Ear Training For Sound Engineers: 5 Best Apps
Now before we dive in, I put together a free PDF with links to all of these apps as well as any other ones I’ve discovered since I posted this video. So, if you wanna download this, you can click the link in the description below, or in the video and you’ll get free instant access.
App number one is TrainYourEars EQ Edition. Basically, it allows you to import your own reference tracks, any mixes you want, and it’ll quiz you by basically boosting and cutting various frequencies. And over time, by spending five or 10 minutes a day doing this, again, you can improve your critical listening skills, and just make better EQ decisions within the mixing process. This is one of my favorite tools out there. When I was in audio school I spent five or 10 minutes every day using this tool, and it made a significant impact on my mixing skills.
The second app is Dave Moulton’s Golden Ears. This engineer, Dave Moulton, basically put together this program. This isn’t exactly an app, it’s actually a set of CDs, or, you can actually download it. And not only does it train you on EQ, but it also trains you on recognizing delay times, and harmonic distortion, and all sorts of other things too.
So, this was something that we actually took a class on in audio school, and we got assigned this program, and so every week we would come in and do these different listening tests, and just over the course of a semester, it made a massive impact on my mixing ability.
And so if you’re looking for a program that’s more comprehensive than TrainYourEars EQ Edition, that’ll train you on EQ, and compression, and distortion, and delay, and all sorts of stuff, this is a great program, definitely recommend you check it out. Again, it’s made a significant impact on my mixing skills, and I know it’ll do the same for you.
The third app is SoundGym. Now this is a newer tool I just recently found out about. It’s basically an online portal, that has all sorts of games that train you on different aspects of the mixing process. It’s one of the most fun tools, certainly on this list. You don’t really feel like you’re studying or learning, but again, just spending five or 10 minutes a day playing these games is gonna significantly improve your critical listening skills. And this is gonna lead to a noticeable impact on the quality of your mixes.
The fourth app is Quiztones. Now Quiztones was built by a friend of mine, Dan Comerchero, over at The Pro Audio Files. He’s a great guy, and this app is really cool. It basically quizzes you, similar to some of these other tools that I’ve mentioned, on different EQ cuts and boosts. Download it on your phone, do it on the go, while you’re sitting on the subway, or just driving home. Again, it’s super mobile, and the interface is really just clean and user-friendly. So, another great app that will significantly improve your critical listening skills.
And the fifth app is your DAW’s stock EQ. Now, I know this is a little bit of a cop out, but people overlook this. They think they need fancy apps, or tools to improve their critical listening skills, you can actually just import a reference track into your DAW, grab an EQ, and sweep a boost up the frequency spectrum, and start listening to these different areas of the frequency spectrum. And compare, what does 300 Hz sound like versus 600 Hz, and get a sense for what these areas sound like. And again, spending a couple minutes a day doing this over the course of a few weeks or months will significantly your critical listening skills, it’s just gonna be much easier to make good mixing decisions.
So again, I put together a free PDF with links to download all of these apps, as well as any others I’ve discovered since posting this video. So, if you wanna get started and improve your critical listening skills right now, go ahead and click the link in the description below, or in the video, to get free instant access to this PDF.
Anyways, thanks so much for listening. You can check out more mixing tips at BehindTheSpeakers.com. Take care.