masteringhouse
www.masteringhouse.com
Har-Bal said:
What does bad audio look like?
What does bad audio look like?
H
Har-Bal
New member
masteringhouse said:
Masteringhouse
Here is an example of a poorly eq'd track.
http://www.har-bal.com/images/badtrack.jpg
Here is an example of a more balanced track.
http://www.har-bal.com/images/goodtrack.JPG
The bottom line is this. This is a tool that quite a few folks around the world find useful and we are happy that we were able to make their job a little easier.
Some folks will choose to use it and some folks won't just like anything else. We love Mastering and recognize the importance of useful tools just as much as the next person. There are a number of great tools currently available to the home studio owner that are now finally affordable. We welcome all of them
Earle
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grn
Well-known member
mix with your ears, not your eyes
Blue Bear Sound
New member
Fuck! You mean all I have to do is get my mix to slope like that and it will sound good??? Very cool... that means you've suddenly made the need for monitors completely irrelevant!Har-Bal said:
As I'm fond of saying - you hear with your ears, not your eyes....
I've also tried Har-Bal, and although I didn't return it, I basically agree with John's assessment. It can possibly be useful in rescue operations on already-poor-sounding tracks, but it does nothing that a good EQ won't already do for you - particularly on material that is already good-sounding.
As Earle pointed out, however, it is just a tool... if it presents an interface that one finds comfortable, it can be treated just like another plug-in option in someone's arsenal.... what it ISN'T, however, is some "mastering holy grail" - and its results will be a far cry from what a good ME can do to a track.
masteringhouse
www.masteringhouse.com
Har-Bal said:
I'm sorry but these graphs mean nothing. What was the instrumentation used? What style of music? What was the key of the song?
You had mentioned that "Some folks try and use it as an EQ matching tool and we try to discourage this practice" isn't that what your doing with you're examples above?
Just because the frequency graph looks pretty and doesn't have any "lumps" it has nothing to do with great audio. I've tried using spectrum analyzers way back when I was starting for the same thing and even though the frequency graph appears to be "in line" with other recordings in it's genre, even in some cases matching exactly, the results sound horrible in comparison to not looking at a computer screen and using my ears. There are far too many variables to judge audio coloration by appearance just as you can't judge loudness by a meter.
While I respect the amount and type of engineering required to make a product such as yours, I think the approach taken by your product is antithetical to good practice in mastering. Mastering is about critical listening, not critical visuals.
Be Loveless
New member
Jesus Harry Christ, JUNIOR, you need to calm down. I don't see any reason why you are so pissed OFF. You asked for opinions and got some. someone made a little joke about Mastering Engineer and Mechanical engineer having the same abbreviation, ME, you take as some sort of personal attack and go ballistic. If you can't deal with peoples opinions or that they don't bow down before your supposed credentials and stroke your obviously fragile ego, you are not going to have a good time or learn anything here.nonreversebird said:
bblackwood
Senior Moment
What are you mastering, sine waves?Har-Bal said:
Music is dynamic - those graphs are meaningless as the 'graph' will change radically continuously through the song.
Sure, capitalizing on ignorance has always been a profit center. There's a reason behringer is still in existence, but it's not because they build quality products - they simply feed off of those who don't know that there is better stuff out there.
Your product may be exactly what you set out to build, but the premise behind the entire concept is faulty - there is no one 'EQ curve' that sounds right for everything. In fact, mastering isn't about processing, it's about listening - processing is simply the by-product of the listening. there are many tracks out there that need no EQ, or need some other processing to make them really sing (or none at all).
Tell you what, if so many folks are using it, point me to a CD I can buy at Tower or BestBuy that was mastered with your product so I can go buy it and check it out...
