still not grasping this

[zentatonic]

Hi -

I'm just not "getting" Har-Bal. Sometimes it works for me, sometimes it doesn't.
I even loaded up some favorite professional tracks - and all of them had huge peaks and dips that I would have wrongly removed.
I must be approaching this program completely wrong.

[HarBal]

Hi -

I'm just not "getting" Har-Bal. Sometimes it works for me, sometimes it doesn't.
I even loaded up some favorite professional tracks - and all of them had huge peaks and dips that I would have wrongly removed.
I must be approaching this program completely wrong.

Zentatonic,

You've got to take the spectrum in it's context and that context is the music. First up I'd like to ask you if you've read the tutorial in the application help. If you have then good but if you haven't please do so.

Getting back to your comments, huge peaks are not necessarily a problem as it depends on which instruments are generating them. For example, if you have a track that has ride cymbals (bell sound as opposed to crashes) recorded pretty loud in the mix then you'll more than likely have strong peaks in the 8-16kHz region and this is good. Those peaks are the natural resonances of the cymbals. Now if you were to bring those peaks down it would be akin to grabbing hold of the cymbal while your drummer was playing it. I don't think you'd want to do that would you?

Other examples might be at the bottom end. If you have a recording with a strident resonant bass drum again you'll see peakiness corresponding to the natural resonance of the drum. If you bring that down you'll be, in effect, putting pillows inside the drum. Again, if you were after that sound then you probably would have done the later and not the former. And again, if you have a Mic recorded bass guitar you're likely to see much more peakiness in the bottom end than if you DI'd it. That is what defines the sound of the Mic recorded bass and given that it was recorded by Mic, that is most likely the sound that you were after, so again if you flatten out the peaks you'll be, in effect, making a mike recorded bass into a DI'd bass.

What you should be looking out for are broad holes in the spectrum and filling them in. After doing that then have a close look at the peak spectrum trace (yellow line) to see if there are any peaks that stand head an shoulders above everything else. If there are trying bringing them down a bit but don't eliminate them. And remember to take into account the context. If the peak is around 8-16kHz and you've got cymbals or horns in the track then it's probably due to that so you don't want to be messing around with the shape. If the top end is too prominent just shelve it a bit.

Finally, if your speakers and/or listening environment is deficient you'll have difficulty judging the correctness of your changes. Have a listen to stuff through good quality headphones and then your speakers. If the tonality in headphones is much better then you may have a problem with your setup.

If you are still confused then post a track your having difficulty with for us to design a filter for you. And if you don't want to or can't make the track available you can send me the .anl file for the track and I'll have a stab and desiging a filter deaf!

Regards,


Paavo.

[zentatonic]

Thanks Paavo!

Might still be a couple of months before I begin "official" mixdowns. But this is encouraging to see!!
It means a lot to me. Says a ton about your level of professionalism and belief in Har Bal. You'll be hearing from me after the Holidays for sure.

Very Best,
Jeff