Golden ears challenge

Cool, will have to check this out.

Good stuff. Will have to spend some more time tonight.  But no section on timing...? 

I took a course on ear training online and it was beyond humbling.

I was just thinking about trying out some online ear training stuff, thanks for the link, Noel!
 
John

I struggled with a couple of tests...possibly because if the "neutral" lowend on my akg headphones. I never understood what questions meant in some parts also. The colour and weight parts are comprehensive although not exactly explained well enough in my opinion.

Made it to silver, but I have to go put my kid to bed. Maybe tomorrow some more. Really fun challenges.

A plug for Syntorial which has definitely helped my listening skills.

It is interesting to find out which tests I sometimes get answers wrong on.

I loved the mp3 artifact test. That one was surprisingly obvious.

So this is interesting. I'm pushing 60 and have been recording/mixing/producing for about 40 years.
 
I zoomed through the basic/bronze and the first part of silver until I got to the mp3 part. 
 
For some reason I can't tell the difference in the mp3s. 

It's just a guess, but at my age maybe I don't really hear well enough but have trained my ears to hear the things I do in mixing/producing. When it comes to subtle eq, stereo, FX on tracks, etc. etc. I can blast through those with ease. Everything up to the mp3 part took me minutes as I hear about 5 seconds and know which one to pick. It will come up if you only listen to 2 and tell you to listen to all 3 before selecting, but that's not generally necessary for me.
 
However, in a mixing/production situation I'm NEVER trying to hear mp3 artifacts. I rarely listen to mp3s, sure I make them for people who want them but in a production environment I have no need to do anything with mp3s. All my work is done in things like cakewalk or final mastering of wavs for a CD or something. After I'm done if someone wants an mp3 I run it through lame and provide it.
 
hahaha, It's all in good fun. Now it's got me interested in training my ear to hear this as it's all part of getting better. Assuming I CAN train these old ears to hear stuff they haven't been used to hearing!
 
gabo

Karyn
Got halfway through and got bored
 
Good test though.

Bored? Perhaps you need this instead.

Word of advice (well, a few words):
Don't start the program and then decide to sign up - sign up first unless you want to start right from the beginning again after completing a bunch of stuff!
 
Grum.

It is official , I now have golden ears :-))
I really enjoyed doing this ear training program.
Thanks for sharing !

Oh yah just what I am looking for...ear training and testing...I was looking into that myself with test tones...thanks man!

gbowling

But when a song comes on, I'm always saying, that voice needs to be 2db higher, or that reverb is too long for my liking, or this or that. 
 
gabo

This is what I do also. I analyze every song I hear now. And I knew I would do this when I started learning to mix.


Now I can't stand to listen to music radio because they have some of the worst compression algorithms out there. The soft low music of a song is louder than the loud parts!! Is nobody but me hearing this?

I listen to songs and tell people around me "Hear that sax? Man it sounds good!" They look at me and say "What sax?"

And the first "Remastered" ZZ Top stuff had entirely too much digital reverb.

Can't wait to take the test.

That was fun. Thanks, Noel.
 
Some of the more subtle tests are going to be difficult with headphones, though, as once the filters are effecting 6 dB or less change they may be applying less effect than your headphones' inherent nonlinearity. Ideally, you'll want to do this on high-quality speakers.

I think it's a headphones issue. I did this test about a year ago, and I did amazingly well at it, which I don't think is because I'm amazing or anything. I know my hearing is far from perfect, so I think it's not pitched all that hard. In a decent monitoring environment, I think most reasonably competent engineers should do well.