Let's Talk

[Doughboy]

Hi guys....I'm just getting started working with it. A little more complex this time. I've always used a Reference to match volumes with. I notice that if I hit "Match Loudness" or use the "L" function and bring it across my line.....that the volume matches up as before, however, the volume button does not raise nor is the change indicated on the level. In other words.....if my song comes up a 0. If the the reference is 5 db louder. It still shows "0" though the volume is obviously louder. I kind of liked it the other way, where it is indicated that it went up 5 db.....

Next....on the Histogram. (and I'm really apprecating the lessons).....I read your explanations....and impressed as I am.....my eyes were fogging over.....soooo my question is.

Before doing anything with my song, looking at the histogram, there is the average and the power boxes. If I lower the volume by 10 db both boxes move to the left but remain the same, (obviously no quality is effected or whatever).....now if I raise the volume 4 db I am right at the "0" level. Still nothing appears to have changed in the boxes except there location moving to the right. As I increase it on upward from 5 db the right side of the yellow spectrum begins rising into the air and at some point goes totally straight up. Okay.....I realize this means I'm working the limiter to hard....but....at what point, am I working it to hard, or ruining my dynamics?

Also....I raised the level 20db in this example and the yelllow line goes straight up......but, the limiter activity bar....still only indicates it's in the heavy green....no red at all. Though it is obviously squashed to pieces. Not distorting though. Shouldn't that be in the red?

[HarBal]

With regard to the referencing and loudness matching, can you please give the exact steps you are taking so I can reproduce the behaviour. In particular, I need to know if you have split the track and whether you have a segment selected at the time.

On the histogram and what constitutes over limiting, well I'm afraid that is a value judgment. If I had my way no one would be limiting more than have the final 0dB bin just starting to rise. If the peak of the 0dB bin is higher than the main peak in the histogram then you can safely say you are definitely over limiting.

The limiter meter is mono colour. All green I'm afraid. I'm not sure having it multi-coloured would help anyway as I don't think it is clear at what level it should be red and what level green. The histogram shows this info better.

If the level you can get through limiting (without over limiting) is not loud enough try adding some dynamics nodes to compress the main lobe in the average histogram. You should be able to add quite a bit without introducing much extra limiting. I'd personally recommend that you don't aim for a (re full scale square) average level of any higher than -13dB. Beyond that is definitely the point of no return, though most commercial releases these days like to aim for -10dB and sound like crap because of it.

cheers,


Paavo.

[ByronSanto]

Every time I load a filter I get the attached error message. I have even saved MID filters and tried loading the filter while MID was selected

[HarBal]

What exactly are you doing? Can you give me the steps so I can see if it is a misunderstanding or a bug?

To explain, that message box comes up if you attempt to load a filter file from track A when working on track B. Its a deliberate restriction to attempt to stop users from using a wrong filter with a given file, hearing horrible results and blaming Har-Bal. You could do that in Har-Bal 2.3 but in that case there is only one filter for the entire track. Since Har-Bal 3 has track splitting you could obtain positively strange outcomes if it allowed you to open any filter with any track.

If what you are trying to do is copy the filter response from one track to another, I don't have a simple solution for you. It's not something I'd like to encourage and I don't think it is particularly appropriate. In my view each track needs to be dealt with on an individual basis rather than sharing filters across tracks.

cheers,


Paavo.

[ByronSanto]

To explain, that message box comes up if you attempt to load a filter file from track A when working on track B. Its a deliberate restriction to attempt to stop users from using a wrong filter with a given file, hearing horrible results and blaming Har-Bal. You could do that in Har-Bal 2.3 but in that case there is only one filter for the entire track. Since Har-Bal 3 has track splitting you could obtain positively strange outcomes if it allowed you to open any filter with any track.

cheers,

Paavo.

OK, it was 150% user error then! ha ha ..........................

[JTroska]

Neither of these first two Beta releases have been able to open a large (45+ min) wave file. It goes through the analyzing process and then goes into "not responding". I'm not very Windows savvy so I can send you a crash report but you'll have to tell me how.

