Har-Bal Users Forum BBS

Hi. I'm a new-ish user just wondering if anyone else is doing the following.

I have been given material to mix with less-than-perfectly played bass. By that I mean uneven sting pressures played on a cheap instrument with old strings.

Working in a less-than-perfect mixing environment, I find bass a challenge at the best of times and would usually try a number of solutions including shipping it back out of the mix into an 1176, squashing it and dealing to the result with EQ.

But yesterday I exported each of the bass tracks out of the mix and basically flattened them out between 50 and 180 HZ with Har-bal. Then I re-imported and (very) lightly compressed them.

I have no idea if this would be considered good practice, but the results were simply staggering. I can now deal to the general (horrible) "sound" of the bass with EQ without worrying about disappearing notes or boom from single notes.

I've only just starting to play with this but it has me fascinated. If I can get good results from a poor bass ...........!

Anyway, this may be common practise out there in Har-bal-land. If so I'd be interested to hear if folk are generally dealing to the average or peaks in such instances and how flat over what range they feel they can get away with.

I love this programme
Thanks
David

David,

Can't name names but I have read in the forum of people tackling bass guitar issues in the same manner (among other things).

Your line of thinking is absolutely correct. It is much better to deal with the major EQ issues prior to and during mix-down rather than after the event. Please do so if you have access to the multi-track source.

Attacking the problem after mix-down can work reasonably well but if the EQ issues are really problematic side effects are inevitable.

Pre-mix processing will be much easier when we complete devopment of our HarBal VST plugin. We're looking at a beta release around the end of the year or perhaps sooner.

Cheers,


Paavo.

The ability to plug it into (in my case a Sonar) bass track would be a great asset. You really could fine tune a bottom end whilst mixing.

http://www.cakewalk.com/forum/tm.asp?m= ... hor#275048

Sticky Shed wrote:The ability to plug it into (in my case a Sonar) bass track would be a great asset. You really could fine tune a bottom end whilst mixing.

http://www.cakewalk.com/forum/tm.asp?m= ... hor#275048

I just visited the forum you pointed to. We appreciate you spreading positive comments about Har-Bal. Hopefully others reading your posts will pickup some helpful tips.

Earle

I recently received tracks to mix from a rock band and found the guitars sounded very nasaly and thin.
So much so that they caused two very high peaks, with a very hi Q, in my final mix. (I could not isolate the frequencies in the mixing desk)
I saw the peaks in Har-Bal when I opened my final mix, which I later found were from the guitars.
I opened the guitar tracks in Har-Bal and could see the two peaks right away!
Bye-bye nasty guitar sound!
I was able to smooth out the guitar tone with surprising results.
I imported the tracks back into Logic, removed the old EQ setting on the mixer and Bam!
I tweeked the guitars a little bit more in the mix after that but not much.
There was no way I could have found those two peaks without seeing them.
The band actually inquired on how I got _that_ sound from what they gave me.
Thanks Har-Bal. This tells me I need better ears too!

Scott

har-bal wrote:

Sticky Shed wrote:The ability to plug it into (in my case a Sonar) bass track would be a great asset. You really could fine tune a bottom end whilst mixing.

http://www.cakewalk.com/forum/tm.asp?m= ... hor#275048

I just visited the forum you pointed to. We appreciate you spreading positive comments about Har-Bal. Hopefully others reading your posts will pickup some helpful tips.

Earle

You'll notice I am pushing hard in that thread as well

Yeah, I have used Har-Bal at time on individual tracks, it is very helpful now and then for finding those rogue troublesome frequencies that ya just can't quite find...can't wait for the VST version, it's gonna replace my Waves Parametric EQ's I am sure...

Is there a VST-version in the works? Just asking.

No. After the release of 2.2 the code base will be frozen and I'm going to be switching on to the task of re-writing Har-Bal for the future. That is our priority and it is a big job so there is little hope of any VST tools for years. Sorry to dissapoint you but plugins are a low priority because of the limitations of what you can and can't do. In terms of the future evolution of Har-Bal it is a dead end.

Regards,


Paavo.

HarBal wrote:David,

Can't name names but I have read in the forum of people tackling bass guitar issues in the same manner (among other things).

Your line of thinking is absolutely correct. It is much better to deal with the major EQ issues prior to and during mix-down rather than after the event. Please do so if you have access to the multi-track source.

Attacking the problem after mix-down can work reasonably well but if the EQ issues are really problematic side effects are inevitable.

Pre-mix processing will be much easier when we complete devopment of our HarBal VST plugin. We're looking at a beta release around the end of the year or perhaps sooner.

Cheers,


Paavo.

That would be brilliant a VST version.

HarBal wrote:No. After the release of 2.2 the code base will be frozen and I'm going to be switching on to the task of re-writing Har-Bal for the future. That is our priority and it is a big job so there is little hope of any VST tools for years. Sorry to dissapoint you but plugins are a low priority because of the limitations of what you can and can't do. In terms of the future evolution of Har-Bal it is a dead end.

Regards,


Paavo.

Oh i just saw this.

Thats cool.
I understand.