Who has experience using HAR-BAL

[Autist]

I agree with DJ Ack to an extent.

Not everyone who has a small home studio can afford to have their music professionally mastered. For people simply uploading MP3s to a website for others to download, paying to have them mastered professionally, especially if you produce a lot of material, is somewhat of a luxury for the extremely wealthy.

If a person plans to release a commercial CD, then professional mastering can be of benefit and may very well be worth the expense, but, it is not a requirement. If the artist is able to get results that he, or she is pleased with, without sending it out for mastering, then that person just saved a nice chunk of change.

I am working on a CD myself at the moment. After it is mixed I will wait a while and then go through the mastering process. If I am not content with the results, or have any doubts about them, then I will have to send the material out for mastering. The only income I have is from disability and SSI, so it is very difficult for me to afford anything. I am fortunate enough to have people that believe in my abilities and are willing to invest in my art. Not everyone is that fortunate. There is no way I could afford professional mastering of every song that I create and want to put on a website somewhere. I have to learn the process myself for some things.

Another problem with professional mastering is this: if you do not know exactly where to send it, you may have to shop around for a while to find the right person to do the job. I have heard some horribly mastered commercial CDs, but the credits on those CDs only tell me who to avoid. Selecting the wrong mastering engineer for a project can be a huge waste of time and money, but finding the right one can be of major benefit to the project. Heck, anyone can claim to be a mastering engineer. Also, many of the lower mastering rates I have seen only include standard, or basic things: each song that fades gets the same amount of fade time and 2 seconds of silence between each song. Want to crossfade? Want less silence between 2 songs? Pay more money. A single CD can cost over $1000.00 to have mastered, then if that CD never sells, that is $1000.00 lost, on top of however much was invested in having the CD manufactured.

As for tools like Har-Bal. There is nothing wrong with Har-Bal. If it helps you get the results you want, then use it. If it doesn't, then don't. Same with Ozone. I have tried that program as well, and see no point in using it for anything other than improving bad MP3s, but some people like it. I prefer high quality stand-alone plug-ins and my system is not setup to utilize hardware devices. Simply put, I do the best I can with what I have and still get better results than anything I did in pro studios 20 years ago.

To anyone who reads this: If you can do it youself and get good results, no matter what tools you use, then by all means don't allow yourself to feel pressured into having it done professionally.

The professional mastering engineers on this site make little sense to me. This is a home recording site, is it not? So every time someone comes along and wants to know the best way that they can try to master their material, perhaps only a song, or two to put on CD-R, these pro mastering people jump in and trash all of that person's options, other than having it done professionally. Perhaps these pros (who seem to spend more time on here arguing that they do mastering), could actually give some useful and practical advice to artists in small home studios that simply can't afford to pay for their services. From what I have seen on this site, many can't afford anything other than free plug-ins. Not everyone can afford Waves plug-ins, or a UAD card. Yes, they are nice, but for the price of one it would be easier to have a pro master the material. Perhaps these pros could give them some practical advice on getting the most out of what they have and prove to everyone that they are of some benefit to this forum and not just here to promote their own services. That way, someone who might be able to afford it will try their suggestions and after completely failing at their attempts may want the nice helpful pro from the forums to do it for him, or her.

I also understand that not everyone is capable of mastering, but that should not deter anyone from trying. Music, whether, creating it, or simply listening to it, should be enjoyed and no one here should let anyone bully them into not enjoying every aspect of the creative process.

My former (entertainment) attorney (big name NY attorney) once told me that in the music business, some people will do anything to take advantage of you and even knock you down to their level. An agent once told me that the entertainment business is one of the most back-stabbing businesses that exists. So, if you, the reader of this post, are not in the music business and you are not intersted in being in it (you are only doing this for your own enjoyment), don't let the people who are in the business treat you like they sometimes treat each other. I am not saying that EVERYONE in the business acts like a moron, but if someone is being a moron towards you then ignore them, do what you like, have fun and let the morons be morons.

 

[masteringhouse]

The professional mastering engineers on this site make little sense to me. This is a home recording site, is it not? So every time someone comes along and wants to know the best way that they can try to master their material, perhaps only a song, or two to put on CD-R, these pro mastering people jump in and trash all of that person's options, other than having it done professionally.

Not true, I've mentioned many times that for demos, or recordings that have not been properly recorded or mixed pro mastering may not be worth the expense.

Perhaps these pros (who seem to spend more time on here arguing that they do mastering), could actually give some useful and practical advice to artists in small home studios that simply can't afford to pay for their services.

You should probably read more threads on the site from John, Brad, myself, and many others. We give out tons of advice on things like compression, EQ, quality control when creating CDs, and yes at times not to believe in the hype of some software manufacturers.

From what I have seen on this site, many can't afford anything other than free plug-ins. Not everyone can afford Waves plug-ins, or a UAD card. Yes, they are nice, but for the price of one it would be easier to have a pro master the material.

