Har-Bal

  • Thread starter Thread starter mattkw80
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All the software would have to do - is have a master program, with several little nodes running in each track you want to see.

So you stick node1 on the bass, node2 on the guitar, node3 of etc. etc.

And then.... the master program will show the frequency graph drawn for each node, in different colors.

You would very clearly be able to see where each intrument sit in the spectrum. I've talked to a friend is who is a very advanced programmer - and he's says he could do it, if it looks like a worth while project.

I know I need to develop my ears -- but I've already been doing that for 5 years or so --- If I can get some technology to give me an edge, I'm going to. I understand paying your dues - and I do believe in experience as the best teacher -- but I need to speed things up here -- I've got bands who want to record now.

I'm not going to buy Har-bal.... but I think there is value in a multi-instrument frequency analyzer.
 
mattkw80 said:
I need to speed things up here -- I've got bands who want to record now.
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I can understand how a multi-lead analyzer would be pretty cool, but you could just simply simultaneously run a seperate spectrum analyzer plug on each track. The lines wouldn't be superimposed, but they'd probably be a lot easier to read.

Or you could simply strap the analyzer across the master buss (if your DAW allows that) and selectively mute and unmute different tracks to see how they effect the overall mix.

But let me ask you:

Just how do you intend on using it? In other words, what will you be looking for in it that you'll think will be able to tell you what you need to know? Just how will being able to see the envelope of the kick superimposed against the envelope of the bass, for example, be able to tell you how to process and mix each track?

And what is it that makes you believe that it will be any faster or easier for you to try and interpret your tracks visually?

Really understanding how to read an FFT analysis in detail and understand how to correlate it against what one is hearing can take just as long as just training your ears, and *still* requires being able to hear the difference anyway.

The bands may be ready to record, but if you're not, those bouncing lights are not going to bring you along any faster.

Hell, in the time that it'll take your programmer friend to whip up an untested alpha version of that program, you could simply buckle down with a few CDs, an EQ, your ears, and a little determination, and learn 10 times as much as that program will ever tell you.

G.
 
Please correct me if I have any of these concepts wrong.

As I understand it - the whole point of EQ is to cut (but somtimes also boost) frequencies in different instruments so that you can "make room" to hear each one.

I hear alot of people say things like "I've cut 100 or 200 out of the kick so the bass guitar will come through", or vice versa.

Experienced guys will know to do that -- I don't know what to cut where, to better balance -- I can use my ears, but I still really am just guessing.

(I do have charts printed out and stuck all over my walls -- "magic frequency" type charts for each instruments, etc. - so I do turn to those as a starting reference. I also own about 10 different books on recording and mixing )


I was hoping that with something visual - I could see the bass and kick, see where they overlap, and then hopefully know where to "get them out of each other's way". I know there would be alot of overlap in some place, but there must be some point where I don't want the kick and bass guitar being the same dominate frequency.

One of the first things I ever bought for my home studio, was the Alto RSA 27 Real Time analyzer. I bought it, because someone I know who is very very good at live sound, and gets excellent results in studio's as well, came to my house, observed what I was doing there - and told me I needed to buy one.

It's been an excellent tool for finding problem peaks, and for knowing what frequencies are feeding back in my P.A. system, but I know may tend to lean to much towards "visual mixing" because of it -- which I know is probably a bad thing - considering there is nothing visual about sound.

The guy who told me to buy one - pretty much told me that I want to make a "hill" out of every instrument, and a "hill" out of the final mix. (Before anybody flames the guy who told me that -- keep in mind he was probably generalizing or "dumbing it down" for me, as I only had him over for a 2 hour session.... so to tell me to "make a hill" was probably his quickest general advice to a newbie such as myself. This was back in 2003.)

When I run material such as "Gimme Shelter" or other commerical material - that is what I see on the LED's, a nice hill - meaning to me - that there is a good balance of the entire frequency spectrum. (Starting at 40Hz and going up to 12.5K -- I've never seen the 16K lights do anything).

