Developing Your Ears

[cgarges]

Whar are you guys doing to develop your ears? What sort of things do you do to learn what it is that you're not hearing? What sort of experiences have you had that have really opened you up to a new level of being able to discern different elements of audio, be they EQ curves, phase relationships, relative pitch, perfect pitch, dynamic manipulation, whatever? How has this affected you in the past and what are you doing to ensure that those things happen again (or not)?

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

[nlmd311]

Great question,
I have tried a variety of different ways in the past. The only thing so far I have found a big difference in is by using the samples availble through www.thelisteningsessions.com ! I download a couple of samples. Listen to them a couple times over and then allow myself to figure out what I am hearing and why that is different from the other samples I am listening to. Going to the manufacturers website or a quick search to find the freq. response chart also helps to add a visual que after listening to work off of.
I think just in the little time of doing this my sensitivity to small frequency changes and ability to distinguish them and other details have been enhanced.
It is great!

what about you Chris?

all the best

-Darrill

[Armchair]

Whar are you guys doing to develop your ears? What sort of things do you do to learn what it is that you're not hearing? What sort of experiences have you had that have really opened you up to a new level of being able to discern different elements of audio, be they EQ curves, phase relationships, relative pitch, perfect pitch, dynamic manipulation, whatever? How has this affected you in the past and what are you doing to ensure that those things happen again (or not)?

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

I don't know about developing you're ears, but perhaps you could develop a way to stop being a condescending prick to everyone who posts here?.

[fremitus]

wow, this reminds me that i need to do more of it...
other than simply listening constantly, checking out as much good and bad music as possible, and then always falling back on the stuff that i love and asking myself why i love it. hmmm. i always really liked doing full on geek things with hangtime at the studio. maybe i'm just running backups or archiving, but that's a great time to screw around with the nuances of your own gear. this can be as simple as running a click into a mult and through a few compressors to see how differently they react to bringing up some drum tracks and going deeper into the eventide or whatever box is lying around. i miss the days when i would listen to the old 'golden ears' cd's and discern minimal frequency changes. good times...

i'm gonna go find those...

[twitchmonitor]

I tune out Armchair. An excercise in selective listening. Actually, I don't do anything special...I just pay attention to everything around me, especially other recordings. Critical listening, or active listening I guess. When I was considering doing live sound I was thinking about listening to sine waves to be able to identify feedback frequencies quickly, but I opted against it.

[kronosonic]

Sometimes being a "music fan" gets in the way of keeping a "critical" or discerning attitude -- especially for folks who are fans of their own music

Things that have helped me include associating with a close circle of non-bull-shitting friends who you can "tell it to them like it is" and they, in turn, can tell you when something is not as good as it can be. I'd rather somebody tear one of my mixes to shreds rather than just cop out and say "it's cool" because they don't want to hurt my feelings. Go ahead, step on my ego, I know there's a lot of room for improvement. Help me out. It's easy to accept something as okay or even good that is terrible simply because you grow accustomed to it and you don't have any critical feedback.

Having a good supply of reference material on hand that you know is great or that you consider "ideal typical." How are you stacking up? Are you getting closer?

I hate to say it but investing in quality gear can help a whole lot. I remember the first time I bought a "world class" mic and used it in an application where I normally used a budget mic. Wow, instant revelation. After that one experience I was capable of hearing not-so-subtle problems with time coherency that were unknown to me because of the degredations (color) associated with the cheaper mics.

Likewise, having an adequate environment is essential. A friend of mine has been trying to mix in an untreated 8x8 room and, as he admits, you can't do much or learn a whole lot while wearing that kind of millstone around your neck. You need the right kind of conditions before you can learn some things or develop your skills.

Variety can help too: instead of one pair of good headphones how about three pair?

Use different "modalities" too -- break out the freq/spectrum analyzer. What does your reference mix "look like" compared to yours? Maybe there's something bothering me about my kick. Where does the kick peak on the reference material? etc...

And, of course, simple experimentation is key.

[underthebigtree]

I constantly listen to the work of my heroes, deriving new ideas and approaches from their methods. Then, I take those techniques and try them myself, keeping the ones I like, discarding the ones I don't.

There is so much brilliant work out there - listening attentively and deeply seems to work for me.

For those interested in post production, check out the first 10 minutes of "The Polar Express". An unbelievable exercise in detail and restraint. Randy Thom is the man. No wonder he is up for FOUR sound Oscars this time around.

[earth tones]

Golden Ears ???

[Stephen]

Golden Ears ???

Yeah, it's a snack from Nabisco...
Pax, Steve

[Marcus H.]

yeah, i've been thinking about this stuff alot over the last few recent months. i agree with kronosonic, making sure that the tools iin the test aren't TOO deficient. Also, i've started listening in the studio (just sitting there listening) to music i am not familiar with. This has been helping me to notice sonic things outside of my usual "palette".

also, (in nerdy, scientist fashion) I made my own reference CD. recording the same thing with all the same gear, but making different tweeks with each pass. I document each one and drive around listening to that. This is really time-consuming to put together but it's pretty cool. It's helped me to get a real ear on certain things that i don't notice as much due to changing variables (helps get rid of "ear goggles"....yes, this is similar to beer goggles).

Mh.

[bigtoe]

i bought your cd's chris...compared them to my own...made notes...they sound great- btw. particularly dig the piano trio.

on that note - i listen constantly to other engineers' work. compare it to my own.

i can hear the elements of audio: "be they EQ curves, phase relationships, relative pitch, perfect pitch, dynamic manipulation, whatever" it's where i want to use them or more where they are most appropriate that i'm getting into...

"What sort of experiences have you had that have really opened you up to a new level of being able to discern different elements of audio"

better monitoring. going up to a place that had excellent monitoring and hearing what my audio really sounds like was supremely educational.

Mike

[bobbydj]

Golden Ears ???

Yeah, it's a snack from Nabisco...
Pax, Steve

That "snack" as you so dismissively referred to it is actually something of a delicacy I'll have you know.

[Marcus H.]

Hey Armchair, do you have anything helpful/insightful that you can share with us on this topic. I'm definitley anxious for all you have to offer (apparently there is alot, right?....).

Thanks!

[bad_dude_69]

oddly enough, after not recording or doing any critical listening for about two weeks, i came back to it and could hear a lot of details i couldn't hear before. that was cool, but i'm still trying to find a more pro-active approach to attaining delicacy standard ears.

[spankenstein]

I haven't done anything special but last night while listening to stuff with my drummer I was pointing out things that he just didn't hear, even after pointing them out. And... even though he's a drummer he is extremely conscientious about wearing ear plugs, even more so that me.

We were listening to those Bonham clips that Zeppelin4Life posted. On track 22 (I don't remmeber the song name) he's clicking 1/8s on the hi-hats and playing a triplet on the ride. My drummer swore he was only tapping 1/4s. There was definitely a hi-hat close but the compression made it duck a little and it was lower in volume. It also took him a few times to catch the pedal squeaks.

It was definitely an eye (ear) opener.