Blue Bear Sound
New member
Well put!!!!masteringhouse said:
H
Har-Bal
New member
bblackwood said:
Brad
Its just a tool not the Holy Grail
You are welcome to contact any of these folks.
http://www.har-bal.com/testimonials.php
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/mar04/articles/harbal.htm
http://www.har-bal.com/files/eq_mag_jan_2004.pdf
http://www.musicplayer.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?/ubb/get_topic/f/1/t/016963.html#000004
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jul04/articles/pcnotes.htm
http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.asp?m=274960&mpage=1&key=&anchor
Earle
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K
kylen
New member
Here's a couple of thoughts on the topic from a home recording semi-pro type...
I have Har-Bal as well as a couple of other tools to spectrum watch like GlissEQ, SPAN, and a Behringer DEQ2496.
Listening, yes - a top priority if you know how and have the proper monitor/room conditions or have a nice set of ears and mind that can remember what a great sound should sound like regardless of your current environment. Having a 'golden' eq curve in your mind and being able to judge the necessary changes required by EQ (if any) is really nice for those that have it. Not everyone has this - and as in anything when you don't have the necessary time or skills yourself you hire someone else to do the job.
For the rest of us that persue the DIY path and still want to get a reasonably well-balanced mix or master then there are some cool spectrum type tools to augment whatever monitoring, hearing, room, and music you have. I use these type of tools to set a general slope I like in the midrange, I've listened to and watched my 'golden' commercial references and have a pretty good idea of the spectrum settings I need (averaging & peak) and EQ settings to get a good sounding -3db to -4.5db per octave slope on the mids (I like it somewhere within that range).
As far as the spectrum interface of Har-Bal you'll note that it uses some type of averaging and listens to the whole song then gives you it's spectrum picture. I think it's possible to use Har-Bal to get a fair understanding of what your mids look like if you take the time to understand the spectrum. I haven't really done this as I prefer my averaging to be faster, I can set that in SPAN and it feels a little better to be able to hear & see the changes between verse and chorus. With some more practice I can probably do that in Har-Bal but I haven't taken the time. What I am really no good at is using Har-Bal to do corrective EQ - pushing the little hills down and the valleys up...I have to use GlissEQ or Eqium or something like that where I can set the b/w to my liking and EQ that way. One of the reasons is Har-Bal accumulates the changes into a huge spline (there's another view for that) but you can also select to see the changes in real time in the spectrum (remember the Har-Bal spectrum is just an averaged snapshot of the entire song and is static).
As has been said the visual spectrum really depends on the analyzer & settings, whats in the music, what key it is, etc and how the dynamics have been set. Setting the curve of my unmastered mix to a commercially mastered mix is already tricky because of the dynamics processing done on the commercial release. Setting the mids this way is usually ok for me (either copying the slope of a commercial release - or using the slope in my head) but doing the bass and treble this way is just impossible for me. I really need to hear that stuff to set it correctly. Believe me I've tried to do corrective EQ in those areas and you have to hear it. Putting a little sweetening EQ on the Bass and Treble might be ok using the EQ of Har-Bal but I'm thinking your ears will tell you how much - more than the spectrum display will.
BTW there's a couple of really fine sounding songs at the Sonar forum I ran in to a while back that had Har-Bal applied to it. I believe Har-Bal was used for sweetening though as the guy has a really good front-end and mixes.
2 cents
I have Har-Bal as well as a couple of other tools to spectrum watch like GlissEQ, SPAN, and a Behringer DEQ2496.
Listening, yes - a top priority if you know how and have the proper monitor/room conditions or have a nice set of ears and mind that can remember what a great sound should sound like regardless of your current environment. Having a 'golden' eq curve in your mind and being able to judge the necessary changes required by EQ (if any) is really nice for those that have it. Not everyone has this - and as in anything when you don't have the necessary time or skills yourself you hire someone else to do the job.
For the rest of us that persue the DIY path and still want to get a reasonably well-balanced mix or master then there are some cool spectrum type tools to augment whatever monitoring, hearing, room, and music you have. I use these type of tools to set a general slope I like in the midrange, I've listened to and watched my 'golden' commercial references and have a pretty good idea of the spectrum settings I need (averaging & peak) and EQ settings to get a good sounding -3db to -4.5db per octave slope on the mids (I like it somewhere within that range).
