Music Making Discussion: The #1 Community for Producers & Engineers

The Question Man
May 20 in SoundGym Cafe

Hello there! Mr. Question here, with another question as always.

How do you practice the exercises presented on SoundGym outside of the platform? Do you set up specific exercises inside your DAW, or do you practice mentally by listening to sounds in your environment?

For example, I try to guess the volume decrease when I put in my earplugs before sleep, or identify the frequency range of specific noises, like a stove making noise, a kettle boiling water, or thumping from a nearby construction site.

Do you create templates in your DAW to train your ears for any sound input?

I'm curious to know how you guys extend the practice into the real world.

Json Mondesir
May 21, 12:02

I love this question. I think the honest answer is listening in real life and making those assumptions, but more importantly is making music as often as possible alongside the practice.

I've found if I'm not making music, these games are very abstract. But put to use in real production/mixing/mastering scenarios they become alive!

2 props

kjelt pieper
May 21, 13:39

i try to recognize beeps in my surrounding and find the hrz freqency that fits wit it, for example the parking beeb of my girlfriends car is 1270 hertz. i have an sine generator app on my phone so i can not mesure it but need to find it myself. in the daw i find the eq trainings have the most value, i can find resonant spots ez or when making neuro basses know what kind of freqenties to boost or cut. and even the panning thing with panning drums or so but its more of a practice when doing so. and i just like to listen to diffrent compressor settings on drums since i started knowing the subtlile changes

1 props

Steve Rinaldi
May 21, 14:57

I do listen to the reverbs created by different environments, and sometimes take estimates of long the reverb tails are. And as a practical use of some of the games, when recording different ensembles, I'll not only listen for the reverbs, but also the stereo images and how they collapse with distance from the ensemble - helps with the mic placement for the kinds of images I'm trying to record.

0 props