time yanking the one armed bandit of something like hairball?

In another thread a member asks if it's strange that he doesn't EQ his guitar tracks. What's strange to me is that that question even needs to be asked. It's only strange to skip EQ if your tracks will benefit from it's use. How else can you answer that question? What nobody wants to ever come out and say is that if you have to ask if a track needs EQ, you shouldn't be doing the mixing.

I'm kinda hungry, so it's time for another one of my patented (US Patent #12744978) cooking analogies. If you can't tell what tastes "right" and what doesn't, you shouldn't be cooking.

G.