Just gotta say that yesterday I got Har-Bal. Its the mastering oojimaflip mentioned in this months mag.

WOW!!!!!!!!!!

Spent a little time with it today to see what it can do and I'm seriously impressed. Given one hour, (of playing with it) I remastered a five track compilation I had recorded a week ago and the improvements are astonoshing! Considering I had never used it before I can't wait to see how good it is when i get to know how to use it properly. Everything about the sound was improved. IO tried to get the same tonal balance as the Born in the USA album so loaded up dancing in the dark as a reference file, and within half an hour I had achieced the exact result I was looking for. The best part is that without even cross checking before finishing, I burned off an audio CD and it translates wonderfully to every playback system I have tried it on!!!
At this rate, I won't be able to master without it by next week.


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Baby we were born to run

Does anybody else have a valid opinion on this software? At just £50 it seems worth a punt as another weapon in the gun cupboard.

As an ear training tool it might be interesting - but most seasoned mastering engineers would probably achieve the same thing just by listening.

Cheers

James.

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JRP Music - Audio Mastering and Restoration.
http://www.jrpmusic.net

Quote James Perrett:

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As an ear training tool it might be interesting - but most seasoned mastering engineers would probably achieve the same thing just by listening.

Cheers

James.

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Sorry if I'm wrong, but i'd say from that comment, you haven't actually tried it yet to see what it can achieve in a very short time?

You might want to check James' signature...

If there's anything worth knowing about mastering...

Er, if it could all be so easily sorted by a £50 application, don't you think all pro ME's would be lining up for unemployment benefits by now?

One of these applications comes along every couple of months. Here's the thread about the last one:

http://www.soundonsound.com/forum/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=402664& page=2&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1#402664

No, I haven't tried it yet. But it seems to be an EQ, which is somewhat different to a full-on mastering suite. It's been around for over three years and has had plenty of time to blow everything else away if that was ever likely to happen. There's a default plug in supplied with Logic which does much the same.

My faith is unshakeable however that one day a £50 plug in will make all those £500k mastering rooms redundant!

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Dynamite with a laser beam...


Edited by Steve Hill (23/06/07 07:17 PM)

I've used Hal-Bal.

It is novel in that you can see the all the frequencies as wave forms and directly manipulate the wave form to "balance" or alter the frequency you need to tweak. It's great, also, for getting a visual comparison of what you want against what you have, so that you can impose the former on the latter.

I use it for some things, but not everything.

I agree with Steve, that a good engineer will be able to hear what the software "sees." For us non-engineers, I would say that it a useful tool.

I bought har-bal a couple of years ago. I might be speaking out of turn because i havnt been picking up my updates recently, well ive done very little serious recording recently.

The big drawback is/was that it will only run stand alone which is a pity cos it would e extremely handy in a chain of mastering plug-ins. I did write and suggest that if they didnt want to make it a plug-in then perhaps they might consider making it a host. Don't know if that ever happened.

It's an eq but a very sophisticated one. Essentially you get unlimited bands with variable q represented graphically, but instead of a flat line you start with an analysis of the track.

You can of course analyse a commercial fav track and lay your target track over it. There isnt any 'auto sh!t hot' function in my version, you have to make manual adjustments.

I think as a very sophisticated and great sounding eq its a bargain. The support is also very good, quick and personal in my experience.

I think its a very useful tool. I dont think its ever going to replace an ME, but its a very handy reference when mixing, particularly is you are a bit untrusting of your monitors and room.

Red, that stuff i sent up to you was mixed using har-bal for reference.

Quote Steve Hill:

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You might want to check James' signature...

If there's anything worth knowing about mastering...

Er, if it could all be so easily sorted by a £50 application, don't you think all pro ME's would be lining up for unemployment benefits by now?

One of these applications comes along every couple of months. Here's the thread about the last one:

http://www.soundonsound.com/forum/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=402664& page=2&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1#402664

No, I haven't tried it yet. But it seems to be an EQ, which is somewhat different to a full-on mastering suite. It's been around for over three years and has had plenty of time to blow everything else away if that was ever likely to happen. There's a default plug in supplied with Logic which does much the same.

My faith is unshakeable however that one day a £50 plug in will make all those £500k mastering rooms redundant!

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You're quite right and I agree with you that if it was an all in one mastering solution that is as good at everything, as at what it ACTUALLY DOES, mastering engineers would now all be out of work. It only claims (and does), EQ balancing. Not having tens of thousands of pounds to spare I don't have any lucious hardware mastering EQ's, but use some very nice plugins instead (waves linear phase EQ for example) when I master. Iam simply saying that with har-bal, I can do in around five minutes, (with no experience of the application) what it usually takes me twenty minutes to achieve without it. Not only that, but the end results were better using har-bal than using my usual EQ tools.

Compression, Limiting, Editing etc.... all still have to performed using other tools, but for EQ balancing, I don't know of ANY other tool of this quality - regardless of price.

Just because it's cheap, doesn't mean it's no good!