As far as the spectrum interface of Har-Bal you'll note that it uses some type of averaging and listens to the whole song then gives you it's spectrum picture. I think it's possible to use Har-Bal to get a fair understanding of what your mids look like if you take the time to understand the spectrum. I haven't really done this as I prefer my averaging to be faster, I can set that in SPAN and it feels a little better to be able to hear & see the changes between verse and chorus. With some more practice I can probably do that in Har-Bal but I haven't taken the time. What I am really no good at is using Har-Bal to do corrective EQ - pushing the little hills down and the valleys up...I have to use GlissEQ or Eqium or something like that where I can set the b/w to my liking and EQ that way. One of the reasons is Har-Bal accumulates the changes into a huge spline (there's another view for that) but you can also select to see the changes in real time in the spectrum (remember the Har-Bal spectrum is just an averaged snapshot of the entire song and is static).
As has been said the visual spectrum really depends on the analyzer & settings, whats in the music, what key it is, etc and how the dynamics have been set. Setting the curve of my unmastered mix to a commercially mastered mix is already tricky because of the dynamics processing done on the commercial release. Setting the mids this way is usually ok for me (either copying the slope of a commercial release - or using the slope in my head) but doing the bass and treble this way is just impossible for me. I really need to hear that stuff to set it correctly. Believe me I've tried to do corrective EQ in those areas and you have to hear it. Putting a little sweetening EQ on the Bass and Treble might be ok using the EQ of Har-Bal but I'm thinking your ears will tell you how much - more than the spectrum display will.
BTW there's a couple of really fine sounding songs at the Sonar forum I ran in to a while back that had Har-Bal applied to it. I believe Har-Bal was used for sweetening though as the guy has a really good front-end and mixes.
2 cents
SouthSIDE Glen
independentrecording.net
And there is the crux of the diagreement, I think. Har-Bal caters to those who believe that plug-ins are the solution to every problem and to whom things like "technique" are just too much work to bother with. "It's better to let somebody else do a 'close enough' job for me than for me to do it right myself."masteringhouse said:
I'm sure Har-Bal has many satisfied, and even dedicated customers, and that you are running a successful business making and marketing it. And I'm actually somewhat happy for both you and your customers. But only somewhat. As far as the customers, I can't be entirely happy for someone who wants to learn how to fly a plane as long as they don't have to turn off the auto-pilot, and as far as Har-Bal Man, I can't be entirely happy for someone who spams a knowledge-sharing and social forum with a blatent sales pitch.
G.
K
kylen
New member
SouthSIDE - Earle and Paavo come around to many forums to answer product questions (as well as marketing stuff, hehe) - don't you want to hear what they have to say, from their perspecitve? It can lead to lively debate! 
H
Har-Bal
New member
SouthSIDE Glen said:
Believe me, this is not a sales pitch. It is not a tool that automatically fixes your mixes. It actually requires a a certain amount of understanding from the user. There is a learning curve.
The only reason I posted here today was because this post was brought to our attention. As you can see this is the first time we posted here.
I apologize if I have offended any of you. This will be my last post.
Cheers
Earle
BRIEFCASEMANX
Winner chicken dinner!
nonreversebird said:
Oh god. I thought your contrived, self-aggrandizing posts were funny before but this takes the cake. You are an idiot.
BRIEFCASEMANX
Winner chicken dinner!
nonreversebird said:
AHHHHHH it gets WORSE with every paragraph I read!!!!!
MY EYES!!!!!
