Har-Bal Users Forum BBS

I hope this is appropriate to post here. I love har-bal, Earle, and Paavo. I still don't like my own mixes especially on cheap stereos. Have nice equipment, and have read everything on the web, and am still learning how best to use har-bal. I would pay handsomely for someone with a little knowledge/skill to work with me for a day or two to help fix a couple of simple mixes (piano, vocals, acoustic guitar) that I am doing for fundraising projects (a NYC mission, and a church-school) and need to finish in the next couple months. I am in central Illinois and can bring my protools HD rig to you, or meet you here. I don't have the heart to send this crummy mix to Earle and ask him to gratuitously try to work magic on it.

Thanks to anyone who can keep me sane!
Carmichael

The basics:

Protools 6.9 HD Accel in Windows XP
Waves Gold, Nuendo, Har-Bal!, PSP Vintage Warmer, Voxengo Elephant, Wizooverb
Mackie HD824 monitors
others

Why don't you post one or two of your mixes (pre Har-Bal) here for some subjective critique.

And, along side those mixes post the Har-Balized files. These could be mp3s.

You may be able to send some wav/aif files, of your mixes, to other Har-Ballers for a 'group-mastering'. I'd avoid having people work, via e-mail, with compressed files, such as mp3s.

I haven't tried this service:

http://www.yousendit.com/

This would allow you to send larger uncompressed 44.1 or up, 24-bit audio files.

Chances are that you have problems within your mixing environment (i.e., your room).

How do 'commercial' CDs sound in your mixing room?

zumbido wrote:Why don't you post one or two of your mixes (pre Har-Bal) here for some subjective critique.

And, along side those mixes post the Har-Balized files. These could be mp3s.

You may be able to send some wav/aif files, of your mixes, to other Har-Ballers for a 'group-mastering'. I'd avoid having people work, via e-mail, with compressed files, such as mp3s.

I haven't tried this service:

http://www.yousendit.com/

This would allow you to send larger uncompressed 44.1 or up, 24-bit audio files.

Chances are that you have problems within your mixing environment (i.e., your room).

How do 'commercial' CDs sound in your mixing room?

Zumbido is quite correct.

You can use the www.yousendit.com link to post your file. Just send it to yourself and it will remain accessible to the public for 7 days. They will allow you to send files up to one gig (free) in size to anyone on The planet.

Post away and we will take a look at it.

Cheers

Earle

Hello Carm,

I'll give you another option. Check out " 5beeproductions.com ".
I'm a fellow Indie Artist & Music Fanatic who's helped many a folks
get the best sound from their track- You can upload MP3, WAV, etc.
to my server- (info for server sent after submitting track on Mastering page.)
Or use "yousendit.com" to send file to info@5beeproductions.com.
Either way- I haven't had anyone yet say I didn't help make there mix or song
sound better.

Same offer to anyone else struggling out there with a tune...

Thanks, Brian.

brian770295 wrote:Hello Carm,

I'll give you another option. Check out " 5beeproductions.com ".
I'm a fellow Indie Artist & Music Fanatic who's helped many a folks
get the best sound from their track- You can upload MP3, WAV, etc.
to my server- (info for server sent after submitting track on Mastering page.)
Or use "yousendit.com" to send file to info@5beeproductions.com.
Either way- I haven't had anyone yet say I didn't help make there mix or song
sound better.

Same offer to anyone else struggling out there with a tune...

Thanks, Brian.

Thanks BrIan...we need more folks like you.

Cheers

Earle

You are all very, very kind. Music isn't my day job so when I get home tonight I will try to muster the courage to send this. I'm timid because I am more comfortable with the typical drum kit, electric, bass, etc -- what is really killing me is just a steinway and three (church) singers and though they don't have a style and experience that are going to excite any of us, they are soooooooo! nice and this is for charity and I am doing such a poor job for them. I may post a second file that is much more enjoyable -- nice acoustic guitar duets with a very pleasant female singer. This "you send it" sounds very nice.

