Who has experience using HAR-BAL

N

nonreversebird

New member
Well I have spent over a month on my mixes and I am done. They sound perfect. Maybe just a little click removal here and there for my low level tracks ready for mastering but thats it.

I am interested in HAR-BAL. I keep reading all this great stuff about it.

Ok MEs let em have it. :)
 
If I were you, I'd erase that dirty little thought from your brain. If the mixes are perfect and you're really excited about the release, bite the bullet and get someone to master the album. Other quick/self mastering jobs might sound decent today, but if you want to be able to listen to the album in 5 years, work with a professional studio. Trust me. I've made this mistake myself.
 
I actually bought HarBal at one point (call it curiosity). Then, I took advantage of the 30-day-no-questions-asked return policy.

Somehow, it was riddled with questions though... But, I digress.

Anyway, I was actually somewhat surprised with what it could do to a mix that sounded horrible in the first place. It was easy to make it sound "less irritating."

On something that sounded decent in the first place, I wasn't impressed.
 
Mmmm. Maybe I could use it this weekend then. I've got a project lined up that was recorded to stereo cassette tape with two mics in the room. The band is heavy, distorted, and definitely a pain in the ass.

To save the unsaveable, I say.
 
I just don't get the theory behind it.

Use a preset EQ curve of supposedly "good" mixes and automagically change the EQ of your material to match. There's a lot more issues in creating a balanced sound than that. For example, what types of instruments were used? If it's a piccolo snare the curve is going to be different than a large wooden snare, not to mention the type of guitars used, timbre of the vocalist, bass sound, key of the song, the interplay of all of the instruments, etc.

Trying to master from presets or to spectrally match material that is unrelated is for those that have no clue about what they are doing.

Most of the pros I speak to use nicknames like Hair Ball and Horr-bal to describe the product.
 
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No doubt. As an EQ, it was far less than... nice...?

Still, decent for a 5-minute half-asster master on some junk. Otherwise, I'd save the bucks and get a nice book and a mocha latte'.
 
Well thankyou for your......

shall I say further divulgence into the mind of an ME. I must say guys the sarcasmn is getting a little much dont you think? The reason why I say this is I surely hope that the people in the industry that take "Mastering" seriously keep this type of personality to themselves. I would NEVER do business with someone that focuses more on witty sarcastic comments than their job.

I would hope that no matter what you have to work with if you are getting paid you wouldnt bitch and find each project or bands work a challenge so be it.

Never the less the analysis of focusing on a curve as a means to create the so called master track should be only part of it I would hope.

Personally I think each musician or band what have you will most probably have a unique demand to make their music the best it can be. If you have a defeitest attitude from the beginning how do you expect to improve your craft needless to say the customer is left unknowingly vulnerable to laziness.

I personally look for challenges. Thats what life is all about guys. You never know when your life challenge may show its face and turn the game completely around.

I know I have drifted but what do you expect from a maniac musician who happens to be an electrical engineer as well. OH, I forgot to say I sleep when I decide I want to.

Lastly I wont be trying Har-Bal or whatever due to the overwelming consensus that it is a peice of shit? wouldnt that have been easier.

Just a taste.
:)
Has my rep gone up yet for Christ's sake?
 
nonreversebird said:
shall I say further divulgence into the mind of an ME. I must say guys the sarcasmn is getting a little much dont you think? The reason why I say this is I surely hope that the people in the industry that take "Mastering" seriously keep this type of personality to themselves. I would NEVER do business with someone that focuses more on witty sarcastic comments than their job.

I would hope that no matter what you have to work with if you are getting paid you wouldnt bitch and find each project or bands work a challenge so be it.
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I don't understand your "rant" at all... you asked for ME's opinions on Har-Bal, and they gave it to you with concrete points of where they've found issues. I see very little undue sarcasm..........

If you don't actually want an answer, then don't ask!!!!!!!
 
Wo wrong button woops

I am sarcasms worste enemy especially when I havent slept for 2 days.

I dont rant. My interest in mastering is only due to My interest in improving the sonic character of my mix. It can be done with hardware and or software plugins that I dont have. If you read my statement clearly I did thank the one ME , Mastering House I think for a straight up answer minus any other unnessesary text.

Myself and the OVERWHELMING majority of people on this message board are like ME. We record at home on what ever gear we have. Most likely we dont even come a hair trigger close to having what is necessary cost wise to accomplish what we want. I have found that many "ME"s on here take there cost for granted. I find nothing wrong with exploring all possible economical solutions for most all of us on here. We dont have the money just to throw down. I gauentee it. So my questions are geared from the home recording musicians point of view.

Yea I take my music serious and I take the time I took on it serious and yea I know what I am doing. In fact if I ever were to have some uncanny opportunity like getting into a studio with the gear I need. I am 100 percent positive I would have my mixes sounding the way I want. I know what I recorded into and I know what came out. considering the gear used my music sounds great at this point.

I am asking questions to find out what an ME is. How they think and if I am going to get ripped off.