This is just my opinion, and I wouldn't expect a (I assume) highly paid mastering engineer to want everyone to begin using tools that COULD render him out of work in a few years time - with a little more development. As the technology begins to grow, then the need for great "ears" becomes less apparent. Graphic displays are already becoming invaluable tools for mixing and mastering engineers alike, and the possibility of hearing a song that has been mixed and mastered with only the roughest of listening tests is surely not too far away in the future. (In fact I may just go and try it now to see what resuls can be achieved with only a slightly above average project studio set up).

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Baby we were born to run

Edited by hegiian (23/06/07 08:09 PM)

That's all valid, and cool.

Your first post was exuberant enough to suggest to a new reader that they only had to buy this and all their tracks would sound like The Boss's masters!

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Dynamite with a laser beam...

LOL!


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Baby we were born to run

For me as a bedroom-recorder it is an indispensable tool. I love it and it gives a great insight (especially the latest version 2.3) in the problem areas of your mix. The manuals are excellent and i think a lot of people, including seasoned engineers, would be impressed by the results it can give in little time. You have to learn how to use it though and it can't fix a badly mixed track. Then again, an experienced mastering-engineer can't do that too, i reckon.

Edited by Darling Sister (25/06/07 08:14 AM)

Thank you Darling.

And OW too.

And ofcourse Hegilan for reminding me,
I rememeber it has been around a few years but had forgotten.


For an uber pro as me who just recently is usng a tv to mix on
in a studwalled room, with the tv about 6 inches away from the wall
which btw produces quite well translated mixes
(unlike my prefious effort on headphones & an £18 stereo)
and I would encourage all engineers to ditch their mega dosh studios
& just get a decent palsma with twin speakers either side


Har-Bal could be just the ticket.

Hi hegiian!

I'm glad you liked HarBal after reading what I had to say about the latest version in this month's PC Notes column.

I'm totally in agreement with James that it's also an ear-training tool, and that seasoned mastering engineers will probably achieve the same thing through careful listening.

It's still standalone, which is slightly frustrating, and still incapable of loading other plug-ins so you can assemble some sort of mastering chain. Instead it concentrates on doing what it's always done best - highlighting problem areas in the EQ of a track, and this it does very intelligently in my opinion.

Many people seem to think (or assume) it's an 'EQ Ripper', but although it can perform this dubious function I find it far more useful for checking mixes and helping to keep tracks at consistent volumes throughout an album, quickly identifying problems in poorly recorded tracks I've been sent, and it's ideal for restoring elderly tracks with missing frequencies or skewed frequency responses. Others have found it useful for judging bass end when their own speakers don't extend low enough, and even for reducing the effects of unwanted room resonances in multi-track songs. It might even help you tft

As much as anything else it's a great educational tool that encourages its users to listen more carefully and create future mixes more carefully - the ultimate complement must be when you load a mix into Harbal and find it doesn't need to alter it at all


Martin

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YewTreeMagic

I've just started playing with Har-bal and I can see it could be really useful. The thing that concerns me is, am I doing my music a bad turn? Is this distracting me from going to a half decent mastering engineer for my new CD? (couldn't afford a really expensive one!). How close can I get to a professional sound? I put my music up in the mastering forum and someone who has mixed some artists I really respect said the mixes are ok so I'm not going do much more on that side, . Whats peoples view on using Har-bal in a DIY mastering chain - will I get close to a pro job if I put in the effort?
One thing i am aware of is at least I will get the eq emphasis I want which is different to the crispy sound a lot of modern cd's are coming out with! I'd hate to fork out hundreds of pounds and get something that I really don't like back. My music is a lo-fi scrappy mish-mash to start with by the way so its never going to be That pro sounding. Not until the anti-sterile music movement rises to prominence any ways

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www.myspace.com/shambolic-charm

Quote Shambolic Charm:

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Whats peoples view on using Har-bal in a DIY mastering chain - will I get close to a pro job if I put in the effort?

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You'll certainly get closer than you did before, subject of course to the fact that HarBal to some extent is voiced by a mastering engineer with his own tastes, and so its decisions won't necessarily agree with everyone else's

I think the key words here are 'if I put in the effort' - if you do this you'll learn more about what's wrong with your current mixes, and this can only benefit them in future. As i said earlier in this thread, HarBal is as much a listening tool and 'pair of expert ears' as anything else. If your mixes end up sounding better and you then take them to a mastering engineer then he/she won't need to work as hard to make them sound good - HarBal is never likely to replace a mastering engineer for the ultimate sound, but it should take you closer.


Martin

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YewTreeMagic

thanks, I was wondering wether tweaking the settings before sending it for mastering was a good idea. Sounds like its OK to do that.

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www.myspace.com/shambolic-charm

Shambolic,

If I were sending stuff for mastering, I wouldn't Harbal it first. I would provide the mastering engineer the best raw mix I could.

However I may well also include a copy of the tracks that I had put through Harbal, with notes on the curve applied and any other home mastering techniques I had applied. I would use this copy of the tracks as the base-line the mastered material must be better than, and to communicate to the mastering engineer the type of sound I'm aiming for.

-n.