smoothing out the midrange with har-bal and samplitude
Posted: Sun Apr 27, 2008 11:17 am
Working on some live recordings recently. Piano and vocal. The very heavy in the mid-range and some distortion on my playback system when pushing the levels.
What I did to cure the recording was to identify mid-range resonances with har-bal. Then apply eq cuts. Samplitude was used as well to bounce (render) to a file very short segments where distortion occurs.
First a general eq treatment was in order. Har-bal was used to identify the dominant areas. Usually this occurred in 600-700 range and then the first harmonic above that 1200-1400 depending upon the key of the song. I did these wide eq adjustments in Samplitude. Usually a cut of 3-4 db with a Q factor of about 3 was required.
After the general eq treatment, there were usually still some problem frequencies needing an eq cut. This is where har-bal excels above other tools. I previewed the song in Samplitude until I heard an area where there was distortion. Then I bounced a short segment of the distorted region to a small file. The small file was then opened with Har-bal. This would identify the exact frequency which needed the cut. I would usually do a narrow parametric cut at that frequency and also the first harmonic. This was very evident on the frequency trace.
I did my parametric cuts in Har-bal. After rendering the eq changes in Har-bal, I would have to rename the file so that Samplitude would think it was the same file as before. This works ok if you have repeated eq changes to make.
So, the general idea here is to use a DAW editing program to create a short snippet of a problem area of a track. And then use Har-bal to analyze it. Repeat the process as much as required.
What I did to cure the recording was to identify mid-range resonances with har-bal. Then apply eq cuts. Samplitude was used as well to bounce (render) to a file very short segments where distortion occurs.
First a general eq treatment was in order. Har-bal was used to identify the dominant areas. Usually this occurred in 600-700 range and then the first harmonic above that 1200-1400 depending upon the key of the song. I did these wide eq adjustments in Samplitude. Usually a cut of 3-4 db with a Q factor of about 3 was required.
After the general eq treatment, there were usually still some problem frequencies needing an eq cut. This is where har-bal excels above other tools. I previewed the song in Samplitude until I heard an area where there was distortion. Then I bounced a short segment of the distorted region to a small file. The small file was then opened with Har-bal. This would identify the exact frequency which needed the cut. I would usually do a narrow parametric cut at that frequency and also the first harmonic. This was very evident on the frequency trace.
I did my parametric cuts in Har-bal. After rendering the eq changes in Har-bal, I would have to rename the file so that Samplitude would think it was the same file as before. This works ok if you have repeated eq changes to make.
So, the general idea here is to use a DAW editing program to create a short snippet of a problem area of a track. And then use Har-bal to analyze it. Repeat the process as much as required.