TrainYourEars EQ Edition

[counterparty]

I got this program a couple of weeks ago, and just wanted to say how happy I am with it.

It plays audio that you select which it randomly EQs (within parameters that you set), and you have to determine what the EQ frequencies were, the filter types and resonances etc. I've gone through about 500 questions from the introductory exercise (which has 1 bell EQ band at a time chosen from about 8 frequencies at +/- 12db), and have moved on to up to 3 bell EQ bands at a time, chosen from 24 frequencies at +/- 6/12db.

I've never been amazing at using EQ - in the past I've mostly just used cuts and defaulted to taking some mud off at 300hz or have worked my way through the all the bands on the EQ until something sounded kind of OK. After a couple of weeks of answering the questions on the program for 30 minutes a day I'm getting much better at identifying frequencies by ear. Most times I can identify the individual components of the settings (e.g. a 6db boost in the bass with a 12db cut in the low mids and a 6db boost at about 10khz) and get the frequencies correct to within a couple of frequency settings. I had a great experience yesterday for the first time where I was listening to a track and just thought 'Wow, that synth has a lot of energy at 1khz' - I feel like using this is really improving my ability to listen to the frequencies in the audio and use EQ.

If you look at the TrainYourEars website, the current 'offer' advertised at various retailers is actually not an offer - they decided to keep the introductory offer price long-term - but I think the price is OK. If you're using headphones it goes well with Sonarworks Reference (which is really on offer right now) - it can process the audio output with 32bit VST plugins or you can use Reference Systemwide.