If some guy takes my mix and sits a bitches about it while taking my money thats going to really piss off insomniac nonreversebird you see. Nothing personal really to anyone here its just that I have been finding that the extension of audio engineering referred to as Mastering has a large quantity of personalities that I find unprofessional.

Thats it man, its the bitching that has me worried that I will get ripped off for my hardearned or money that I have to lose something over to get it done.

I would like to do it myself and in fact Guitar Center was trying to sell me Protools today to do just that. Over 500 big ones. I just dont have it right now. Also I already know due to what I used to record my music it will NEVER sound the exact way I would like but it can be much better.

Dont worry I have found out enough from the ME point of view now. I am interested in the people like me who are trying things out that are cost effective. I still see that as a reason for posting on this message board.

No foul and No foul meant
I hate this one "Peace Out"
 
nonreversebird said:
If some guy takes my mix and sits a bitches about it while taking my money thats going to really piss off insomniac nonreversebird you see. Nothing personal really to anyone here its just that I have been finding that the extension of audio engineering referred to as Mastering has a large quantity of personalities that I find unprofessional.
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The music industry in general has a large quantity of personalities that are unprofessional :) .

Hopefully you don't feel that this is concentrated in the mastering field. Many MEs are like "wine tasters", very particular and critical about audio. They listen, "check the aroma, taste, spit it out, and give their opinions". They use terms to describe that are much like the wine taster's vocabulary, e.g. balance, body, coarse, crisp, delicate, etc.

The one difference is that the ME should be able to make a "wine" better if there are elements that they do not like.

I agree however that an ME needs to be honest with the client. If a mix is not going to hold-up you have to be able to tell the client that it isn't going to hold-up. Whenever I come across a project that I'm hesitant about putting my name on, I ask the client for a remix or stems first. And on occasion where I feel that something is going to be totally unlistenable I would politely refuse the project.

After all, nobody I know wants to drink nasty tasting vinegar. So why go through the expense of producing it?

An Me, like any good consultant, needs to put the interests of the client first.
 
sheesh and it just continues

NO, Mechanical Engineers are NOT Mastering Engineers. There is a specific COLLEGE degree required to even be considered a potential Mechanical Engineer. You do not need a degree to buy a bunch of gear and set up a studio and study mastering music. If it werent for the freebie I seriously doubt I would go any further with my music. I am happy the way it is and that is all that really matters. I am an ELECTRICAL ENGINEER. The required study to even be a candidate is beyond most humans comprehension. In fact 9 out of 10 people dont even have a clue as to what an Electrical Engineer is.

BUT that is not why I am here. As I have said I am exploring as many options possible to try and improve the sonic and deminsional aspects of my music. I have been playing , writeing and singing for many years and I take a lot of pride in it. I have had mixes that you people would scoff at be played on the radio because....... I write good songs. and I am a damn good guitar player. Not a bad vocalist either. But I dont go around here saying it. I keep it to myself. Music is not all about a Mastering Engineer guys. Its about the musicians. That is if you are involved in music. You could be engineering other audio projects that are not bands so to speak and that is a different story. Jesus. I would have never imagined that this is what is involved in , I can barely even say it anymore "Mastering" .

I will tell you this though and I hope it doesnt break your bubble there will Always be somebody that is better than you because mixing and mastering music requires an ear and every ear is different.

I know one thing I have not gained 1 rep point and if I dont get one soon Im out of here.
 
what will it cost in avarerage to master the 17 minute punk-demo-cd i am mixing down if i send somenone the 10 stereo songs?

$200
$500
$1000 ?

i have no clue, and of course i'm gonna just enhance it a bit and write on the cd, recorded and mixed by ME, not mastered...

i know some one else can do a better job but honestly i don' trust anyone in this country when they say they can master,
the only people i met are d*cks with wavelab and some plugins...
the other charge sick amounts so thats as useless to me as a plugin-masterer

i don't care about loud, its already loud,

to throw a bit more fuel on the fire=
i think real mastering engineers are the most sensitive people in the world when it comes to "describing their job" cause there's not lots of people who can do it,
and on the other hand there's those people who SAY they can master and can't and i think they're the biggest ...holes in the world
:rolleyes:

i'm just a home recordist who allmost does a nice job and i'm proud of it..
 
masteringhouse said:
The music industry in general has a large quantity of personalities that are unprofessional :) .
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Is it proper to quote oneself?


Many ME's actually do have degrees and backgrounds in Electrical Engineering (personally my degree was in Physics but who cares).

Unfortunately there isn't a certificate in Mastering that I know of. You have to choose an ME based on their experience and volume of work, just as you would an audio engineer. There are nearly as many people who are posers in audio engineering as there are musicians doing the same.

Does it help to have a degree in music in order to become a musician? I think yes and no. As far as I know Jimi Hendrix didn't have a degree and produced a great volume of work. There are also audio engineers that do a great job with no degrees and audio engineers with degrees that produce crap.

