Everything sound & ear training related

SoundGym

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Pierre James
Mar 29
Going to start a little thread for myself to track my percentage over time. I started in December (4 months back) and I'm seeing others progress (e.g., getting to 80% in 90 days or so), and so I want to keep a thread to make sure I'm not missing days. If I'm going slow that's ok, just want to make sure I'm aware of my progress :)
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Pierre James
Mar 29
Day 1 1974 SPI 65% - this morning I felt my ears were really good I immediately passed 4/5 games (very happy about that).

Feedback eliminator feels like perfect pitch at times (which I don't have) when there are 4 boxes right next to eachother. One thing that helped was trying to keep all the notes in mind and use relative pitch to help. That can be hard if it jumps 5 octaves.
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Great Ears!
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Pierre James
Mar 31
DAY 2 2226 SPI 66.1%

Spent a lot of time on stereohead practice and really felt like I learned something:
- 0 = 2 separate sounds but ful overlap, no independence, almost muddy
- .2 = feels like 0, but if you really listen you can hear that there is some independence of L/R and some clarity beginning to show.
- .4 = feels like 3 voices. An independent L + independent R + a mixed in the center that are all equal volume
- .6 = it feels like basically a L + R separate voices, but if you listen carefully you can still here the center voice
- .8 = L+R are fully separate but there's still a feeling of muddiness, but you can't hear it as in the center anymore.
- 1 = L+R are fully separate and everything sounds very clean.

The other ones I rushed through but still managed to pass one or two :)
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Pierre James
Apr 01
DAY 3 2297 SPI 66.3%

Seems a very small change in SPI despite passing 2/5 workouts... But the bulk of the time this morning was spent on EQ Cheetah kick drum only because I felt like I couldn't hear how mid / high eq's affected kick drums and wanted to get better there!
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Eric St-Onge
Apr 01
Maybe you already know this, but during a workout you can continue re-playing each game as many times as you want. I initially assumed that only the first try would count, and clicking on play again would be like an extra practice round, but no it turns out that you can play again and every attempt will count. So if you don't beat a particular level, you can just try again until you do, and even then you can keep going and beat multiple levels within one workout if you want to.

But it sounds like you're already learning and improving, keep it up!
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Pierre James
Apr 02
Thank you Eric :) I did that a bunch today on pan girl (I think 5x?) to finally pass haha, and so I actually passed all 5 (the rest were first try, must have had something in my breakfast - lucky day)

DAY 4 - 2566 SPI 67.1%

Very pleased with the progress. I felt like it sucked up a lot of energy to go through them today but I'm very happy with the outcome.
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Pierre James
Apr 02
Oh and I got my iron ears that's a fantastic feeling! It's hard to not feel down if you've been working on it for a while and it feels like how can I set a goal for gold ears if I haven't even hit the first step yet - so that feels awesome!
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Carson Koenig
Apr 02
yeah just stick with it, if you do the workout every day, or most days, even if u just blaze thru it on some days when you're tired, you will improve over time.
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Aidan Knight
Apr 02
Lock in gang
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Pierre James
Apr 03
Day 5 - 2712 SPI 67.5%

Didn't get much sleep last night and was rushing before work so it is what it is. Still made a little progress. Oh well. Tomorrow will be better.
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kjelt pieper
Apr 03
scores are nice and all but just know that you improved than its all good. some days my brain tricks me still.
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Pierre James
Apr 04
Yes @kjelt but it's motivating for sure to just keep seeing the number go up :)
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Pierre James
Apr 04
Day 6 - 3150 SPI 68.6%

I felt like it's the first time I'm hearing cuts properly. And first time I'm hearing Q properly. Still not great at it, but definitely improving. The progress is going steady

70th percentil is in reach and looking forward to hitting that milestone :)
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Great work, keep going! I recently hit 80% around 29k spi, so that gives you the target for the next milestone after 70%. The points get bigger as your level in each game increases, so it's not as hard as it might sound. The points are just a fun bonus in addition to the listening skills though.
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Pierre James
Apr 05
That will be the next goal @ Kristen :)
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Pierre James
Apr 05
Day 7 - 3596 SPI 69.6%

Really wanted to get to 70% but I think I was listening to loud this morning and I felt like I needed an ear break so I stopped at 69.6%. Going out of town for the next few days so will be radio silent until likely Tuesday but looking forward to picking back up and breaking 70% and then beyond :)

Although I didn't pass it today, EQ Mirror is the game where I feel woah I've made huge improvements from the get-go. Especially with bell peaks and dips. Really seeing improvement there, on compression, and on distortion which is a lot of fun to see.
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Pierre James
Apr 09
DAY 8 - 3901 SPI 70.1%

WOO - finally broke 70%! Next goal is going to be Bronze ears (5k SPI).

I had really rough starts on a lot of the games but I also think I drew some tough sounds (bongos, kick drums, those are always harder on EQ than the melodic instruments imo).

