Har-Bal Users Forum BBS

Firstly, my sincere thanks for Harbal 2. I've been using Harbal 1 for some time now as a kind of Swiss army knife prior to mastering with Waves LinMB, L3 et al. However, I’ve spent the last few days with some somewhat initially skeptical folk comparing mixes done with the InuitQ & Harbal limiter, and with the Lin MB & L3.

The reason we are spending a lot of time here is because we have a large catalogue of older recordings to re-master for download – several hundred tracks - and are trying to find the best/most efficient method for getting the job done. It would be fabulous if we did not have to leave the Harbal screen or if Harbal could in some way be chained with the Waves gear. However I do realize that this is not practicable.

So far, in terms of quality against control against speed, we’ve been getting the best results through manually removing obvious peaks in the conventional manner; hitting the InuitQ, adding a small amount of limiter, say 4dB, for a kind of ‘warmth’, “airing” to say 20 dB, and finally finishing off with a chain involving an EQ (cut 35Hz, boost 11K) and an L3.

I think we’ve managed to dispense with the Lin MB. A certain level of “harshness” appears to have vanished with it – but this could be largely historical user error

However, I can’t yet seem to get the control with the Harbal limiter as a brick-waller that I can with the L3. I run into pumping more quickly than I feel I should. I, personally, would like a brick-waller as a separate slider from the limiter so I could dance the two together - and some detailed metering would possibly help. But I’m sounding greedy!

BTW, how accurate is the gain reduction meter? Does a segment indicate a dB of reduction?

Again, many thanks for H2. I’ve never been given anything so useful.
Cheers & best wishes,
David

Hi David,

Thanks for the feedaback. As you have discovered, the HB limiter wasn't designed or intended for brickwalling. I guess it is a personal bent of mine as I don't like the idea of killing the dynamics of a track and the harshness that typically results from brick wall limiting to the extreme. If it is really important to you it is simple enough to add an option to make it brick wall without obvious pumping and the normal harshness but it won't happen immediately. You can expect it in a later release though.

The metering issue is an ongoing one that isn't going to change until the (forever promised and yet to be delivered) Mac port. It basically requires a custom control to implement a decent one (rather that the very limited progress bar in Windows) but I don't want to develop one that is Windows specific. Hence the desire to leave it till after the port.

Cheers,


Paavo.

HarBal wrote:Hi David,

I guess it is a personal bent of mine as I don't like the idea of killing the dynamics of a track and the harshness that typically results from brick wall limiting to the extreme.
Paavo.

No argument from me on that. Problem is that when you have someone sitting beside you with a cheque book saying that the song should have an RMS of 7 'cause he (it's always a "he") read it in a mag, you can tell him to get stuffed or do what he says

Thanks for getting back, and happy porting. I know heaps of Mac users over here in NZ who'll be in like Flyn!