Knowing that my 2 biggest weaknesses are 1. Lack of "ear" training and 2. Less than 1000 hours "behind the mixing board" --- I'm looking for some advantage, and was thinking that maybe some of these new visual aids could "show" my ears what I don't know.
 
There is no substitute for hard work, practice, and experience. Keep working at it, and stop believing the hype of those that would lead you to believe otherwise.
 
mattkw80 said:
I was hoping that with something visual - I could see the bass and kick, see where they overlap, and then hopefully know where to "get them out of each other's way". I know there would be alot of overlap in some place, but there must be some point where I don't want the kick and bass guitar being the same dominate frequency.
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Up until this point you were doing just fine, matt :). The problem/question here becomes, how do you know whether what you are seeing is good or bad? Should that peak be there at (x)Hz or is that a bad one? If both are peaking there, is that right or wrong (maybe it actually sounds good for them to do that)? How can I tell by sight if that peak is too much or too little? Is the problem really that minor-looking peak a couple of yard lines to the right instead of that big obvious one on the left? Hint: it often is. How is one to tell by looking? The same goes for all the troughs, BTW, not just the peaks.

It still is going to come back to the ears. More on that in a minute...
mattkw80 said:
When I run material such as "Gimme Shelter" or other commerical material - that is what I see on the LED's, a nice hill - meaning to me - that there is a good balance of the entire frequency spectrum.
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Pink noise will do this perfectly. Is that something you want to listen to?

Yes, there is truth in the idea that if something is totally out of whack, it'll probably show up pretty obviously on the RTA - your example of feedback being a good example - as something with a peak for a trough that is so obviously "off the curve" probably should not be there. But the problem is that unless you want to listen to pink noise instead of Pink Floyd, there are going to be deviations from generic curves, and there are going to be peaks and troughs that vary from an average that are actually good for the mix and there are going to be curve-fitting averages that are going to in some cases just add mud to the mix.

I'm guessing that this engineer friend of yours suggested the RTA for use in attacking the big problems until you ears got somewhat along the road, but I doubt he would ever have you actually use it for detailed mixing.
mattkw80 said:
Knowing that my 2 biggest weaknesses are 1. Lack of "ear" training and 2. Less than 1000 hours "behind the mixing board" --- I'm looking for some advantage
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Grab yourself a 15- or 31-band graphic EQ plug (or better yet. the real thing, if you got one.) and sit down with your DAW and some unmodified stereo WAV rips of a variety of music CDs (try to switch up genres at least a little bit). Spend a half hour to an hour a night for a week or two straight just listening cloesly to the recording. Get past the music and listen to the sound. Keep the EQ flat at the start, and one at a time, raise and lower one of the sliders, taking specific note of the frequency, and *listen* to how that frequency affects each instrument individually in the mix. Do the same thing, but remove that frequency with a deep cut and listen to the effect.

By the end of two weeks of that practice, you should be in a much, much better position as far as ear training goes. It really is not that hard, and doesn't take that long to get one's ears at least "close enough" where they can put you in the general area (+/- ~15%) of any problem frequency without looking at anything, and easily fine tune by ear from there.

G.
 
That's great advice.

I dont have an outboard EQ, and it would be sort of tough to "wire" one into my setup -- but I could certainly get a plug-in, and do exactly that.

I've got some material I use for reference all the time, that I am very familiar with (Pet Sounds, Abbey Road, White Album all the way up to White Stripes and Pearl Jam ) so playing with the EQ bands one by one will probably be a really great ear training method.

Glen - do you use a frequency analyzer at all? Is this something pro-studio's typically have, or don't bother with ?


Another problem I am having - which I know alot of people at my skill level have is -- when is my mix done ?

It sounds good -- but does it sound good enough?

Does it sound "normal" yet ?

(Normal is a bad word.... but... does this mix sound..... commerically acceptable ??)
 
mattkw80 said:
I dont have an outboard EQ, and it would be sort of tough to "wire" one into my setup -- but I could certainly get a plug-in, and do exactly that.