When I divided the same file into smaller chunks, it opened fine.

[HarBal]

That would be the 2GB (.hba file size) file size limit in 32 bit builds. When I make a 64 bit build that problem should go away. For 32 bit build versions I should put in a check on this and stop you from loading it.

Personally, for this version I wouldn't recommend processing an entire album as one file.

regards,


Paavo.

[JTroska]

I finally had a chance to really play with HB3.2 Beta today.

I was wanting a way to use the Undo/Redo buttons confined to a particular tab (Spectrum / Frequency Response / Histogram).

For example, I tweak my EQ under Spectrum; then I tweak the compression under Histogram; then I decide I should step back and undo an EQ tweak I had made back in Spectrum. As it is, I have to backtrack by undo-ing all my dynamic edits before I can undo my latest EQ edit.

I found myself wishing I could click the Spectrum tab and undo an EQ edit without undo-ing my dynamics.

But this is by far one of my favorite audio processing softwares. It's amazing how much better everything sounds with a spectrum touch-up. And perhaps best of all, it has taught me what a proper mix should sound like so my current mixes are needing less and less Har-Bal touch-ups.

New dynamic editing feature is really nice. I find it really easy to tweak the nodes for optimal results. One question: I understand the horizontal placing of the I/O nodes, but does the vertical placement have any effect? I don't understand the significance of the vertical placement (if any).

[HarBal]

The Undo redo implementation is not ideal but likely to stay that way for the release. I don't have many ideas on how to implement it in a better way at this point in time anyway so time is needed to get a better handle on it. That said, my inclination is to leave it as is for a while and make improvements in a future version when I better understand the problem.

As I explained elsewhere, the reason why Undo/redo switches tabs and follows everything you do is because in this version changes are far more contextual. If I didn't track the current view and you pressed undo but your last undo was in the dynamics pane but now your in the spectrum pane you may not realise what you just undid. I understand the suggestion of having seperate undo / redo stacks for each view, though that has implementation difficulties and you could end up with quite a few stacks which could in itself lead to confusion. I think the customary approach to undo/redo is to have only one stack application wide so sticking to that is likely to be better understood by new users.

For dynamics nodes the vertical position is only cosmetic. It has no effect on the input - output transfer characteristic. Just position them where they least get in the way of seeing the detail of the histograms.

cheers,


Paavo.

[andygrim]

Hi Paavo.

So far running very stably for me... just a couple of queries if I may?

Is there much change to the air function?
This seems a little more subtle as though I might need a little more to achieve the same result as 2.3 (though I haven't played around enough with this to be sure...might just be tired ears!)

What's with all the files being created? On top of the usual anl there are 8 other files created for every file analysed to process or as reference. I work on 3 tracks & load a few different references for each & I have 80 new files floating around my hard drives in no time. Are they really temp files that aren't being cleaned up or could we have the option of deleting them on closing a file.

Have really only tried the features already available in 2.3 so far....I'll try to comprehend & have a play with the segmenting next!

Cheers
Andy.

[HarBal]

Hi Andy,

Yes, the air in HB3 is more subtle than in HB2.3 and it works by a different mechanism. HB2.3 air is essentially just stereo expansion through mid / side processing. If the source is mono air will do nothing. In HB3 air is implemented using cross coupled (ie. stereo) Haas zone (less than 50ms duration) ambiance. It works with mono sources, just try it and see (though I'm not sure you have the latest build with the mono file fix).

How much you should use is open to question. Certainly, if a track holds together on it's own then you shouldn't use any but if the parts don't seem to hang together naturally I'd certainly try adding some to hear if it makes a difference. On listening to it, as with any ambiance processing, to hear it to it's fullest extent requires a dead listening environment. If your room has good natural ambiance for listening then you'll have difficulty picking up on what air is doing as it will blend in with what your room is doing. The easiest way to check what it's actually doing and how much you are actually applying is to monitor in headphones. When you've got the level right then you can go back to your normal monitoring.

