Har-Bal Users Forum BBS

Hi there

I've been looking at a lot of popular songs in Har-bal and am wondering why the yellow and green lines are either close together or quite far apart, dynamics?

Also, a lot of popular songs dont seem to start rolling off at about 5khz but seem to climb after 5khz to about 10khz and then start rolling off. In others, including some of the included reference files, there seems to be hardly any rolling off at all in the top end?


Anyway, just curious.

Cheers

The more compressed a track the closer the green and yellow line will be, though not through any simple relationship. By that I mean you won't be able to tell how much a track has been compressed by looking at the space between peak and average because it also depends on the nature of the music and not just the applied com pression.

On pop songs it is perfectly possible to have a well balanced recording that has a climbing top end from 5-10KHz depending upon the instrumentation. By that I mean, if the track has a lot of horn swells or cymbal crashes / hi hat then you'll have strong resonances corresponding to these instruments in this region. If the intention of the mix was to have those instruments at the forefront then they'll stand out in the manner you suggested.

In circumstances like this you should "NEVER" control the peaks because you'll make your cymbals and brass sound like they are being muted by a blanket! Certainly, if you feel they are too high in the mix you can reduce it but only do that change with a low Q filter edit. That is, it is imperative to preserve the shape and relative intesities of those peaks in that region otherwise you risk losing quality. It seems quite a few people fall for this mistake and then point out that there is something qualitatively lacking in the filter within HarBal.

Regards,


Paavo.

Thank you very much Paavo, now I'm getting the hang of controlling the higher frequencies much better.

One more thing I'm still a bit unsure about. Sometimes, especially with a dance track, I like to make it pump slightly with compression when I master it. Should I do this before or after I harbalize?

Thanks again Paavo

David

David

You should apply Har-bal only before final limiting.

If you want the dance tracks to pump add compression to both the drum and bass track and then apply compression to the overall mix.

Here are some settings to start with.

Drums Attack 1-5/Release 10/Threshold -15/Ration 5:1 to 8:1/Knee Hard

Bass Attack 4-10/Release 10/Threshold -2 to -10/Ratio 4:1 to 12:1/Knee Hard

Earle Holder
www.har-bal.com
www.hdqtrz.com

Thanks for clarifying that Earle.

Cheers

David