Har-Bal

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mattkw80

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Anybody here suggest I buy Har-Bal ?

http://www.har-bal.com

Lots of past post's from a few years back, where real Mastering Engineer's don't like it, but now that it's up to version 2.3 is there anybody here that finds it useful and worth the money ?

I find the idea of being able to see where I am at as far as frequency
balance - pretty interesting. I may be able to see on a graph - what frequencies my ears are not handling properly.

I know Mastering Engineer's and Pro's don't like it - mainly because they themselves would never need a tool like this - they already have the 20+ years experience, and trained ears.

But.... EQ Mag, SOS, and some other magazines have given it the thumbs up as well as some awards.

The support staff for Har-bal was kind enough to run a song of mine through it, and send it back to me - and it sounded much better, and in fact, sounded to me like a CD bought from a store. (My material has never sounded that good before).

I took a before and after of the song - and ran it through my Real Time analyzer - and sure enough, the "after" copy had a much fuller look on the read out. (I also compared it too some commercial stuff - Rolling Stones, etc. and the "after" was filling the frequencies out in the same way)

I know you hear with your ears - but isn't there something to be said about a visual comparison?

For my home-recording purposes - is there value in this package?
 
It's pointless in my opinion. You're better off with a frequency analyzer plugin, or maybe a matching EQ plugin (which is, for mastering, almost completely pointless and happens to be what this plugin is for the most part).

There is one thing I like about Har-Bal though, on the EQ, it changes the volume so that any gains you do don't increase the volume, and it makes it easier to judge what you're doing.

Other than that, it's a waste of money. And I'm not saying that because 90% of the people on here will say that, but from experience using the program.
 
Okay - thanks.

Would I be better of with Ozone, or T-Racks ?
 
danny.guitar said:
It's pointless in my opinion. You're better off with a frequency analyzer plugin, or maybe a matching EQ plugin (which is, for mastering, almost completely pointless and happens to be what this plugin is for the most part).

There is one thing I like about Har-Bal though, on the EQ, it changes the volume so that any gains you do don't increase the volume, and it makes it easier to judge what you're doing.

Other than that, it's a waste of money. And I'm not saying that because 90% of the people on here will say that, but from experience using the program.
Click to expand...

I think the essence of Harbal is the ability to see the entire file, not watch it fly by. I have not seen a frequency analyzer as easy to read as Harbal. The other great thing is what you mentioned about the loudness compensation.

I don't care for the matching stuff. I just like to see what I'm hearing sometimes as I train my ears.

Other than that being a waste of money? I think the things it does well is worth the $100 bucks. My mixes have improved and I have learned a lot as a result of buying it. Not a magic bullet, but worth the money for sure.
 
I think it's Glen that's replied many times to threads like these asking "what is a good mix supposed to look like?"
Graphical views of the frequency content have their place but I never understand why people think they can simply use a program like Har-bal and just lower the peaks or raise up the nulls and have a perfect mix. Or even import another audio track and use a program like Har-bal to match it's frequency content. Who's to say that that frequency peak needs to be lowered? Why are we going for a flat frequency response in our mix? What if I like that heavy bass, or the punchy snare that creates a little more peaks than that commercial mix? You have a peak at 200Hz that you don't like? Why not just go back into the original mix and notch that 200Hz down on that individual track?
Do I really think that importing a song from an album that was #1 in the charts and recorded by professionals in a professional studio...is really going to make my home recording mix sound so much better just by matching the EQ response of it? And why the hell do I want to make my mixes sound like someone else's in the first place? That doesn't make it a very unique song/mix.

There is so much that goes into mixing. A simple "fix it all" program most likely isn't going to give you the results you're looking for.
 
If it's a good learning tool for you, it may be worthwhile. I demoed a few versions ago (probably in one of those old threads). Yeah, it will improve things, but I could do much better with my ears and UAD plugs, so it didn't have much to offer me.