The files HB3 creates are temporary for the duration that you need to design your filter and render the file and possibly use the track as a playable reference. Once that is done and you've finished your work on the track, the only file you need to archive for posterity is the .hbf file. All the others are re-created when loading the source material and the filter.

I realise this file polution is an issue and am working on some built in file management functionality to make this easier to maintain. The reason why I don't automatically delete all these once you close HB or the file is because you may want to use it again and if that was the case then you have to go through the lengthy rigmaroll of re-creation. I'll put in a check box option to be able to delete the files on close along with a management dialog that tracks all the files you worked on so you can handle working on compilations.

cheers,


Paavo.

[andygrim]

Thanks for the answers Paavo.

My monitoring situation isn't ideal....which is exactly why HarBal has been a godsend for me! I often do use a little of the 2.3 air but never more than 10 or 12%. Frequently my mixes are just a little thin & once Harbal fills out the spectrum they can seem a little less open & air opens it back up.

I'm only talking small amounts as since I bought Har-Bal, my mixes get closer & closer to good curves each time.....I thought I'd made my first mix that didn't even need balancing a while back, but even then I still managed a small improvement with Harbal.

I'll do some more critical listening including headphones & choose a suitable amount for my use.

I have to say that I'm finding the realtime freq display is a great addition. Love being able to see the exact freq of each bass note dancing away!

A minor point, but it would be nice if the program remembered last folders accessed independently for references & for process files......2.3 seems to do it this way.
At the moment I open a file to process, then open a reference...then when I go to export my processed file it points to the last used reference folder & I have to rebrowse back to my audio folder to save.

I also managed to crash the program playing around with zoom on the frequency response graph...I was zoomed further out than anyone would want to be but the crash is easily reproduce-able by zooming out repeatedly. As I say, not something that anyone would want to do but you may want to take a look.

Cheers
Grim.

[janpetter]

(though I'm not sure you have the latest build with the mono file fix).
Paavo.

Mmmm , The latest Zip file I downloaded was "HB3.096.zip" Is this with the latest build ?
All the best
Jan

[Girore]

Hi Andy,

Yes, the air in HB3 is more subtle than in HB2.3 and it works by a different mechanism. HB2.3 air is essentially just stereo expansion through mid / side processing. If the source is mono air will do nothing. In HB3 air is implemented using cross coupled (ie. stereo) Haas zone (less than 50ms duration) ambiance. It works with mono sources, just try it and see (though I'm not sure you have the latest build with the mono file fix).

How much you should use is open to question. Certainly, if a track holds together on it's own then you shouldn't use any but if the parts don't seem to hang together naturally I'd certainly try adding some to hear if it makes a difference. On listening to it, as with any ambiance processing, to hear it to it's fullest extent requires a dead listening environment. If your room has good natural ambiance for listening then you'll have difficulty picking up on what air is doing as it will blend in with what your room is doing. The easiest way to check what it's actually doing and how much you are actually applying is to monitor in headphones. When you've got the level right then you can go back to your normal monitoring.

The files HB3 creates are temporary for the duration that you need to design your filter and render the file and possibly use the track as a playable reference. Once that is done and you've finished your work on the track, the only file you need to archive for posterity is the .hbf file. All the others are re-created when loading the source material and the filter.

I realise this file polution is an issue and am working on some built in file management functionality to make this easier to maintain. The reason why I don't automatically delete all these once you close HB or the file is because you may want to use it again and if that was the case then you have to go through the lengthy rigmaroll of re-creation. I'll put in a check box option to be able to delete the files on close along with a management dialog that tracks all the files you worked on so you can handle working on compilations.

cheers,


Paavo.

Hoi Paavo,

About the file "explosion" on a given song:

Maybe it is possible to automatically let harbal make a file map at the same location where the song is located, with the name of the song and place all the files created by Harbal in that map.
Then there still will be a lot of files, but they are grouped together per song in a song map and will not crowd the map where the song is located.

Grtz.Girore

[ByronSanto]

What was fixed in version HB3.0961?