The male (alto) singer is so boomy on cheap stereos (maybe ~300 hz?), and the piano sounds dull (recorded with Neumann KM184 in XY). I tried harbaling everything (piano, each vocal) individually just to slam the peaks in the fundamental range and tame the subharmonic range, with just a slight 5K presence peak on vocals, a 3K boost on piano, but I'm missing something -- a lot of something.

Thanks!

You music professionals are saints for listening to this. Three church singers with a steinway mixed by a physician (me) and written by a very beloved, but non-musical minister after his heart attack. But still, why can't I get this to play on the minister's office stereo?

This is ~ 1minute at 16/44 (nothing harbalized in this version).

http://s28.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=3H2K ... 5ICHTL2ZVV

Thanks for your kindness ... I'll try to stick to my day job.

PLEASE DONT LISTEN TO THE ABOVE LINK!!! -- if you already have, you are probably still nauseated. Please use this one instead (I had done something really strange with piano)-- believe it or not, there are thousands of older parishoners that eat this type of music up -- I just want it to do something on cheap stereos other than boom at 100 to 400 hz.

http://s28.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=1J7S ... VEI69N4TZ8

Thanks!!!!

Can you post the individual tracks (i.e., stereo piano, 3 vocals) with the same start times?

I'm hearing distortion on the piano.

Piano is burying the vocals.

The vocals could use some tuning help and aligning.

IMHO...

Yeah!!! I would love to. Tonight I'll post the individual tracks (three vocals and piano). I really do have some better stuff, but this one I'm dying on. I asume you just want short bits and not the whole song which would be ~40 mb per track and I assume you want things unedited (no or minimal compression or eq). I'll probably keep the autotuner on though.

Thanks!

No compression, no tuner, nothing - raw.

I may place the vocals into Celemony - I think it's a better tuning application than Antares Auto-Tune. And, I'll try VocALign.

If you want to upload the whole thing, go for it. Downloading is usually pretty quick.

Yeah!!!! I'll get it there tonight!!!

Zumbido-

An off topic question on Melodyne Cre8 with regard to ptich shifting and time stretching . . .
Is that app specifically intended for use on mono solo insturments and tracks, or can it also be used on a stereo mix? Case in point . . . I'm working on a restoration project (stereo)-- originally from tape. It has what sounds like some short and intermittent tape stretches where the pitch dips just a little. Just wondering if this would be a job for Melodyne -- or if it just wouldn't work at all for this type of project? Thanks.

Tom

I think Cre8 would not work. You can try out the demo application indefinitely, you just can't 'save' anything.

Another alternative is that you could place these sections, that are pitch-distorted from tape-stretching, into a sample-player.

I use Logic Audio so I'd place these sections/samples into EXS-24.

You would then, very painstakingly, tweak by inserting pithcbend values.

I'd set up the pitchbend to: +/- 1/2 step. This way you'd have, up or down, 8192 increments within a 1/2 step available, That should give you very fine tuning capabilities, I would think. Remember, there are 100 cents in a half-step. So a cent is equal to 81.92 (PB value).

I have used this method but not specifically the way you need to. It may drive you crazy.

There's probably another easier method out there.

Here are the links. Key of D-Flat changes to D major in the 3rd chorus.They are 24/44 (recorded at 24/88). Thanks Again!!!! I know this recording isn't worthy, but there are lots of people looking forward to the result, and hopefully I will learn a little something along the way.

Piano KM184 XY.wav
http://s30.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=39AB ... FHC80SAHR2

Vocal Lead A.wav
http://s51.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=2DYX ... X1UZB4YU0S

BG Vocal Left.wav
http://s51.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=28J6 ... YT2PCB61EC

BG Vocal Right.wav
http://s51.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=3RWS ... CUKPYQC0CI

Vocal Lead B.wav
http://s40.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=3HT3 ... 6T2ZINS1CA

Piano Soundboard NTK.wav
http://s40.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=3Q5A ... MJ8IZQRA9O