Of course, Har-Bal does dynamic EQ vs. static EQ, so it raises the issue not just of EQ but dynamics. Ordinarily, I like to address those separately. If there is a mix that has frequency-dependent dynamics issues, then it's off to the multiband. That to me is a band-aid; I wouldn't encourage relying on automatic dynamic EQ to fix your mix. That will make you lazy.

So as I said, if you need help identifying a frequency imbalance, go for it, but use it with a mind towards weaning yourself off of it.

Also, if you have less-than-ideal monitoring, and weren't sending out your mixes to an ME, I could see it as a useful tool.
 
leddy said:
I think the essence of Harbal is the ability to see the entire file, not watch it fly by. I have not seen a frequency analyzer as easy to read as Harbal. The other great thing is what you mentioned about the loudness compensation.

I don't care for the matching stuff. I just like to see what I'm hearing sometimes as I train my ears.

Other than that being a waste of money? I think the things it does well is worth the $100 bucks. My mixes have improved and I have learned a lot as a result of buying it. Not a magic bullet, but worth the money for sure.
Click to expand...

A lot of frequency analyzers will let you see the spectrum of the song in an "average" view, like Waves Frequency or Izotope Ozone.

I don't see any other use than the volume compensation for the EQ and I won't pay $100 for that unless it's in plugin format. I don't want to have to use a standalone app just for that.

If it helps you get your songs to sound better then go for it. I just don't personally see the need for it and I definitely don't have "golden ears".
 
bennychico11 said:
I think it's Glen that's replied many times to threads like these asking "what is a good mix supposed to look like?"
Click to expand...
As much as I'd like to take credit for that quote, I think that belongs to Farview, Massive or Blue Bear long before I used it :o.

Har-Bal is a sound shaper/signal processor just like anything else. As much as I dislike and disagree with it's main idea, I suppose it it a stretch to call it "useless". Even a stopped clock is right twice a day, and there may be times where even Har-Bal's snake oil can give interesting results.

But the whole idea of thinking that you can get Mix X to sound like Mix Y - or even that it'll necessarily sound good at all - by matching it's equalization envelope is ridiculous. Like Benny's quote says, there is nothing that says two mixes should look alike, and also nothing that says that just because they look alike that they will actually sound alike.

But even more importantly, IMHO, FWTW, is that while Har-Bal can be used as a learning tool because it does provide a lot of information and sensual feedback, what it actually teaches is antithetical to good engineering technique:

First, it teaches one to try and fix their tracking and mixing problems after the horses have already left the barn. Second, it puts too much emphasis on the eyes and not on the ears. Those are two bad habits which severaly limit one's poetntial and will wind up limiting the quality of one's mixes overall.

The jewel case and CD are great for leveling a wobbly bar stool at you next live gig, though. If that's worth a hundred bucks for you, then go for it. :)

G.
 
SouthSIDE Glen said:
Second, it puts too much emphasis on the eyes and not on the ears.
Click to expand...

That's not true! Put the thing on auto mode, and you don't need your ears or your eyes!



OK, you have to see where to click the mouse, I guess :p




I have to say, in that mix contest I judged, probably the bottom third would have benefited greatly from Har-Bal. The middle group, maybe slightly. I don't think any of the top 5 or 6 would have been improved further.
 
Mshilarious and SouthSide,


I know a real Mastering Engineer is always the best route,
but on a home budget, would either of you recommend T-Racks, or Ozone ?

As people who run real studio's for a living - do you do your own mastering, or do you outsource ?
 
mattkw80 said:
I know a real Mastering Engineer is always the best route,
but on a home budget, would either of you recommend T-Racks, or Ozone ?
Click to expand...


ask yourself what do those plugins give you that normal plugins don't? A spectrum analyzer, an EQ, and a brick wall limiter. Why can't you do all that in the multitrack mix?
 
mattkw80 said:
Mshilarious and SouthSide,


I know a real Mastering Engineer is always the best route,
but on a home budget, would either of you recommend T-Racks, or Ozone ?

