Har-Bal Users Forum BBS

What am I missing here ???? ....

I'm mastering two different songs, used the "Match Loudness" feature to get each to match the loudness of a third reference track (from a commercial cd). But the resultant "apparent loudness" between the two tracks being mastered is quite different.

The "reference" track has an RMS of 12.69 (as shown in HB).

The first track is a "full band" production having acoustic guitar, mandolin, bass, organ piano, drums bgv's and lead vocal.

The second track is piano, synth-effects and vocals only.

Listening to the finished "mastered" tracks, after having used "match loudness" for each to match the 12.69 RMS of the reference track, the second track (piano, synth, vocals only) sounds noticeably louder than the first track (full band production). (The 2nd one also sounds bigger, fuller, etc.)

I should note that that I'm using NO further limiting or compression on the tracks AFTER being HB'ed. I rendered each back to a 32-bit file, loaded into Sonar, then exported to 16-bit. So only the HB limiter was in use for "matching loudness".

So can someone tell me what it is I'm not understanding about all this and where I may be going wrong?

Thanks

Hello Wandersen,

That mis-matching is a limitation of that algorithm. If you have two tracks one with fuller instrumentation (i.e more instruments playing at once) and use match loudness the track with less instrumentation will sound louder. We have a solution to that issue which will be available in the up and coming 2.2 release that solves this problem. I hope you can wait for it. Unitl then the only way to reasonably handle this in Har-Bal is to use manual adjustment and your ears (toggling between reference and track).

Cheers,


Paavo.

HarBal wrote:Hello Wandersen,

That mis-matching is a limitation of that algorithm. If you have two tracks one with fuller instrumentation (i.e more instruments playing at once) and use match loudness the track with less instrumentation will sound louder. We have a solution to that issue which will be available in the up and coming 2.2 release that solves this problem. I hope you can wait for it. Unitl then the only way to reasonably handle this in Har-Bal is to use manual adjustment and your ears (toggling between reference and track).

Cheers,


Paavo.

Thanks Paavo. Yeah, I can deal with it "manually" and I can certainly wait for the next version (which sounds like it'll be very cool). I should make clear that my original post implied NO criticism of HB. To the contrary, it was more me wondering what I had screwed up.....I've still got a lot to learn about mastering. HB is certainly helping me a lot and I can see that as I become more proficient, HB will be even more valuable to me.

One feature I've focusing on deeply the past week is the AIR feature. The more I used it.....and the higher settings I try......the more I like what it does. In my initial usage of it, I was very conservative with a setting of no more that 5.0. But I've been experimenting with setting of 15 to 25 and have been surprised just how much better the tracks sound......much more punchy. But this leads to me a question.....

Is the AIR feature something that is typically or commonly used in "pro mastering"?

Thanks

I didn't take offense so no need for the appologies. I have been equally perplexed at the same issue for a while until I thought about it a little more and then came up with an improved approach for that situation. You'll get to try it out for yourself soon enough. The beta release may be delayed a couple of days though. I've been busy looking after my kids on my own this last week so haven't got much of the updated documentation done. Hopefully I should finish a first draft in a couple of days.

As to whether Pro's use stereo image expansion much in their work, I really can't say. To be honest I suspect the ME's with big reputations probably don't add much if any, unless specifically asked. That's the impression I get from listening to the recordings.

My view's on air is to use it subtley so that the effect is a little past the just noticeable level. That keeps the production sound essentially the same but just adds a little extra dimension to it. You can certainly use it at higher levels if you wish but I'd be really reticent of going beyond 25%. If you feel you need to then you should ask yourself whether your mixdown has enough ambience in it and if not try adding some with a good reverb unit.

Cheers,


Paavo.