H
Har-Bal
New member
bblackwood said:
bblackwood
The point you fail to understand is that the principle issue that makes certain tracks unlistenable is temporary threshold shift. More to the point frequency selective temporary threshold shift. Following on from your lead, try this experiment. Listen to your favourite music track at a comfortable level. Doesn't it sound great! Now listen to a 1kHz sine wave at the same level of perceived loudness for a few mintues. Now go back to your favourite
track and listen to it again. Now when you listen to it the midrange sounds like it is missing. Of course it is missing because the overbearing sine wave that you were listening to created a significant threshold shift in your hearing confined to an octave or so around 1 kHz!
Now you say an average of the whole track is meaningless because music is dynamic. From the above, if you think about it, it should become obvious that an average of the entire track plus the acculated peak for the entire track will outline the overemphasized areas of the track spectrum far better than a dynamic RTA display. I don't understand your logical deduction that a static averaged graph is meaningless. Can you explain why this is so for the
problem at hand, namely mastering EQ. Do you agree with the use of static equalization? If I follow your line of logic I could argue that static EQ is useless cos music is dynamic, but obviously this is not true and I think you'll be struggling to find a professional ME that does not use static EQ. Do you only use multiband compression for mastering EQ? If you are true to the above statement then I'd assume that you'd have to. Personally though, my
ears find a lot of recordings processed with mutliband EQ objectionable for the artifacts they leave behind, but I guess that is a matter of taste.
Regards,
Paavo.
bblackwood
Senior Moment
Oh, please enlighten me...Har-Bal said:
(incredibly basic description of threshold shift snipped)
No, read what I said - I said a graphic is meaningless - it tells you nothing except what happens on average.
The rest of your post is based on false assumptions of how I (or even most mastering engineers worth their salt) work. The point you are missing is that averageing graphs of music are completely unnecessary for mastering, unless one is deaf (and even then I'd question it's use).
The reason I asked for examples of albums released as anyone can find someone on the internet to support anything - if your product is so good, why am I not able to buy a release at my local record store and hear it in action? Why is it that no mastering engineer I know (and I know quite a few) uses your product?
Maybe, just maybe the entire premise your product is built on is false. But that's impossible, right? It must be that all the mastering engieers of the world, who constantly seek out new ways to impove their work are simply wrong...
Err, oki. You promise?Har-Bal said:
On second thought, don't answer that.
masteringhouse
www.masteringhouse.com
A wise man once told me that the average of someone sticking their head in the oven and their feet in the freezer is that they would be comfortable.
Likewise with music I think that you're simplifying how an EQ is used in mastering, it's not a law of averages. Also the fact that it is possible to automate an EQ without resorting to Multi-band compression (MBC isn't EQ anyway), though this is rarely done unless there are specific trouble spots.
Likewise with music I think that you're simplifying how an EQ is used in mastering, it's not a law of averages. Also the fact that it is possible to automate an EQ without resorting to Multi-band compression (MBC isn't EQ anyway), though this is rarely done unless there are specific trouble spots.
Spaztic
New member
I have tried har-bal. While I do see the use for the tool on bad mixes. I never needed it because I try to make my mixes sound good with solid tracking.
D
DJ Ack
New member
Oh gentlemen, things get so far! The fact that, there're more and more home recording studios are built and share the big cake of the industry nowadays. It's easy to setup a rec gig at ev'rybody's home. The only "magic" thing that many new folks still dont know properly is mastering.
Har-bal is just a tool, and if u dont like it, forget it. This war is like the analog-digital war happened when the first PC sound card was invented.
To many noob like me, it really helps to understand more about audio, dynamic, ...
If one doesn't like Waves, he blames it, if one doesn't like UAD, he blames it. Thats true.
Use whatever suites your need to finish the job of passion.
Thanks 4 reading.
Har-bal is just a tool, and if u dont like it, forget it. This war is like the analog-digital war happened when the first PC sound card was invented.
To many noob like me, it really helps to understand more about audio, dynamic, ...
If one doesn't like Waves, he blames it, if one doesn't like UAD, he blames it. Thats true.
Use whatever suites your need to finish the job of passion.
Thanks 4 reading.