As people who run real studio's for a living - do you do your own mastering, or do you outsource ?
Click to expand...
First, like Benny said, all "mastering software" like T-Racks or Ozone is is a colletction of common signal processing tools like EQs and limiters and such put into fancy-schamncy looking packages. If I want to use something like that on my 2mix, I already have plenty of EQ and compressors and limiters that I use during mixing that I like.

Second, and more important IMHO, is that I have an entirely different view as to what "mastering" is than the marketers of this kind of software do. The way I see it, waiting until you have a stereo mixdown to try and get things to sound right is doing things absolutely bass-ackwards. That has almost never been what "mastering" has been about - at least not to any major degree - until these companies came along with these plugs and people started getting lazy. "Mastering" is trying ti become what mixing is supposed to be, which is like trying to close the barn after the horses have left.

Mastering is all about prepping one's recordings for manufacture and production onto it's final format. The only changes to sound quality that is normally supposed to happen in mastering are to ensure consistant levels and tonalities between songs in a contiguous album, getting crossfades, track spacing and song order done, and ensuring that the product's levels and equalization are adjusted properly for the final release medium (e.g. RIAA equalization curves for vinyl).

But, until the last couple of years and the advent of these new "finalizer"-style products, "mastering" has never meant getting the mix to sound right. The assumption was prettty much made that - except for the above-mentioned kind of tasks - the mix was pretty much done by the time it got to the mastering stage. Sure, some adjustments are made, but for the most part the mixing is actually done in the mixing, and not left to be fixed in the mastering. Mastering applies a final polish, not body repair.

If one's mix is so off-target that they need something as drastic as harmonic balancing or extreme multiband compression to try and mold it into shape, then what they need is not something like T-Ozo-Bal; what they need to do go back and get the mix right first.

A good mixing job will trump great "mastering software" every time.

So I would recommend none of those products myself.

As far as whether to do it yourself or to outsource the mastering, that depends wntirely on the seriousness of the project, the quality of the project thus far, and the available budget for the project.

On one end of the spectrum, I'm not going to bother sending a vanity recording of dubious quality of a high school garage band that is destined for a meSpace stream off to an ME. On the other side of the spectrum, a well-tracked recording of a good band that's destined for an indie album release and will really benefit from the professional final polish should go to an ME.

G.
 
mattkw80 said:
Mshilarious and SouthSide,


I know a real Mastering Engineer is always the best route,
but on a home budget, would either of you recommend T-Racks, or Ozone ?

As people who run real studio's for a living - do you do your own mastering, or do you outsource ?
Click to expand...

Well I'm probably the wrong person to ask, because I don't really do mixing. I don't have that much patience :o

Seriously, on a home budget? First treat your room, then get better monitors (if required).

Then try this for an exercise--go to the last mix contest thread that's ended, right here:

https://homerecording.com/bbs/showpost.php?p=2853837&postcount=447

Take 6 or 10 of those mixes, and try to improve them. We haven't published results yet, so I can't say which ones I thought were good or bad. So just pick them randomly.

You will probably find that you can make half of them better with some basic EQ. Most people didn't try to make their mixes loud (which is fine, they aren't judged on that basis), so try to get them up to a "commercial" volume with whatever you have. You will find that some of them fall apart when you do that. That probably means the balance of the mix wasn't correct before you limited it. Sometimes you can fix that on the stereo bus before you crank the limiter, sometimes you can't.

The lesson will be that you will curse the stereo bus because it doesn't really let you fix the problems you hear. The really good mixes you hear, you will turn them up 2 or 3dB on your limiter, and it sounds pretty good. That was easy, wasn't it? Didn't have much to do with stereo bus processing . . .

But don't take my word, try it! You will be better off learning on other people's stuff, where you feel free to be hypercritical :eek:

Back to professional mastering, especially on the lower end of the food chain: what are you trying to replicate?