I'm sure the couple of days off while I was out of town didn't help. Anyway back at it tomorrow.
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Pierre James
Apr 10
DAY 9 - 4418 SPI 70.9%

Decently content with progress - felt a little bit of fatigue of doing the same games over and over and it's only been 9 days (technically it's been a lot more but only 9 days since starting this challenge). Hard to build new habits but gonna stick with it! Very close to Bronze ears which is exciting.
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Pierre James
Apr 11
DAY 10 - 4505 SPI 71%

I spent an insane amount of time trying to beat bass detective and EQ Cheetah and failed on both. But I rushed through distortion and beat that one. Better luck tomorrow hopefully.
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I finally had a breakthrough on Bass Detective, and now I wish there were mid and high range specific games too. I'm still struggling on Cheetah though, you're not alone. Keep trying!
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I have the same struggles😀
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Connect certain frequency ranges with Vowels sounds, it'll help you in Feedback Eliminator and EQ games.
Here's a video that'll introduce this concept to you.
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kjelt pieper
Apr 11
found out it goes from o a e i (dutch), myself. just test run it with pinknoise and connect freqenties to those sounds , i think your motherlanguage playes a big role in noticing the sounds. because vowels can sounds pretty defrent in each language. i always strugle when i have to deal with vocals tho because they already make a vowel sound.
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Pierre James
Apr 12
interesting about the vowels! I am going to think a little more on that!
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Pierre James
Apr 12
Day 11 - SPI 4762 71.3%

Beat 2 levels of stereohead and a delay level. Kind of rushed through the rest. Pretty happy with it overall!
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Pierre James
Apr 15
Day 12 - SPI 4905 71.6%

Today was a good lesson. I rushed through everything and failed the first 4 immediately. Was also post working out but before breakfast so a little tired, but then I finally passed the 5th one. And even though I did horribly - it didn't take that long and I still got a little closer to my goal. .3% everyday means 10% over a month. Much better than skipping and probably progressing even slower. So even though not much progress I'm pretty happy bout it. Also I'm just 100 SPI to Bronze ears. May just log on later and try and beat stuff till I get there.
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Pierre James
Apr 16
Day 13 - SPI 5287 - 72%

Got my bronze ears finally! Goal accomplished! 75% is next goal.

Once again, didn't have too much time so sped thru but still saw small improvement (.4%). If I can keep that up for a month it should mean a decent amount of progress.

I am hitting a bit of a wall with the EQ games because I don't hear 2k-8k very accurately. I think I'll need to dedicate a good 20-30min in practice and repeating one or two of those games over and over till I beat it. It would be helpful to have bass detective for mid-low, mid-high, high as well. Just to help get more accurate. Maybe they didn't want too many EQ games.
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Pierre James
Apr 17
Day 14 - 6199 72.8% - nearly a % increase that's wild.

My mom says 14 is a lucky number and today she's right I CRUSHED it today. Passed about 4 levels across 3 exercises in relatively quick time. I think DrComp and BassDetec I have more levels I could pass as well if I had the time...will need to keep playing those to make progress!

Also I put out my first single yesterday called I Love You by Pierre James. Been playing violin for about 25 years so it's crazy it's taken me this long to record something and put it out there but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out and have about 8 more planned for the year. Hoping that soundgym will help me do a better job hearing and thus have a better outcome.

If anyone is actually reading this and if you happen to want to listen here is the linktree with that and my socials etc.: https://linktr.ee/pierrejames

All in all feels like a good week :)
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Pierre James
Apr 18
DAY 15 - 6461 SPI 73%

I beat 2 levels of EQ cheetah and 2 levels of another and passed another 1 level of 2 other games...but only got .2% increase lol. I think because the ones I was passing were some lower levels to start with, so it didn't get me as many points as I hoped :/ oh well. Feel great about the session though.
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Pierre James
Apr 19
DAY 16 - 7754 SPI 73.9%

Almost got a full percentage point today which is crazy! I had a little more time today so any game I beat I did over and got a few levels ahead on one or two of them which was encouraging. Last workout was distortion and 1-6/12 was so easy and then every time I got to 7-11 it was very difficult...will try again another day.

Anyway we're really close to the goal of 75% which is amazing! Looking forward to hitting that.
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Pierre James
Apr 20
DAY 17 - 9278 SPI 74.9%

Had a little more time to dedicate to this and got an extra % point up! Very close to the goal of 75%. As close as can be without reaching it :)
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Pierre James
Apr 22
Goal accomplished! DAY 18 - 10217 SPI 75.4%

Had a terrible go at it but beat the reverb one which is one I've been working on it so was happy there. Pretty surprised how quick it's been to get up to 75!

Next goal is either 80% or Silver ears...I'm not sure which is closer. I think 80% is closer, so I'll start with that goal.

the original goal was 80% in 90 days and it seems I'm almost there! and not even 1/4 of the way... really thrilled with the progress!
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Pierre James
Apr 22
DAY 19 SPI 11756 76.1%

Did horrible...and then beat kit cut 4 levels in a row. Funny how that works. Tomorrow ill be my last day before I'm on vacation. It's been fun but it will be nice to take a quick break :)
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Good work , you earned a break
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Pierre James
Apr 23
haha actually really encouraging / I love the office! @darryl williams
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Pierre James
Apr 23
DAY 20 SPI 12.6k 76.4% of users.

Going on vacation. Really looking forward to this break, definitely feel burned out, but have for sure made massive improvements in the last ~25 days. I've got a show May 3rd (Houston at Dan Electros) and will probably get back to this starting May 5 :) Hoping for a similarly succesful May as my April :)
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Congrats on your progress! You were wondering about the percentile for silver - I've been keeping notes and I hit it between 82-83%, so the two goals will be close. The rapid increase in % really fell off after that for me, but I still feel like I'm improving, so it's good. Enjoy your break!