Training your ears?

reg3n

reg3n

Señor Miembro
Feb 17, 2009
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Argentina
reg3n.bandcamp.com
Hi there guys, i was wondering

is there a 'right' or 'common' way to train your ears? (frequency in mind)
like generating sequential frequencies with synths for example, and trying to 'remember' them, i think it may help for situations i find myself into a lot of times, like when i hear something is too boomy, i just go over the 120-160hz freqs but it's just 'cause i read about it some day and if i turn the Q down or up in that freq eq'ing i can't REALLY tell the difference, i mean it's kind'a noticeable but i guess what i'm looking for is something like recognizing what's wrong with a mix when i hear it, and having an idea of what's causing trouble and what's not; i see a lot of guys around this forum giving advice about particular freq's and i wonder if it's theory applied, or maybe you 'KNOW' by hearing... hope this question makes sense... so... is there a RIGHT way for ear training?
 
I guess it comes with time and experience. Its like how a guy who has been playing guitar for 5 years knows a particular bend is flat but a kid playing for 2months may think its absolutely fine. So effectively when you work on enough mixes and stuff and you hear the effect of certain EQ changes you start to know them.

I guess you could always just take a track and use an EQ and fool around with its setting and shut your eyes and just 'hear' the changes. Like say if you put a lo pass on a guitar track. Hear it with the cut on and then with it off and really tr and HEAR the difference and not see it by the graph in front. Many different versions of that exercise should help a bit.

Someone correct me if I am wrong :p
 
In the Mixing with Your Mind book the guy recommends just taking a stab at EQing the correct frequency you are trying to adjust as opposed to sweeping. He contends you learn the frequency ranges and corresponding effects more effectively this way. I tend to agree, its a good excersise and you start picking up pretty quickly what ranges are doing what. Sweeping is still useful for finding certain resonances to attunuate or boost though.
 
Really, you just experiment over and over again, until you can hear it.
I'm hardly great at this stuff (only started out 5 months ago) but I've just noticed from just sitting there constantly tweaking things, my ear has gotten my attuned to smaller and smaller EQ changes and I have a much better idea of what, say for example, 800Hz is actually doing rather than having to blindly guess what it'll do if I cut or boost it.
I guess someone else will chime in and say a good monitoring environment would help a lot too.
Having cheap monitors and no room treatment, I'm constantly in a fist fight with the low end and losing a lot of the time because I just can't hear what's going on down there properly.
 
p3654.jpg


It ain't cheap, but it rules!

http://www.moultonlabs.com/full/product01/
 
sopulurn said:
Would you recommend getting this book? I've been thinking about ordering it, a lot of people seem to think it's very good.
Click to expand...

This book is more about mindset and how you approach mixing rather than a practical guide. There are many other materials that would give more immediate benefits, but having Stav's suggestions in the back of your mind help.

He has an interesting holistic view on the whole engineering art and it certainly helps some people to read into it.
 
Metaltastic said:
It ain't cheap, but it rules!

http://www.moultonlabs.com/full/product01/
Click to expand...

The free tests at the site seem pretty useful. Looks like I can hear up to about 17KHz. Should I be able to hear more than this?

edit. holy fuck that thing is pricey.

Ermz said:
This book is more about mindset and how you approach mixing rather than a practical guide. There are many other materials that would give more immediate benefits, but having Stav's suggestions in the back of your mind help.

He has an interesting holistic view on the whole engineering art and it certainly helps some people to read into it.
Click to expand...

Thanks man. So I guess this is a good book, but more of an addition to other books than just the only book to have?(not that I'm looking to buy just one book, but you get the idea)
 
I know this is a very old thread, but why make a new one on the same subject :)
I bought a good book recently Called Critical listening Skills for Audio Professionals by F.Alton Everest and im finding it very useful, it comes with an audio CD which is basically the whole book narrated (i guess an audio book version) that include audio examples of the frequencies/tones/noise etc being discussed, so its great to listen to while travelling/in the car/when you have time to kill but dont want to sit down with the book.
 
I'm currently in AE school and my first assignment was to do 16 hours of golden ears. i've done 43 so far and it's been very helpful, you start listening to things differently when you focus on the sound itself. Finding troublesome frequencies, or just the ones you want to boost becomes much faster and you stop sweeping to find stuff
 
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