I've mentioned this on several previous threads, not to promote services, but it just makes economical sense. Not to mention you will be having work done by someone hopefully with more experience than yourself.

Perhaps these pros could give them some practical advice on getting the most out of what they have and prove to everyone that they are of some benefit to this forum and not just here to promote their own services. That way, someone who might be able to afford it will try their suggestions and after completely failing at their attempts may want the nice helpful pro from the forums to do it for him, or her.

We do, just keep reading ...

One thing to keep in mind however is that it gets a bit tiresome answering the same question multiple times. Use the search function and you should find tons of great advice. If you don't find the answer, post a question.

 

[kylen]

The professional mastering engineers on this site make little sense to me. This is a home recording site, is it not? So every time someone comes along and wants to know the best way that they can try to master their material, perhaps only a song, or two to put on CD-R, these pro mastering people jump in and trash all of that person's options, other than having it done professionally.

I agree with masteringhouse, Autist. If you hang out at these fantastic forums a little longer you'll get the idea about who is trashing what ideas. It's not the mastering engineers IMO. The Har-Bal debate is a little different and actually is a fun thing to behold. I learn a little more each time I hear it!

Besides that though - at these forums the basic idea is that if you have a project that requires it and have the budget then get the pro mastering. Otherwise there's a lot of DIY folk here too that do it themselves and get advice from the pros as well as give advice. Then you just gotta think about it, research it a little more, experiment and see if it works over time - stuff you already do in other words.
But there sometimes gets to be a mini-me type mantra around here of people that chime in to get a professional to do it - especially if they don't understand what you're doing. It's hard to fit everything into a post sometimes so people can get the wrong idea. There's lots of really good recording and mixing info here though! There is good mastering stuff too but it's a little harder to explain all the little tricks I think - hang around!

 

[Autist]

I understand. I did not mean to offend anyone, I just say what I am thinking at the moment - when I have enough energy, or interest in communicating to say anything all (including typing). It comes in spurts and I will communicate quite freely, then it goes away and I no longer speak to anyone. That is one reason why I don't post much. I really have no social interests, or desires and prefer to avoid any form of contact with others, but that's just the nature of autism. It is never anything personal. I also don't always know when to ask for help, or even how. I have a companion that acts as a bridge between me and the "world" that the "average" person exists in to help me with those things.

I do not spend a lot of time online. Most of my time is spent recording, or mixing, or just experimenting. Sometimes during breaks I come here to just see what new topics might be of interest to me so it is very possible that I have overlooked many many many posts that contradict some of the observations I have made so far.

I have Har-Bal myself, but have not really used it yet, just experimented. The problem I have is that my music is extremely unique. I am told it is a genre all its own, which makes it difficult to compare it to anything. So mixing is an extreme challenge because I am not aware of any CD in existance that would suffice for A/B comparisons. My current method is to just mix the songs until they sound good (mixing them many times over until I find a mix that I really like). Then after the entire CD is mixed I will wait a couple of weeks and listen to them again and maybe see what some mastering does for them. I am leaning towards having them professionally mastered, simply because I am not sure I fully trust myself to be able to get the most quality out of the material that can be obtained, but I don't really have the patience to wait while a half-dozen mastering services process samples for me to compare. Since someone else would be paying for that for me, who has already invested a lot to get me some really nice studio gear, I am on a REALLY tight budget.

Please don't ask me to describe my music - it is Rock-N-Roll, basically, err, sorta.

I have messed aound with some early mixes of this material to see how it would sound mastered. I found many things that do help sweeten it up and smooth it over and I have not been able to decide what to use when it comes time to master the material (too many choices). I am not aware of any pro mastering engineers that advertise as being flexible enough to work with me. Standard spacing and fade outs won't work. In fact the spacing of the songs will take a considerable amount of time to get right and I just can't afford some of the prices that are charged for custom mastering packages. I know of no one that will just get the songs sounding good together and then let me deal with spacing, fading and burning the CD.

Anyhow...

As for Har-Bal: One early mix I opened in Har-Bal had a huge dip in the low-mids. As soon as I adjusted it I could hear things in the piano that I would rather not have heard, like annoying resonances and the thuds of the keys. So far I have gotten the most pleasing results from carefully adjusting Voxengo Soniformer without any additional EQ. I will probably experiment more with Har-Bal anyhow, just to see what happens.

 

[masteringhouse]

The problem I have is that my music is extremely unique. I am told it is a genre all its own, which makes it difficult to compare it to anything

...

One early mix I opened in Har-Bal had a huge dip in the low-mids. As soon as I adjusted it I could hear things in the piano that I would rather not have heard, like annoying resonances and the thuds of the keys. So far I have gotten the most pleasing results from carefully adjusting Voxengo Soniformer without any additional EQ. I will probably experiment more with Har-Bal anyhow, just to see what happens.

You have just underscored several points that Brad an I were trying to make.

Use your ears, not your eyes when making EQ adjustments. If you're getting the results that you want this way, that's fantastic.