In order:

1) Good room

2) Good (full-range) monitors

3) Unbiased ears

4) Good processing

You are asking about #4, but 1-3 come first. You can do #1-2. #3 is hard. I avoid that problem by not working on my own music :D That's not to say I hire someone else. I just don't do it at all :o
 
Okay - thanks guys.

You've explained it crystal clear, but it's something I'm going to have to re-read carefully and think about.

All this time I did think that my mix could be lacking in different areas - and that it was okay, because everything would be passed through another stage anyway, so it could get fixed then.

Now I know - the 2mix must be 99% done , as all mastering really is putting it to it's listening media, and arranging it with other songs.

I believe my room and monitor situation is fine, I have run many frequency tests, pink noise tests, and stereo imaging type tests..... so I should be okay there.

Yes, I lose out a little in the 100 Hz - 300 Hz area -- but doesn't ever home studio have trouble properly monitoring that ??

I think my mixing environment will be okay - I just need more experience.
 
SouthSIDE Glen said:
If one's mix is so off-target that they need something as drastic as harmonic balancing or extreme multiband compression to try and mold it into shape, then what they need is not something like T-Ozo-Bal; what they need to do go back and get the mix right first.
G.
Click to expand...

I'm sure I'm in a small minority here, but the majority of my recording is live jazz, using as few tracks as I can. I may just have a stereo pair with a spot mic or two. Nothing is 100% isolated. In my circumstance, the "mastering", or at least anything I do on the main buss is more critical than mixing - there's not much to mix. Harbal serves a good purpose for my needs, especially considering the problems that go along with recording live in rooms not always intended for recording.

Without smoothing peaks (I try not too unless there is a problem) or matching this or that (I never use that function), Harbal has a useful way of helping to determine where to do any high or low shelving. Nothing has to be extreme. I do agree that anything beyond subtle should have been corrected way before hand.

It's just another tool. :)
 
leddy said:
I'm sure I'm in a small minority here, but the majority of my recording is live jazz, using as few tracks as I can. I may just have a stereo pair with a spot mic or two. Nothing is 100% isolated. In my circumstance, the "mastering", or at least anything I do on the main buss is more critical than mixing - there's not much to mix.
Click to expand...
Well, of course if you have only a stereo recording, then the definition between mixing and mastering gets blurry :).

But even with just a couple of spot mics added, I'd still prefer to try and get things down on the track level as much as possible rather than waiting for everything to be summed to do it. There is just so much more surgical control.
leddy said:
It's just another tool. :)
Click to expand...
Absolutely true. It's not useless.

But I still wouldn't want to take your recordings and try to "mix" them by matching them against a Zoot Simms recording, nor would I want to do my mixing in mastering unless I had no choice.

G.
 
Part of mastering (a good portion actually) is to make a collection of songs sound cohesive and to gel together as a complete album. Can you bring more than one song into Har-Bal in order to accomplish this? How would you apply different EQ, compressor. limiter settings to each song within the same playlist in order to compare? What if you wanted to use an analog chain in addition to digital EQ?

Without this type of functionality I would find it very difficult to use it for the processing portion of mastering. It may be a tool, but why use a spoon when what you really need is a shovel?
 
Does anyone know if there is a frequency analyzer plug-in that will show multiple instruments on the graph, in different colors ?

For example..... the BASS could be yellow, the drums red, the vocal blue...... which would then visually show me what instruments are causing a build-up of frequencies that could be a problem.

I've got lots of different freq. analyzer's installed, but they all seem to only work on one track at a time...... it would be cool to get a visual of different tracks drawn in different colors.
 
none that are going to be able to take a stereo mix and tell you which instruments are which in the spectrum. It'd be just as impossible as a plugin being able to remove certain instruments at will.

again, use your ears! what does it sound like to YOU? Don't rely on a plugin to tell you what is making a mix muddy. The only way to learn this is to just develop your ears. Mix, mix, mix and mix some more. You'll get better, trust me. Wait a year or two and then go back to your original mixes and you'll wonder what they hell you were doing then.
 
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