I recently produced a couple of dance remixes (which I harbalized, of course); they're posted on http://www.soundclick.com/bands/3/iggmaticmusic.htm . I had someone listen to the tracks, and the person said that in the "deep shit" mix, the upper frequencies were "nonexistant". So I re-harbalized the track, using the average (green) spectrum and the "RnB" reference, and added a little more to the upper frequencies. The spectrum looked a bit more balanced this time around.
So this same person listened to the track and again mentioned that the track lacks in the upper frequencies. He said that it sounds good, but it it's just not how tracks in the genre are normally made. I guess my question is what am I doing wrong in the upper frequencies? Although I'm happy with the way the mix sounds, I'd like to know if I'm technically misusing HarBal.
Thanks in advance.
Igor
upper frequency questions
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Paavo
Igor,
Is it possible for this person to sit with you while you do it. It may just be that you don't know exactly what he wants and he can't clearly explain it to you.
Another suggestion is, given that you are doing a remix, does the person critiquing the remix basically like the original mix? If so (and you should really be trying to work this way all the time) take your original source and don't use any reference at all. Load the track and study the spectrum carefully. Does it have big holes or nasty resonances? If so work on these first. Fill in the holes one and by and play back the result at each edit so you know what effect it had. Keep the changes you think were improvements and ditch the ones that didn't work.
If there are strong peaks in the peak spectrum that stand head and shoulders above the rest try cutting them down in size but don't eliminate them completely. Also if you have big peaks around 8-12kHz I'd leave them alone cos they most likely correspond to cymbals whose quality will be adversely affected if you change the shape of the peaks here.
When you've finished show the orignal spectrum overlayed on the Harbalized one and see how well it corresponds to the original. If you want to preserve the intent of the producer but just improve the quality then your harbalized version should be roughly overlaying the original across the whole spectrum.
If yuo take this approach then you'll invariably end up with a HarBalized version that keeps the basic tonality but improves apon it. Then if the original fitted the genre then your Harbalized version should too.
Paavo.
Is it possible for this person to sit with you while you do it. It may just be that you don't know exactly what he wants and he can't clearly explain it to you.
Another suggestion is, given that you are doing a remix, does the person critiquing the remix basically like the original mix? If so (and you should really be trying to work this way all the time) take your original source and don't use any reference at all. Load the track and study the spectrum carefully. Does it have big holes or nasty resonances? If so work on these first. Fill in the holes one and by and play back the result at each edit so you know what effect it had. Keep the changes you think were improvements and ditch the ones that didn't work.
If there are strong peaks in the peak spectrum that stand head and shoulders above the rest try cutting them down in size but don't eliminate them completely. Also if you have big peaks around 8-12kHz I'd leave them alone cos they most likely correspond to cymbals whose quality will be adversely affected if you change the shape of the peaks here.
When you've finished show the orignal spectrum overlayed on the Harbalized one and see how well it corresponds to the original. If you want to preserve the intent of the producer but just improve the quality then your harbalized version should be roughly overlaying the original across the whole spectrum.
If yuo take this approach then you'll invariably end up with a HarBalized version that keeps the basic tonality but improves apon it. Then if the original fitted the genre then your Harbalized version should too.
Paavo.
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levit71
Over the weekend I had a chance to burn these tracks to a cd, and spent hours listening to them in my car and home stereo, and friend's stereo. Mostly in my car because I have a 200 watt system with subwoofer 
Anyway, to be honest the mix sounded quite good to me. It probably needed better stereo imaging and perhaps a little more limiting, but I was very happy with the job that Harbal performed. The mix sounded well-balanced, and I was especially happy with the way the bass came out.
To each his own, I guess, but I didnt' really understand what the issue with the high frequencies was.
Igor
Anyway, to be honest the mix sounded quite good to me. It probably needed better stereo imaging and perhaps a little more limiting, but I was very happy with the job that Harbal performed. The mix sounded well-balanced, and I was especially happy with the way the bass came out.
To each his own, I guess, but I didnt' really understand what the issue with the high frequencies was.
Igor
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Paavo
I guess he wanted the high frequencies to dominate where as you preferred it in a morer balanced context. You can't please everyone all of the time. Perhaps this is what tone controls are for? I'm glad your happy with the results your getting even if others have a different view.levit71 wrote: ...
To each his own, I guess, but I didnt' really understand what the issue with the high frequencies was.
Igor
Paavo.