Totally confused with HarBal 2.3

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ictustwin
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Joined: Wed Jan 31, 2007 8:02 am
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Totally confused with HarBal 2.3

Post by ictustwin »

Ok guys, I am so confused with how to use HarBal 2.3 I have tried going through the tutorial, slowly, even looked at the tutorial video put up on this site, and am still stuck as I dont understand all the khz stuff and intuit q as well the 1,3,6,12 buttons on the bottom right. I emailed Earle a while back and told him that every time I tried to manually move my wav file yelllow lines over a reference file, the green line moved as well. Earle told me though, as has someone else, that he does not touch the green line - yet the tutorial movie that HarBal has put up show both yellow AND green lines being moved. SO DO I move only the yellow lines? Or both? Also why do both lines move if I only have one selected? And is my way of thinking correct here: I use HarBal to premaster a track by moving the yellow and green lines over a pro recording reference file? I know some of you guys may laugh at me, but I am seriously stumped as to what I am to do.

Please help.

Andy :cry:
DuncJF
Posts: 31
Joined: Mon Oct 16, 2006 4:26 am

Post by DuncJF »

Hi Andy,

At it's most basic explanation:

No matter which colour of line you are adjusting, the others will move to some degree also. The Yellow is the Peak energy content of the track you have loaded and the green is the average.
So, for example, if you adjust the Yellow line at a particular frequency then the green must also move because when you adjust the Yellow you are changing the value (energy value at that frequency) of the peak and if you change the value of a peak of something then that also alters what the avarage is, hence the Green has to change also.

My advice would be to find a piece of music that is not recorded very well (like a bootleg recording for example) and load it into Harbal and see how bad the Spectrum looks. Just dive in and start to adjust the spectrum (with the EQ button on) until it looks radically better/ smoother. Then sit back and switch the EQ button on and off to hear the difference.

You may have made it worse (but with most bootlegs I've heard, that's unlikely) but at least you have made a Harbal start.

Keep at it, it will make sense I promise... 8)
Hitmaker
Posts: 45
Joined: Sat Apr 22, 2006 8:36 am
Location: Christchurch , New Zealand
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Stumped

Post by Hitmaker »

Hi Andy ,

Dunc has dicussed the story with the traces .... which are a visual desription of the power ( read volume ) through the audio spectrum ... Bass on left ... Treble on right ... So by moving the traces you are changing your eq ...
The 1/3/6/12 allows you to select difference resolutions ( amount of detail ) for the traces ..
The IntuitQ is a 'one-press' automatic balancing .... though can be a little broad in approach ... so there's also a method of returning selected parts of your trace back to their original state ....

Many people only work on the yellow trace .... in that it represents the loudest signal at that frequency ... a sound that is most likely to be obscuring others ...

You may use it to reference your work to other files ... and there's some general references included for that purpose...
OR ... you may use IntuitQ ...
OR .. you can work purely manually ....

Cheers ,

Evan .
" I hate compression with a vengeance . I avoid it . I'm a great believer in the dynamic range being preserved " Alan Parsons
ictustwin
Posts: 5
Joined: Wed Jan 31, 2007 8:02 am
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Post by ictustwin »

Cheers guys, I will have another go :? Thanks for taking the time to try and help me.

Andy :o
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