Har-Bal - is it worth the price?

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Hi, everyone!

I’m considering purchasing Har-Bal for mastering home recordings. Does it worth the price in 2019 or is it better to just use a spectrum analyzer and FabFilter Pro-Q 3?

One more thing: does it ever go on sale? The results seems to be pretty impressive, but there’s no trial version and the license is NFR, what makes me think a thousand times before putting any money there, especially paying full price.

Thanks!

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I'm using it since it came out but although it was meant to be a mastering tool on it's own I prefer it to be "just another tool" in the mastering stage. It's not like your go-to-eq, because it's handling frequencies in a very different way. It's all about the harmonic balance in a mix.

btw....it's on sale right now with the promo code "space"

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Thank you very much!
shoma wrote: Mon Oct 14, 2019 10:36 am I'm using it since it came out but although it was meant to be a mastering tool on it's own I prefer it to be "just another tool" in the mastering stage. It's not like your go-to-eq, because it's handling frequencies in a very different way. It's all about the harmonic balance in a mix.

btw....it's on sale right now with the promo code "space"

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Nope. The developer is resistant to suggestions and extremely rude and impatient when asked for support and to clarify a feature in v3.

Paavo wasted several thousand words whinging at me that he didn’t have time to walk me through his badly implemented unintuitive software. He spent way more time being rude than the 2 minutes it would have taken to link me to the relevant hidden help files on his website. When I pointed out some bugs and UI issues, he was condescending, dismissive and bad tempered. And that was to a longterm paying customer!

Guys like this do not deserve our money.

There are way better free eqs and way better analysers out there, save your money ;)
I once thought I had mono for an entire year. It turned out I was just really bored...

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I can not confirm that now. I've been in touch with Paavo over the last few weeks because of the beta test phase of his new plugin "Synthetic Space" and he has been very responsive and helpful.
Regarding Har-Bal...he made a lot of very informative video clips about the program and a manual that's worth reading.
RTFM has never been a bad thing ;-)

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I have used it as well, since V1. A very useful tool and Paavo is very informative and knowledgeable.

Remember, the less it does, the better your mix is.

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djscorb wrote: Tue Oct 15, 2019 7:37 am
There are way better free eqs and way better analysers out there, save your money ;)
Could you name a few? I have found nothing that works quite like Har-Bal.

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Well... I couldn’t resist the 50% off price and I must say that I am impressed. It is really unique and easy to use. You can achieve similar results with a regular EQ and a spectrum analyzer, but Har-Bal makes the job a lot easier.

The dynamics section is a bit confusing. I don’t know exactly how to operate it in a logical way (being sure of what I’m doing) and the manual didn’t help a lot with that matter as well.

Anyway, I guess it does worth the sale price! I’m really happy with its results =)

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The purchase was certainly a good decision! :tu:

There is a one-hour video at the bottom of this page in which Paavo explains the program in great detail. The dynamics section is also well explained.
https://www.har-bal.com/product-informa ... bal-videos

Some may find it a bit tiring because it is very long and Paavo is certainly not the most exciting narrator :-D but...it's worth it!
...and...no...it is still no ordinary EQ whose curves can easily be reproduced with any other EQ :D

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Thank you so much for the link, shoma! It will be REALLY helpful! =)
shoma wrote: Wed Oct 16, 2019 9:10 pm The purchase was certainly a good decision! :tu:

There is a one-hour video at the bottom of this page in which Paavo explains the program in great detail. The dynamics section is also well explained.
https://www.har-bal.com/product-informa ... bal-videos

Some may find it a bit tiring because it is very long and Paavo is certainly not the most exciting narrator :-D but...it's worth it!
...and...no...it is still no ordinary EQ whose curves can easily be reproduced with any other EQ :D

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Needs VST version
Intel Core2 Quad CPU + 4 GIG RAM

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you can't use it, or well, its not worth using, because i'm using it. you do your thing, and i'll do mine.

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