Har-Bal 1.5 Sneak Peek

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Check out the exciting new features in version 1.5...Har-Bal has come a long way.

Har-BalAny regular at HRC is no stranger to the name Har-Bal. I have been preaching the gospel of Har-Bal for many months now. They are now beta testing the version 1.5 release. Today, we will take a look at the new version, and what it has to offer. If you are not familiar with this brilliant mastering application, please, read our initial product review before going into this to get to know the application a little bit.

The first version of Har-Bal has received a lot of attention around the world, and it continues to do so. Version 1.5 will only increase the attention it gets with a pile of new features that will really bring it into it's own in the world of pro audio.

OK, get on with it, what's new?

I don't even know where to start, the list is long so lets take a look:

  • Har-Bal now supports ASIO drivers...can I get an Amen!
  • You can now work with Mono files, which is awesome if you export tracks from your multitracker and use Har-Bal to edit them.
  • A looping tool was also added to playback, handy for listen to any trouble spots over and over again with ease.
  • Quite possibly the nicest addition is a loudness matching tool, which will take the average loudness figures of merit from one track and apply it to a second. Very useful when normalizing a batch of song for a CD to keep a consistent perceived volume across the entire CD.
  • A "tip" feature, which is quite useful, will give you an overview of the frequency range your cursor is in, explaining the characteristics of that frequency range.
  • There are now hi and low shelving tools available
  • UI changes include adding a volume slider control and replaced the gain drop down menu with a slider control as well. The UI now also displays source file name, filter file name, peak and average power figures.
  • At the bottom of the screen there are buttons to hide and show any of the three power plot traces individually, plus toggling focus indicators and toggling the original plot traces after editing has begun.

Where Har-Bal Has Been

The initial release of Har-Bal to the general public was a valiant effort, a far greater achievement for a first release than many applications. That said, it was still very apparant, as with any version 1 application, that there was a lot of room to grow. Anyone familiar with application development understands the process. The first release generally brings a pretty even ratio of compliments to feature requests. The developers job is to weed through the feature requests, see which requests are heard the most often, weigh that in a balance of the effort to put into it and the ways it affects the program as a whole compared to the big picture view of the applications currently perceived direction and intended audience.

This is what Har-Bal did. They set up a message forum and it was very active with conversation about this kind of thing...where to take it, how to do it, etc. I have to offer Paavo and Earle my most sincere compliments and respect for listening to their users, even when guys like me get a little bit too pushy. And I am not talking about lip-service listening, I mean carrying on real conversations with their customers in an honest and productive manner.

Where Is Har-Bal Now

Har-BalMany of the improvements in Har-Bal 1.5 are not readily apparent upon opening the application. The most important improvements exist under the hood. There are a few interface enhancements, but as a whole the interface is much as it was.

The interface changes that did take place are however, welcomed. A volume fader and the gain dropdown menu was replaced by a gain fader. The lower left corner of the window now contain buttons to toggle each power band between visible and invisible as well as toggling some focus points and the power bands your project began the project with, so you can see how it's changed. While these are usable additions, and add some great customization to the way one uses Har-Bal, they are not the most important features.

Crawling under the hood brings to light many new features. The support of ASIO drivers is a very wise and useful addition. People that use Har-Bal while multitracking are going to love this next feature...it now also supports mono files...very cool!

A useful addition, that was actually quite logical though I never would have thought of it, is the tips features. When you have any cursor, with the exception of the default cursor, selected, little dialog bubbles appear at the bottom of the app describing the frequency your cursor is currently over. It states what frequency range the cursor is currently in, what areas of sound it affects and how adjusting it may change the overall sound of the project. This can be quite useful and interesting, not only for the mastering project at hand, but just for general inforamtion for the beginners that are just getting to know this type of information.

Har-Bal has also added hi and lo shelving cursors along with the familiar parametric cursor. A zoom has been added as well. I personally am not a big fan of the way the zoom functions, it does not function like the majority of audio application zooms, but, after getting the hang of it, it makes more sense. In Har-Bal you select an area to zoom in on with the cursor and it zooms in on that area, whereas the conventional zoom has little + and - which increases or decreases the zoom ratio. Personally, I would prefer the latter, because that is the habit myself, and the majority of computer based audio applications work. However, as I said, once you understand that it is different, it is not quite as frustrating.

The looping function, new to Har-Bal 1.5, is a nice feature to run over small passages over and over again. Start the playback at the point of your choosing. When the playback gets to the point you want to loop at, press the looping button next to the transport buttons. It will make the playback jump back to where it started and continually loop over that area. A nice addition to this to consider for the future might be to have two dragable markers to drag up and down the playback fader to drop where the user wants to start playback and loop back. However, as it is this is a very nice feature to have when dealing with a small piece of a song that needs special attention.

In saving the best for last, they have added "loudness matching". Loudness matching is a way to compare the volume of one track to the volume of another, and match them. Since Har-Bal has been released it has made mastering easier and quicker, but with this loudness matching it has made yet another step of mastering quicker. Harmonically balancing each track individually, so they stand well on their own is one thing, Har-Bal made that easier a while ago, but now, you can work with all the tracks of a compilation to master the entire work.

Where Is It Going

My conversations with Paavo and Earle have made it blatantly clear that the number one priority after the release of 1.5 is to make a version of Har-Bal for the Mac. This is a very wise move, and very necessary. There are also plans for a VST plugin version of Har-Bal, which I said in the last article and I will say again, is a stellar idea, and would be very welcomed into my arsenal of plugins.

Beyond that I can't really make any comments for Paavo and Earle, I'll leave that to them. I can however make my own observations of what I think should be added or changed, and as per usual, I will...

My Observations

I love Har-Bal, it almost instantly became a tool I would not want to live without. That said, I do believe it could stand some basic usability improvements to the user interface. That being just the location of menu options, the names of menus and things like that. I would also very much like to see an LED meter in the stand alone version. If using it as a VST plugin in the future that would be handled by the host application, making it unnecessary.

The way I look at it is that the human animal thinks, acts, reacts and problem solves in very calculated and predictable ways, Har-Bal could well use this behavioral science to make the app a bit easier to navigate. On the up side, Har-Bal has a very focused purpose and does not have a huge user interface to navigate, so it isn't as big of a problem as it would be if it were a multitracking application or something along those lines, but it is a bit clumsier than it has to be.

Along those same lines, a more modern looking interface would be nice, even as simple as inheriting OS components from newer version of Windows, but, until a Mac version is built, and the application is completed to their satisfaction, I understand why that is looked upon as more of a frivolous use of time. I commend them on their focus and development priorities and path.

The only real feature, that may even be expected in the current marketplace, that is missing is the support of mp3. However, supporting mp3 involves licensing costs, which would raise the costs to the user. Combine that with the fact there are already so many mp3 encoders available and the fact that so many engineers despise mp3 anyway (but the clients love it), it's not a deal-killing issue.

Conclusion

This is an HRC Recommended ProductBottom line, Har-Bal still rocks in my book, and will remain among my most used applications, now with support for mono files I will get even more use from it.

The improvements are substantial, and considering Har-Bal is still very much in it's infancy, I think the future could be very exciting. Har-Bal easily retains it's recommended status here at HRC for it's continuing innovation in an area of audio production that is very much in need of it.

I would dearly love to see a more attractive and streamlined user interface, but that is far down the list of "to-dos" in a product that is still this young.

I can't think of anyone in audio production at most any level that works on a computer that would not benefit from Har-Bal.

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