Need help pleeeeease.
cheers
Andy
Sound is different
Sound is different
Hi guys, I am still new to using Har Bal (have tried reading the manual but I really think I need the video as well). What my query is, the other week I did a track in Ableton which sounded fine and got the track into Har Bal where I used the hip hop.anl reference file to move my curves over that. It sounded fine. My lines werent EXCATLY the same as the hip hop .anl file, but near enough, and like I say after I manually moved the lines of my own track, decided it sounded fine. Anyway, I did another track the other day, tried to move my lines over the same reference file and it sounded TERRIBLE. What did I do wrong? I aint no mastering engineer, only go by my ears, but I assumed that I could just move my lines over one of those reference files in order to sound more pro. I guess I am wrong?
Need help pleeeeease.
cheers
Andy
Need help pleeeeease.
cheers
Andy
Re: Sound is different - for the worse
Andyictustwin wrote:Hi guys, I am still new to using Har Bal (have tried reading the manual but I really think I need the video as well). What my query is, the other week I did a track in Ableton which sounded fine and got the track into Har Bal where I used the hip hop.anl reference file to move my curves over that. It sounded fine. My lines werent EXCATLY the same as the hip hop .anl file, but near enough, and like I say after I manually moved the lines of my own track, decided it sounded fine. Anyway, I did another track the other day, tried to move my lines over the same reference file and it sounded TERRIBLE. What did I do wrong? I aint no mastering engineer, only go by my ears, but I assumed that I could just move my lines over one of those reference files in order to sound more pro. I guess I am wrong?
Need help pleeeeease.
cheers
Andy
The problem is that you are matching a referencee file. We highly discourage this! The only reason it may have sounded fine the other day was because the instrumentation may have been similar. It is hit and miss
The whole idea behind a reference file is to maintain some semblance of tonal consistency across an album. You can use the reference file as a study guide to look for common patterns in different styles of music.
If you take a complete track and try to do an exact match you will ruin your track.
We placed an auto matching feature in Har-Bal at the request of our customers.
The best way to use the referencing matching feature is on an individual track when you may want to .......correct a vocal sound that was recorded on two different days and you want it to sound identical. Or you found a nice bass sound and you would like to apply that sound to a bass track you have. Get the picture.
Do not use the matching a reference feature across an entire track "UNLESS" you know for sure they are using the same instrumentation.
Cheers
Earle
Andy,
You need to re-adjust your thinking a bit.
First up, optimise your listening setup (by changing speaker placement, changing the room damping and even finding better speakers) so that it sounds as good as you can get it. By that I mean make it sound as good as possible playing back the music you generally listen to. Generally speaking, it is impossible to make all your CD's sound the best for one given setup but you should aim to have the majority of them sounding average or better than average. The bigger set of satifactory listening the better.
The reasoning for this is simple. If you can do that you are pretty much assured that your listening environment is compatible with the norm so that what your listening to when you mix is more likely to be transportable to other systems.
If you have difficulty in getting better than 60% of your CD collection sounding good and you don't have the time. money and/or expertise to make it so I'd suggest finding a set of headphones that meets this requirement instead and then use them to judge the balance of your mixes. You can still use you speakers for judging mix placement though (ie. panning and depth).
Now with a setup that is consistent with the norm in sound you can be assured that the mixes you come up with will be close to where they should be because you mixed them to the taste of you ears. Then when it comes to using har-bal you do not need a reference at all and should instead go about sorting out the problem areas in your tracks. How to do this is covered in great detail in the software help files. In har-bal select the Help/Example tutorial menu item and then read and re-read it until you understand what to do. Then try it out and see how things pan out. Then after you've done all that feel free to ask more questions.
Har-Bal is not automatic mastering. You still need to think about what you are doing as it is you who'll be making the decisions. You need to learn how to interpret what Har-Bal is telling you. This takes experience which in turn takes time and practice and many mistakes. Time to go and make some mistakes and learn from them.
Cheers,
Paavo.
You need to re-adjust your thinking a bit.
First up, optimise your listening setup (by changing speaker placement, changing the room damping and even finding better speakers) so that it sounds as good as you can get it. By that I mean make it sound as good as possible playing back the music you generally listen to. Generally speaking, it is impossible to make all your CD's sound the best for one given setup but you should aim to have the majority of them sounding average or better than average. The bigger set of satifactory listening the better.
The reasoning for this is simple. If you can do that you are pretty much assured that your listening environment is compatible with the norm so that what your listening to when you mix is more likely to be transportable to other systems.
If you have difficulty in getting better than 60% of your CD collection sounding good and you don't have the time. money and/or expertise to make it so I'd suggest finding a set of headphones that meets this requirement instead and then use them to judge the balance of your mixes. You can still use you speakers for judging mix placement though (ie. panning and depth).
Now with a setup that is consistent with the norm in sound you can be assured that the mixes you come up with will be close to where they should be because you mixed them to the taste of you ears. Then when it comes to using har-bal you do not need a reference at all and should instead go about sorting out the problem areas in your tracks. How to do this is covered in great detail in the software help files. In har-bal select the Help/Example tutorial menu item and then read and re-read it until you understand what to do. Then try it out and see how things pan out. Then after you've done all that feel free to ask more questions.
Har-Bal is not automatic mastering. You still need to think about what you are doing as it is you who'll be making the decisions. You need to learn how to interpret what Har-Bal is telling you. This takes experience which in turn takes time and practice and many mistakes. Time to go and make some mistakes and learn from them.
Cheers,
Paavo.
Re: Sound is different - for the worse
And we thank you for it!har-bal wrote:We placed an auto matching feature in Har-Bal at the request of our customers.
I know what Andy did was the kind of thing you guys were afraid would happen, but please know that there are plenty of us who find this time-saving feature incredibly useful, and we use it for precisely the reasons you mentioned.
Thanks!