If you're having trouble identifying frequencies that may be an issue, a spectral analyzer can help, it just shouldn't be used as gospel for creating an average for the entire song. Several software programs allow you to create an average graph of frequencies for a song, Sound Forge is one example. A program called Spectra Foo allows you to take snapshots of graphs at any pont for comparison to the actual realtime graph which I've found useful at times. The benefit also being that you can use your choice of EQ, plug-in or analog.

Ultimately the decision of what is "correct" is entirely up to your tastes, not a universal standard or rule of thumb.

 

[Autist]

Being autistic, I have very extreme sensitivities with my senses. A sound that one person may not even notice can be like nails on a chalkboard to me. This helps when tracking and mixing, but is sometimes not pleasant when listen to music done by other people. I am also a very visual thinker. Most of my thoughts are connected with images in my mind, which is why I find some visual tools useful. I "see" music visually when I listen to it, so certain tools, like spectrum analyzers actually help me focus the images in my head on what it technically going on in the music instead of letting the images be directed by the artistic qualities of it. Without being aided from time-to-time by a visual technical representation of the music my mind quickly gets filled with colors and obscure visualizations. I also lack the ability to "see the big picture" which makes mixing difficult sometimes. I am not able to hear the entire mix at one time. It is like "tunnel hearing." My mind focuses only on one instrument or frequency at a time, to the point where I suddenly start wondering where certain other instruments have gone. A spectrum analyzer helps with this also because I can reference it quickly to see that certain things are not peaking above the range that I have determined I want to keep them in. However, I would never use any visual tool as my single means of determining if the song is mixed well, or poorly. Of course, if the analyzer shows 288Hz is 12dB louder than all other frequencies then I know there is a problem, but my ears would have detected that LONG before I found myself looking at the analyzer. I have learned to work with this "tunnel hearing" and can, for the most part, jump from one sound or frequency to the next. If I find that I have to work too hard to focus on something, then I know the volume may need to come up. If I have difficulty jumping and the same sound keeps pulling me back to it, then I determine what it is that is preventing me from making the jump (EQ, or volume) and then correct it until the problem is solved. This also helps in reverse because I can change the mix in places so that one specific thing does lock me into it for a specific amount of time. That is only a small part of my personal technique, but like everyone, autistic, or not, I have to train myself to utilize the system that works best for me.

Some people can see an entire song in their mind and if the visual thinking person sees it in the form of the actual notes on the piano they can instantly play the entire piece if they also have a prodigious memory (required trait in savants). In my case, I have to hear it and see it being played. Once that has happened I am able to reproduce it exactly. If i just hear it then there is nothing to connect the images in my mind with what needs to be done.

I guess my point is that what works for most people does not apply in the same manner to me, in every aspect of my life. Some people can rely only on their ears for a task, others need some visual input.

I sometimes use Voxengo SPAN when mixing, but mostly because I like to stim on spectrum analyzers while listening to music (it deters me from too much obscure thinking). It does help "see" problem frequencies, but even then I have to go through the instruments that cover those frequencies to figure out which one is the main source of the problem and then I EQ it by ear wherever it needs it. I spend a lot of time EQing during mix down to get rid of anything I don't like. I don't think I have ever done any EQ boosting, except on a single bass part to make the pick noise more audible.

One thing I do like about Har-Bal is the ability to look at other material from commercial CDs, primarily for entertainment. It is interesting to see how CDs which sound good anywhere they are played all look different. I have seen some songs in Har-Bal from very high quality HDCDs that serious Har-Bal users would freak out over. Dips and peaks everywhere, so IMNSHO, flattening them all out in a song is going to change the sonic quality of the material and almost place it into a generic type of category. That just validates my decades old theory that no two people mix or master alike. Everyone hears things differently. I have known professional studio engineers that couldn't mix a song well even if they had some sort of "one button - instant mix" tool. And I have seen people completely mix songs so that they required no additional mastering in a very very short period of time.

It all depends on the person doing the mixing or mastering, the quality of their gear (including cables) and their familiarity with the sound their system produces in the room they are mixing in. Although it is better than what many people have I know my mixing environment is far from ideal, but with trial and error I learn how to compensate for its shortcomings. Like I said, I mix until I think it sounds good and I have been playing music since I was very young and recording for over 20 years. I listen to the mix the next day and make any adjustments that are needed, then move on. I have gone back later and heard some mixes that were great, even though I thought they were terrible the day after they were mixed. The same with commercial CDs. I have heard stuff that was mixed and/or mastered terrible, which I would never be content with. If the artist likes it then that is all that matters, no matter what tools, or techniques they use to get it to that point.

 

[masteringhouse]

Very interesting perspective!

Thanks ...

 

[Autist]

That perspective is part of the reason I am hesitant to try to seriously master this monstrosity of a project myself.

 

[kylen]

Very interesting Autist - thanks for sharing! You and I have some similar opinions and uses of spectrum analyzers too I see. Keep on Rockin!