I've got some material I use for reference all the time, that I am very familiar with (Pet Sounds, Abbey Road, White Album all the way up to White Stripes and Pearl Jam ) so playing with the EQ bands one by one will probably be a really great ear training method.
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A plug should work fine for the purpose. Be careful about over-boosting, though. Not only can that send you into clipping, which will affect the sound, but some plugs can get a bit "color-y" at higher boost levels. Just boost cut enough to be able to distinctly hear what's up. In fact as you get better, try and see how little you have to move the slider to be able to ID the change, and maybe even the band being moved.

You and a friend can make a game out of it towards the end; have them move the sliders with you not looking, and see if you can ID which slider is being moved, a lot or a little. When you can do that with a CD you have not practiced on, and at least et close most of te time, you'll be a LOT farther along.
mattkw80 said:
do you use a frequency analyzer at all? Is this something pro-studio's typically have, or don't bother with ?
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Oh, they definitely have their uses. I have several of them in the form of software plugs, and one hardware one inside of a cheapo 10-band graphic EQ that I hardly use anymore. The one I use the most, though, is a plug called "Span" from Voxengo. There is a free download version right from the Voxengo weboste.

A spectrum analyzer is not totally useless; they definitely can come in handy for identifying problems that even with a good ear are not readily identifiable. They are great for identifying unwanted harmonics, for example. Check out this thread for one example where RayC I.D.'d a Low Frequency problem by locating it's harmonics using a RTA. Or this post where I describe an instance where I used an RTA to help isolate some harmonics embedded in some hiss to help remove that hiss when a noise reduction plug on it's own wasn't good enough. Here is the actual graph from that indicating the harmonics:
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mattkw80 said:
Another problem I am having - which I know alot of people at my skill level have is -- when is my mix done ?
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What are you making the mix for? I mean where is it going and who is hearing it?

G.
 
Great thread!

Primarily a musician I've got my heels dug in and my ice ax embedded on the engineering learning curve. I'm holding on for dear life but the father up I get it seems that all my troubles start at the recording stage.

If my track doesn't sound like a nice acoustic guitar in the beginning then mixing and mastering isn't going to make it so. Mixing is for blending all the hopefully well recorded tracks together to make an ear pleasing presentation of a song. If the tracks are recorded well then the mixing task is easier.

I don't want to alienate any ME's out there but anything I do at home I consider "demo". I'll master that myself and shop the CD and then if I'm good and lucky a label will pick me up and we'll record the whole thing over again and they will cover the cost of professional mastering until my CD sales pays them back.

Having said that there is nothing wrong with trying to be independent. I like that myself so I will strive to do better with my little home set up. With all the new opportunities for self promotion available these days online why not? And since everyone is willing to pay for an mp3 quaility recording it does give one pause about obsessing too much over some of the issues. On the other hand you won't get a decent mp3 without a good wave file to compress.

Just a word on TRacks....I've used it for some time with mixed results. The best results were on improving live two track recordings or on old archived two track recordings....on my own mixes, not so good. It's hyped as giving that "analog" sound yet I'm frustrated with my harsh sounding finished masters. I'm finding it less usefull these days.

Rusty K
 
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mattkw80,


Another problem I am having - which I know alot of people at my skill level have is -- when is my mix done ?
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I shouldn't even be replying since I'm just an intermediate but I have one experience to pass along about this. I've mixed several of my own songs so far plus a couple of tunes that I rearranged and covered. Of all those there is one track that I've not touched again. It's a cover of "Sea Of Love" that believe it or not was my first try at using a looped drum track. The song some how just fell into place. I'm really not sure why but what I'm trying to convey is that for me "you know it when you got it". Other listeners also mentioned that track specifically. It just sounds "produced" like something you'd hear on the radio. It's cohesive and you don't even notice the canned drums.