Audio is as much of an art as it is a science, it is very subjective. That's why I would suggest that you get either an evaluation or pay for a sample song from anyone you would consider using before paying for an entire album if you are unfamiliar with their work. If you took a song and had 10 MEs work on it, you would get 10 different results. It's not as easy as V=I*R.
 
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That "fine wine" attitude can get to be pretty annoying when all you've got is a coke and a demo tape. I've been there - trying to open doors as a mastering engineer before I'd ever tried "wine", so to speak. Even to this day, I tend to work in two very different worlds between the home recording musician and the world-class engineer types.

The best advice is always to just do the best you can with what you have. A bunch of 57s and a Mackie can make a decent record if the band is exceptional. Just about anything (mastering included) follows a similar idea. If you know what you're listening for and know how to get what you want, the results should be "decent" regardless of what tools you use to get there.

I'm amazed at how many musicians believe that mastering is volume and that getting a certain amount of gain is the main objective. With no regard for the rest of the elements of the recording, volume is a one-knob solution. In reality, if I had to master an album with only one tool, it would be an EQ. Not a compressor or limiter or anything else.

I'm sure most mastering engineers don't mean to be seen as arrogant with regards to equipment. Most are just really passionate about audio and frequently have to deal with new products or musicians who believe that there is a simple quick fix to do everything a mastering engineer does, or for a basic summary about what it is that they do. The truth is, most mastering engineers have spent years and years listening to the details of audio and training themselves how to hear very very subtle changes in audio quality and how to tweak them to get exactly what they want. It's very much an art/science blend.

Anyway, I'm ranting. Use what you've got. Expect the worst but hope for the best. Take your time. If you can afford to get a mastering engineer to do even one song that you can A/B between with your own master, it'll help.
 
ryanlikestorock said:
In reality, if I had to master an album with only one tool, it would be an EQ. Not a compressor or limiter or anything else.
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Agreed (if there was only one tool). EQ and a fader for gain riding (manual compression). That's what I call old school!
 
I have used Harbal and I think it is fantastic. If you are doing this just for fun or demo/self release purposes, I would highly recommend it. It can quickly turn an ugly mix into something good, and I would suspect take an excellent mix and make some slight but noticible improvements.

It shows you a kind of EQ curve that you can directly modify to adjust some of the stranger EQ peaks in your music and bring them into line to smooth things out. You can pull up EQ curves of preset references or any reference song you import, but obviously you only want to use that as a guide.

I think for what it does for the typical home recording artist, its well worth the money. Obviously if you are looking to release this professionally and have the money, let a professional mastering engineer take care of it.
 
Massive Master said:
I actually bought HarBal at one point (call it curiosity). Then, I took advantage of the 30-day-no-questions-asked return policy.

Somehow, it was riddled with questions though... But, I digress.

Anyway, I was actually somewhat surprised with what it could do to a mix that sounded horrible in the first place. It was easy to make it sound "less irritating."

On something that sounded decent in the first place, I wasn't impressed.
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Massive Master

This is Earle Holder from Har-Bal. You stated in your message above that you purchased Har-Bal and took advantage of the no questions return policy and that it was riddled with questions. I wanted to know which questions you were referring to.
If a customer asks for a refund Paavo or I simply send an email to Tom at Reg.Net and the order is refunded to the credit card immediately. We have no questions we ask the customer. The product stands on its own merit. We have less than a 1% return rate.

Paavo and I are up night and day answering emails from folks all over the world and providing the personal attention most folks don't receive from software companies.

We have actually had folks who asked for a refund and actually re-purchased the software once they realized how to use it.

We are dedicated and loyal to our customers which is plainly obvious in our forum. We have over two-thousand articles and go out of our way to assist folks with any issues they have during the mastering phase.

We have been in operation now for almost two years and are 100 percent behind our product. The positive reviews we received from the top magazines around the world can attest to this. Har-Bal is not a magical tool.

It is simply a tool that allows you to see the areas in your mix that may need attention and allows you to make immediate corrections. Some folks try and use it as an EQ matching tool and we try to discourage this practice.

Just as you stated earlier if the mix has been done well, the improvement using Har-Bal will be minimal. Har-Bal is just another tool to help the engineer get closer to what we all are striving for.....perfect sound.

Thanks for listening

Cheers

Earle Holder
Har-Bal International
www.har-bal.com
 
nonreversebird said:
Well I have spent over a month on my mixes and I am done. They sound perfect. Maybe just a little click removal here and there for my low level tracks ready for mastering but thats it.

I am interested in HAR-BAL. I keep reading all this great stuff about it.

Ok MEs let em have it. :)
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Noreversebird

If you are really interested in what Har-Bal can do for your mix I would be willing to send you a complimentary copy of the program with a 60 day license. I will also explain to you what to do after using Har-Bal regarding compression and limiting. Now how is that for service.

As I stated earlier, we are 100% behind our program. Just send me a message from our home site. Include your phone number.

Cheers

Earle Holder
Har-Bal International
www.har-bal.com
 
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