Ear Training

[Egoclip]

Originally Posted by About.com

Ear training is important equally for musicians and sound engineers; being able to tell frequency apart from another in an accurate way is really important to recording, mixing, and doing live sound. Musicians train on perfect pitch; audio engineers should train on perfect frequency recognition. Why is this important?

This was lifted from an article on About.com ( read it here ).
If you've read my other posts then I'm really just starting out with recording and mixing and as usual I'm spending the night doing a lot of reading about. I was wondering, just how important do you find training your ear? I can imagine that not a lot of people bother with this even though I guess it should be ten times more important than splashing out on those £1000 monitors! It's something I'm pretty interested in. If I could recognise different frequencies then it would really help out in rehearsals as well as in home recordings.
For those of you that are good at it, was it something you sat down and learned? i.e taking time to listening to different frequencies or was it something you managed to pick up over experience and time?

Is there any good further reading you've seen on this? And do you have any tips on improving you're ears?

[Baron]

Originally Posted by Egoclip

If I could recognise different frequencies then it would really help out in rehearsals as well as in home recordings.

Here is a good little freeware program based on a 1/3 octave GEQ. It plays you a tone and you have to try and grab that frequency on the graphical GEQ. Great idea but you need a good sound system otherwise you won't hear some of the low lows and some of the high highs.

http://sft.sourceforge.net/


Baron

[dannyman]

It definitely takes a lot of practice to recognize a specific frequency. Well, not practice so much, but experience with different instruments, amps, etc... I played drums for the longest time, and I thought my tunings were perfect. Then after about three years of playing guitar and using active EQ, I noticed that my drum tunings had room for improvement. The point I want to make is that the EQing we think is good is oftentimes not the best, which is where I think everyone can really benefit from being able to recognize specific frequencies, not only that, but also to know what frequencies work well for instruments, live and recording. At least that's my experience.

[Baron]

Originally Posted by dannyman

It definitely takes a lot of practice to recognize a specific frequency. Well, not practice so much, but experience with different instruments, amps, etc...

Hey Danny, don't discount your first sentence.
Training your ear is about repetition and we get that through practice, the practice of trying to identify the frequency and then being able to put that information to some good.

Being able to tell what end of the EQ to start at will certainly speed up the process, when you need to fix or modify something.

That little program, I put the link to, plays nice clean waves and you have to id them but as we all know, we usually don't have nice clean waveforms but quite complex waves with a rich palette of texture and harmonics. Learning about the interaction of harmonics, from the fundamental, is when the real fun starts.

Baron

[brandondrury]

For those of you that are good at it, was it something you sat down and learned? i.e taking time to listening to different frequencies or was it something you managed to pick up over experience and time?

I wouldn't say I'm good at it. I know the difference between 50, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1.6k, 3.2k, 6.4k, 12.8k, etc. I don't think you need to be any better than that.

I think that practicing frequency response listening is kind of like being the best dude at doing pull ups in your platoon. While physical conditioning is important for going to war, I think there are ton of other factors that fall into what makes a great soldier. Does that make sense?

Here's a better analogy. The fastest running back doesn't always get the most yards. How about that?

I can see no reason to sit around and listen to "uuuummmmm" and try to figure out what it is. Just call up a band and record a song! You'll learn 10,000 times as much in the same amount of time.

I've got a buddy who has platinum records on his wall from Collective Soul, Matchbox 20, and the Spiderman 2 soundtrack. If I said "400 Hz", he MIGHT know what I'm talking about, but I wouldn't be suprised if he said "Fuck, I don't know. I just twist the knobs".

Knowing how to listen and knowing what number is on the plugin are two completely different things.

It's interesting because a lot of the most sought after vintage stuff has markings that are either worn off, weren't accurate to begin with, or were never there in the first place. So just twist the knobs until it sounds good. It's much more important to learn how bright of vocal sound you can get away with than it is to know the frequency # of a bright vocal sound. Does that make sense?

I use a trick every single day. For example, let's just say that some vocal track has too much "iiii" sound as in (guiiiiiiitar) or (sounds like shiiiiiiit). Well, just grab the parametric EQ, adjust the bandwidth/Q so that it isn't too wide, and then boost it by 10-15dB. Start at 20Hz and work your way up until the exact frequency you hated 3 seconds ago is louder than hell. In this case the "shiiiiiiity" part of the sound is going to hurt. It's easy to find it this way. Super easy! Now just cut that frequency by however much you feel like. You may need to adjust the bandwidth of the eq or whatever, but you know th exact frequency to cut.

The only downside to this method is once your ears hear 5k, for example, boosted by 10dB (when it already hurt a little bit anyway) it'll sound totally different when you pull the EQ back down to flat. I combat this trick by pulling that frequency down 5-10dB and then work my way back up until it sounds right. Does that make sense? Don't be afraid to boost really far and then immediately cut really far and then boost a little less than you did before and then cut a little less than you did before until you end up with something that sound "about right".

Being able to tell what end of the EQ to start at will certainly speed up the process, when you need to fix or modify something.

I was shocked in the live sound world when I realized just how ungood I am at this whole frequency thing. Tuning live sound monitors will put hair on your balls in terms of learning your frequencies, but won't make your recordings sound any better. At least that's my opinion.

Brandon

[richiebee]

It's what separates the men from the boys in this industry. It's important. I'm absolutely no expert but I do recognize the importance of it.


R.

[Jroye82]

Originally Posted by brandondrury

Tuning live sound monitors will put hair on your balls in terms of learning your frequencies,

Brandon

Thats the Effn' truth

[brandondrury]

It's what separates the men from the boys in this industry. It's important.

I had a discussion with Michael Wagener about this during the workshop. I asked him if he had "golden ears". His response was basically "fuck no!!!". I don't know anything about that shit. He more or less said, "I'll tell you what IS important! You need to know what you like and you need to have a common ear". He explained that a common ear means you need to find the same things pleasing that the buying public also finds pleasing. This applies to melodies and arrangments, but it also applies to audio engineering as well.

One last issue on this topic.

Have you ever noticed that the frequency values sound different on different equalizers? In other words, if you boosted 2Khz on one EQ and then decide to switch to a different EQ, have you ever found that you to need to use a lower or higher frequency? I have. And this is why I think memorizing frequency #'s is of value, but it will only take you so far.

Brandon

[richiebee]

It's not just about learning EQ frequencies (which incidentally depend on many different EQ models with different Q values and different theories on crossover of frequencies). It's about what you're saying with Wagener - its about knowing what is good and trusting your ears, or your brain - having Golden Ears.
Just like perfect pitch, you can be born with this natural ability. But the majority of people out there have to learn it. Those that do have it as a natural ability, often can't explain it or teach it to others.

What makes Wagener so much better at mixing than you? Whether or not he knows it, he has the golden ears.

[Baron]

Originally Posted by brandondrury

II think that practicing frequency response listening is kind of like being the best dude at doing pull ups in your platoon. While physical conditioning is important for going to war, I think there are ton of other factors that fall into what makes a great soldier. Does that make sense?

Brandon

God help us when you start watching Star Trek videos


Baron