Rusty K
 
Thanks alot for the info Rusty. I've been using T-racks as well, with some mixed results. Certainly not sold on paying the $400 for it yet. (Still need to demo Ozone first as well - or, like mentioned about, just do my own limiting and eq - as my own little "manual master" ).


Glen -

I've got a little record label. It's really just me and about 10 other friends. We record albums, burn CD's, have the jackets made, and give them to each other. We never print more than 50 CD's on 1 album.

So -- only my friends and I will be listening really --- but, we are still striving for the highest possible quality none the less.

(That we can acheive at home, I mean)
 
mattkw80 said:
So -- only my friends and I will be listening really --- but, we are still striving for the highest possible quality none the less.
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Well, as far as "when is the mix done?", entire multi-page threads have been devoted to that subject. The concensus in the past that it can be anywhere from 1 hour to 1 year :confused:.

The pros seem to gel somewhere around the area of 4 hours a song or a couple of songs per day, give or take. Granted they are "pros", but I think that's a good deadline to set for anybody. If your tracks don't pretty much fall together within that period, they probably never will, and you could just go on tweaking forever. Exceptions might be made for very complex or sophisticated mixes with a million instrument tracks and/or a whole lot of planned studio and production trickery.

I like to split those 4 hours up into 2 hours a day in 2 days when I can myself. I like the advantage of getting a night's sleep and coming into the mix with fresh ears so I can make sure that ear fatigue wasn't taking me off on a mixing tangent into shrill or mud hell the day before.

IMHO, YMMV, Do not use if taking nitrates for chest pain, etc.

G.
 
I've downloaded Voxengo's "SPAN" program, and a few other of their freebies.

Thanks for telling me about it.


Any other free vst's available for download that you like Glen ?
 
Anybody here seen "Moneyball" [the Movie]? It's about a bunch of pious Baseball scouts [ie. pro sound engineers], who are confronted with a new 21st century, computerized, mathematical thinking about their organization's approach to team player drafting and analysis, and who are are bent on deterring anything, or anybody that will make them lose their "expert" scouting livelihood! In other words... they will lie, cheat, and keep quiet about the truth, in order to preserve their jobs! That is exactly what is happening on these "high browed" recording forums, when you have a sincere person try to understand the mastering process - that they want to maintain their monopoly on [for the sake of filthy lucre, and greedy motives]! Ultimately, in one of the scenes in the movie, Brad Pitt [plays the general manager], tells the near do wells from the old order to "adapt, or die"!

Don't believe anything they say, folks! The future is coming, and sound is math! They will do anything to keep regular guys [like us] from making their trade obsolete! Adapt or die, fellows! Bill
 
Melchizedek666 said:
Anybody here seen "Moneyball" [the Movie]? It's about a bunch of pious Baseball scouts [ie. pro sound engineers], who are confronted with a new 21st century, computerized, mathematical thinking about their organization's approach to team player drafting and analysis, and who are are bent on deterring anything, or anybody that will make them lose their "expert" scouting livelihood! In other words... they will lie, cheat, and keep quiet about the truth, in order to preserve their jobs! That is exactly what is happening on these "high browed" recording forums, when you have a sincere person try to understand the mastering process - that they want to maintain their monopoly on [for the sake of filthy lucre, and greedy motives]! Ultimately, in one of the scenes in the movie, Brad Pitt [plays the general manager], tells the near do wells from the old order to "adapt, or die"!

Don't believe anything they say, folks! The future is coming, and sound is math! They will do anything to keep regular guys [like us] from making their trade obsolete! Adapt or die, fellows! Bill
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Seriously dood?

Not here man.

Keep your posts to one thread at a time please...
 
Melchizedek666 said:
I hit a nerve./.. intelligence does that alot! bb
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No, you spouted an attitude toward 'high browed' recording forums. This one is not. I intend to help keep it that way, and we around here, don't appreciate being placed in such a category.

Please take your opinions and arrogance to a deserving forum.

Thank you,

Jimmy
 
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