SoundGym Cafe

Kevin Koelzer
May 08

No one asked but here’s my ranking of the SoundGym games based on practicality. This is MY subjective view as a mixing and mastering engineer. The value may differ from person to person

1. EQ Mirror - Super practical, a great way to figure out how to solve and match EQ problems

2. Kit Cut - Great for training but only if you don’t use the on/off button and learn to hear what different lack of frequency bands sounds like

3. Filter Expert - Like all of the EQ games combined but good at learning the difference between shelving and filtering

4. Compressionist - How I learned about attack and release settings affecting audio (wish they had more than just drum sounds)

5. Peak Master - Simple, and effective. Perfect for beginners

6. EQ Cheetah - Harder, but effective. Perfect for people looking to train their instincts

7. Bass Detective - Bass frequencies can be harder to differentiate but this game helps

8. Distorted Reality - Definitely good for hearing whether you’re pushing your limiter too hard

9. Dr. Compressor - Difficult but I did learn how to hear when transients are being squashed and killing the depth of drums

10. EQ Knight - Not bad but not my favorite EQ game. In most cases you only need to identify one frequency band change and you’ll have the answer

11. Reverb Wizard - Good for hearing and identifying reverb tails. Wish they would focus more on
identifying certain types of reverbs

12. Sonar Beast - Cool game but I find the others more practical in a real world setting

13. Feedback Eliminator - I only find this useful as a live sound engineer

14. Stereohead - Not exactly super important to be able to identify specific panning settings, especially since a lot of panning is just LCR

15. Pan Girl - Same as above

16. DB King - Never had to apply this skill in a real world mix/master setting but I guess it’s interesting

17. Balance Memory - Same as above but this one is seriously pointless because when have you been in a situation where you had to set volume levels from memory?

18. Delay Control - Absolutely useless. Knowing the exact numbers of different delay settings by ear does nothing to make you a better mixing/mastering engineer

52 props

Atmospheric Poison
May 09

Hi! Overall i totally agree with the guys, really interesting proposal. I'm more into harder stuff like Acidcore but I do love the ambient stuff :)
I also agree with them about the middle range being a bit harsh, but I'd say for me what it may need is a bit more of differences of volumes between the elements, sometimes everything is too in front for me, is not terrible tho, but a little bit, could gain a lot of depht. And about depht I'd say maybe a bit more controlled reverbs and maybe a bit more work in the stereo image? Eventhough is not bad at all, quite wide, but idk i feel it could have some extra.
Cheers 3

2 props

Linda Wagner
May 09

Never heard of Sonar Beast before. Thanks for the summary!

1 props

Doctor MojoTrip
May 09

I've had a similar list in my head for a while, and it's really similar to yours, though for me 3 and 4 are swapped and I'd probably put bass detective a little higher. I was pretty amused reading your take on Delay Control. Whenever I do it, I'm just thinking to myself Who cares is I can hear the difference between 2 and 7 ms delay?

3 props

Stelios Mavroyiannis
May 09

Thanks for sharing, Kevin!
I get the disdain for Delay Control! haha
The way I see it though, is that the numbers are irrelevant. What seems to happen is that as you play the game you simply familiarize yourself with how different delay times sound, what kind of 'vibe' or 'feel' they give to you. Certainly not as helpful as other games.

My general approach is to be agnostic as to the usefulness of each game, and simply play them and see what happens. At least I'm keeping my ears polished simply by aiming to listen to whatever each game demands. :)

3 props

Aike East
May 09

Oh i strongly disagree with your 16-18 places, otherwise a great list! Learning to hear how much difference in dB there is for example is super helpful for dialing in effects and general processing. Because if you can't discern whether you're actually making your sounds better or just louder (louder always sounds better, unless you go extreme) you can't really make proper mixing decisions.

0 props

Kevin Koelzer (author)
May 09

Linda - Sonar Beast is the newest game they added. Not sure if it shows up in the free version or not because I pay for my subscription
Doctor MojoTrip - Yeah knowing the exact numbers just by hearing just seems like a pointless parlor trick when it comes to audio heh
Stelios - No problem, and yeah I feel like your approach is maybe better for artists/producers while mine is geared towards mixing/mastering for business. It's interesting how the value can change depending on what a person does in audio

3 props

Jay Kay
May 09

I don't disagree with the ranking at all but a part of me disagrees with the list as a whole.

