Developing Your Ears

[cgarges]

What sort of things do you guys do to develop your ears? Do you spend any time critically listening to records you like in your own monitoring environment? Do you ever try to re-make some of your favorite records? Have you bought all the Golden Ears stuff? Developed perfect pitch?

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

[mjau]

My very undeveloped ears like to take an album and run it through an outboard eq while sweeping the filters, just to hear what's going on where in the mix.

[Brett Siler]

I am very proud to say it the last few months I learned hear differet phase anomalies. This has affect my recording greatly and makes the mixing part alot easier too!

As for perfect pitch my brother bought this 10 disc cd set that supposed helps you acheive perfect pitch. I think I might start listening to it and checkng it out and seeing if it helps.

[heylow]

I don't do a lot so much CONSCIOUSLY to develop my ears but I suppose I do a lot Un-consciously. I listen to a lot of different music and I will often AB things to figure out why one record sounds so different from another, making mental notes and pictures of ambience, frequency response, etc...the mental notes help me to remember things to try later on and this is, of course, where we learn.

I've also played around with EQs for great lengths of time. It's interesting to take something like a guitar track you have done and sort of play with the EQ, trying to sort of ape what's going on and what's different between this track and one form another record. It doesn't seem like a lot and it doesn't mean that your track is bad, but again, it gives you food for ideas while tracking later.

I do occasionally like to play "guess the frequency". It's interesting to find out where you think things are. My girlfriend has been taking online classes at Berkely for music business and one of the classes had to do with critical listening. There were exercises that involved literally guessing frequencies, then moving onto pink noise and guessing which frequency was being boosted. I did pretty well....(not GREAT)...until we had to guess which pink noise frequencies were being CUT. Tough stuff. The minute you think you got the frequency thing down, try guessing cuts. Yikes!


heylow

[Silverlode]

My very undeveloped ears like to take an album and run it through an outboard eq while sweeping the filters, just to hear what's going on where in the mix.

That's a really cool idea.

[mjau]

My very undeveloped ears like to take an album and run it through an outboard eq while sweeping the filters, just to hear what's going on where in the mix.

That's a really cool idea.

Try it with Sgt. Pepper's. McCartney's bass is absolutely HUGE in some places you might not think you'd find the bass.

[ProgNerd]

I sit in my studio listening to Chris Garges mixes and trying to figure out what the heck he did. The TV kick drum thing got me though...

[joeysimms]

I just listen to a wide variety of sounds that I love, over and over and over, because I like to spend time listening.

[cgarges]

I sit in my studio listening to Chris Garges mixes and trying to figure out what the heck he did. The TV kick drum thing got me though...

HA HA!!! The TV thing got a lot of people!

Ross, I LOVE your avatar!

CG

[Girl Toes]

listening to RECORDS!!! Not CDs. We are in a digital world, and when you come home to an analog one, you really can hear the difference. Also, the range of different sounds available onrecords is far greater. There are plenty of digital records out there, and the difference is quite obvious. You can also tell when things are sampled sometimes, if its an other wise analog recording. On CD, it doesn't show nearly as easily. A lot becomes revealed.

Listen to all kinds of music too, even music you don't like. Its as important to learn what you don't like, and why, as it is to learn what you do like,and why.

Don't just listen with your ears. Your heart reacts to things too. Pay attention. Sound quality effects the way the heart feels. I mean, I have my RCA ribbon mic plugged through an old ampex tube mixer. going on to tape. If you say "hello" on it, your heart will melt. Does it sound great?? Sure. But it FEELS even better than it actually sounds.

[alissa]

i just started wearing earplugs in clubs.

woah. what a weird sensory experience.

[AnalogElectric]

It took me a long time before I found monitors I liked with complimentary headphones that reproduced similar to my monitors. I'd say it's been a good couple years where I rarely put on headphones during a mix, I usually start getting too critical when listening thru headphones.

Now that my previous second engineer moved on to a professional Mastering studio I have really learned a lot more about works better in a pre-master/final mix. Having the open communication with being able to a/b test Master before the band books time has helped a ton and saves me any concerns I had before it went to a Mastering Engineer (on the clock).

It's hard for me to listen to CD's, vinyl, cassettes, 8-Track (haha), and/or whatever from a band I like or my client likes cuz mostly (especially these days) the Mastering is really soaked. On the mix side I try to get things pretty flat and even unless we're going for something expressively different, then I go with instinct. After working with so many bands I know the end result just after practice and I generally don't listen to other stuff other than albums I've recorded in the past that turned out stellar.

I suppose before the point I am at now I did listen to albums I liked but didn't have anything to do with it. I'd listen to them with headphones, monitors, home stereo, car, etc. The only reason I reference anything else now is if I've been working 4 days in a row, tracking and mixing all at once, and I want to make sure I have enough overall high-end and clarity.

I also listen to CD's and my own mixes in mono so I can make sure whatever should cut thru, does cut thru.

-- Adam Lazlo

[Spiderhead69]

I had a guitar teacher many years ago who not only taught guitar, but when he put on a piece of music for teh students to listen to, he would point out, what to listen for...

[drumsound]

I've been trying to sit at the studio and listen to music while not doing anything else. Its amazing how different even you favorites records actually sound compared to how you think they sound...

For instance "Revolver" The drums are smashed to shit ( and cool as hell) and there's a few "mute mistakes." I've listened to that record so many times and heard many of the songs on the radio that I don't notice the specifics.

It's pretty fun to dive in the hear things with 'new ears!'

[r0ck1r0ck2]

i really like using earplugs in the club....
helps me get over the fear of going deaf...really it helps me hear...
i can usually make out what the rhythm guitar and bass are actually doing....
i can hear people when they talk to me....
i carry a set with me at all times...