When you have fully characterised the sound, move on to the next one, until you have decomposed the whole track. Write down your findings so you can refer to them later.
When you have an element isolated see if you can work out its attributes: pitch, duration, timber, loudness harmonics, rhythm, envelop, textures, speed, frequency, length, panorama, intensity, dimension, interest, balance, etc.
The human auditory system as actually very good at this and with a bit of practice it is actual fairly easy to do. Then listen back to it and in your "minds ear" try to isolate one particular sound element. For a newbie I would recommend taking a reference track, which could be music, soundscape or soundtrack and first listen to it as a "whole". Again these will take time and practice to develop and will not just happen over night.
In his 13 years of professional experience, he has had the pleasure of working with many of today’s top corporations including: McDonalds Corp., Allied Van Lines, Minute Maid, Sprint, GlaxoSmithKline.Following on from my previous post on practicing sound design ( ), another aspect that should be taken into account is developing "critical listening" skills.
John is President of Full Circle Creative Media Services, Inc., a full service media production company specializing in Audio and Video production and Corporate Communications. He has written and performed on regional and national commercials including True Value Hardware and GNC (General Nutrition Centers). He has studied at Boston’s Berklee College of Music and graduated with a BA in Music.This background, along with his technical aptitude has given him the expertise to bring a fresh creativity to productions. John Pecak has been an audio professional since 1989. See John’s full video demo:įor more on why training your ears as an engineer is important, check out Jamie Rio’s Houses of the Holy from SPL ezine, #03 HERE.Īnd for a chance to win a copy of Quiztones, check out our giveaway page at SoundProLive Network where you can enter to WIN! That being said, utilizing an app like Quiztones will provide one with benefits that far exceed the cost. Being that it is a specialized tool with a relatively selective market, these prices are expected.
Am I good on the low and mid frequency range, but have trouble with higher ones, or vice versa? Hopefully a future upgrade might give more detailed analytics.Īt $19.95 for the Mac version, it is not a “cheap” app, The IOS version is considerably more affordable at $4.99 and has in-app add ons for additional fees. While it is nice to see a summary of the scores, it would also be nice to delve deeper into each quiz to see what areas one has the most problems with. Quiztones helps reveal that.Īll of the quizzes and scores are stores and the results can be accessed from the main “windows” dropdown. No matter how long one has been in the industry, it is always good to see where one’s strengths and weaknesses are. Taking the quizzes was easy and revealing. Once you answer all 10 questions, your final score will appear. There is also a loop button that does just like it is named, allowing for continuous play while engaging/disengaging the eq. Once the questions are asked, I was able to engage and disengage the EQ so I could A/B the two sounds. Scoring is as follows: correct answer = 100 pts, 2nd guess = 50 pts, 3rd guess = 25 pts, 4th guess = 0. Difficulty levels range from easy, to hard and expert. Once launched, a main window appears and you are ready to start quizzing.
Installation was painless and straightforward. The version of Quiztones that I used was loaded on my Macbook Pro.
Quiztones helps you by offering a series of quizzes that will sharpen your skills and save you much time and frustration when trying to find that pesky frequency range where your bass track muddies up the mix, or what would add presence to an acoustic guitar. Understanding what different frequencies sound like is just like taking off the blinders.
Being able to hear if something sounds thin, or boomy is good, but knowing WHERE the harshness or boominess lies and getting there quickly is valuable and a big time saver. Not only as pure tones, but also in context on common instruments. On the technical side, this would include being able to hear how different frequencies sound. One of the most important things that an audio engineer can do is train his/her ears, both musically and technically. Quiztones from Audiofile Engineering is a useful teaching tool that will be of benefit to those starting out in the world of audio as well as the seasoned engineer. Want to mix better? Then you’ve got to train those ears! And you can win a copy to help!