It's kinda like ranking math disciplines. Is trigonometry more useful than calculus? Maybe, idk. But what people gain by studying both of them is nearly identical - it teaches you to engage your brain, shift your perspective and find a path through.

I think that all the games force you to focus on something different or at least to flex the mental muscles you've built in a new way. I certainly love a few and hate a few but I'm not gonna skip leg day cause I hate the exercises 😅

8 props

Morgan Belle
May 09

As a (mostly) live sound engineer, i think delay control is quite useful for sharpening your ears for timing issues. Sometimes it is needed to hear if your loudspeakers are delayed correctly or if your pa sound is delayed correctly to the speakers/singer/musicians on the stage. For this you need a certain awareness of how different delays sound.

6 props

Kevin Koelzer (author)
May 11

Jay: I can see that logic, but I just don't think that some of these games flex something important. I'd rather spend my time training more practical math disciplines for me. Maybe I'll play some of the lower games again someday but I just don't see them as a worthwhile use of the small amount of time I dedicate to ear training
Morgan: That's an interesting perspective. I could never think of a real world application for Delay Control but I suppose that makes sense if you're into live sound

2 props

Atmospheric Poison
May 13

I have to say for me feedback eliminator is super useful in every situation, I usually start my EQ day (cause i divide the training days by disciplines, 1 day Eq, other compression, other stereo image...) with that cause I feel is the basic, being able to recognise frequencies by ear i think is soooo powerful in every situation

1 props

Atmospheric Poison
May 13

Also, in addition, what I do is trying to figure out which frequency is with my eyes closed, before seeing the options

1 props

Ioulianos Antoniadis
May 13

Hey Kevin,

As a total beginner in this subject, I disagree regarding these:

14. Stereohead: I find this useful, will have no use only when one has mastered it, for us beginners it works well)

16. DB King : Teach you to hear the difference of each dB, which is very important and challenging, and makes the difference as per grammy audio engineers.

17. Balance Memory: As a complete beginner, I learned to identify the instruments I was always ignoring, and started listening to the different balances between them.

18. Delay Control: Same as DB, teaching the importance of milliseconds in your mix

I TOTALY agree with you on these ones, wish the team could add more options and exercises:

🎯 4. Compressionist: Wish they had more than just drum sounds
🎯 11. Reverb Wizard : Wish they would focus more on
identifying certain types of reverbs

Regarding EQ and maybe reverb and compression:
Something that many sound engineers say: you should judge an instrument within the whole mix.
🎯 It would be great to have an excersice of EQ and other stuff where we would try to match the correct settings to match another mix

2 props

Meenfil Marsal
May 13

Great topic !!

My 2 cents :
- Distorted reality sometimes tricks you by playing the non distorted sample louder ! I hate it !
- I disagree with #17, because as an intermediate that still lacks anchor, it helps me visualizing instruments on the depth axis
- Agree 10000% about #18 (with rage), as anything below 50ms for me is just a guess !!

3 props

Steve Kuenzli
May 13

I'm pretty on-board with your list - though I might push the compression games up a tic...

2 props

Noam Gingold
May 13

Thanks for sharing @Kevin Koelzer, such a great post. It is really insightful to listen to different perspectives. They are also the beatrace games, but that's for another list 😁

3 props

LunaV Mond
May 20

For the most part, I'm best at the games you have ranked at the bottom lol. I have a long way to go...

0 props

Mario Hernandez
May 20

Solid bro! I'll have to give props to compressionist, distorted reality, and surprisingly enough EQ cheetah. EQ cheetah is one of those that frustrated me for the longest time but I learned to appreciate it for helping me trust my instincts.

0 props

Gaspar Acevedo
May 20

No one asked... but you answered ! Great post Kevin. Only thing is that I think that memory balance is great not because it mimics a real life mixing situation but because it sharpens your volume skills and, in my humble opinion, volume is the one greatest skill for mixing (in the end, even EQ and compression are volume related).

Thanks again for sharing bro !

3 props

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