Har-Bal Users Forum BBS

Hi guys,
Great product first and foremost! It's helping me out a lot. However I've a question in relation to the IntuitQ function.

I read somewhere that the IntuitQ function only works between points in the spectrum where 'roll off' occurs on either end.
Does this mean for example that If I loaded a mix into Harbal where I had deliberately removed most energy from above the 6K region, that intuitQ would infact only smooth out from where Low Frequency roll off happens upto the 6k region? Personally I find this a bit of a let down and I'll explain why on my second point below

I personally would find it extremely useful if the intuitQ function could be 'genre' defined in the same way that reference files can be classed into Rock, Jazz etc etc. It's clear to see from the supplied reference files with Harbal that the spectrums vary greatly for each kind of music, and If I load a Rock song into Harbal and IntuitQ it, the resulting spectrum is going to be vastly different to a Jazz song which has been intuitQ'ed.

I know the prime function of IntuitQ is merely to balance the spectrum, but I feel that limiting it only to points between roll offs in the spectrum is a little bit of a kop out and one that possibly could be avoided if the function was to be genre specific. I tend to mix mainly rock songs and for a while my mixing environment was so poor that it was actually making me mix with a lot less high end content than I needed. But however this wasn't corrected by Harbal and the intuitQ function because the program obviously read it as a serious roll off in the upper frequencies, leaving me with a really dull sounding final product.

Anyway I just wanted to make these points, I'd be really interested to hear any responses you guys have. I'm a really big fan of Harbal but I still thought I'd pass on my ideas, even though I'm far from being an expert.

Thanks for Listening,
Mark.

Hi Mark,

Thanks for the suggestions. What you ask is not really the role of IntuitQ. The role of IntuitQ is it attempt to optimise your mix to mimize masking of one part of the psectrum by another on the assumption that your production intent is correct.

In your case of having a mix that is dull because of poor room acoustics your production intent was biased by your room. It would be far better to address your acoustics issues than to look for an electronic fix. After all, if Har-Bal did what you'd hoped it would have done and you monitored your results in your problem environment you'd most likely think it was way too bright and want to alter it. The only real way to address this sort of issue is to fix the acoustics. Either that, or mix using headphones (which have problems of another kind).

The real problem with what you suggest and why I'd like to avoid it is that it is not really possible to make a solid connection between genre and spectrum shape. There are always exceptions and quite often the exceptions represent the best and most inovative recordings. This is really something that should be the territory of the production engineer and not a machine output. In any case, If you really want to match genres through spectrums you can do it manually using an appropriate reference.

Regards,


Paavo.