Ear Training For Audio Engineers - Oscillator Exercises

Old school professional audio engineers, like our boy Dave Pensado, have invested a lot of TIME training the ears to HEAR frequencies.

• Into The Lair #57 - Ear Training Part 1
• Into The Lair #58 - Ear Training Part 2

Overview

Ear training is very important for both musicians and audio engineers. For musicians, traditional ear training includes: identifying intervals (Major, Minor, Diminished, etc) and chord changes (I-IV-V, ii-V-I, etc.). While audio engineers generally need to recognize specific frequencies. For example, they need to understand that Middle C (C3) = 261hz. Here is helpful cheat sheet for finding the Frequencies of Musical Notes

To complete this assignment, you will need the following tools:

1. DAW
   • As always, you can work in the DAW of your choice
2. Some type of oscillator (hardware synth, virtual synth/plugin, tone generator, etc)
   • The oscillator must be able to generate basic wave forms (sine, sawtooth, square, pink noise, white noise), and must be able to control the frequency and the waveform
   • If there isn't a synth or tone generator that comes with your DAW, you can find a free one here
3. Real-Time Spectrum Analyzer
   • So you can identify and see the frequency that you’re playing
   • free Spectrum Analyzer plugins here
4. Filters
   • At least High-Pass Filter (HPF) and Low-Pass Filter (LPF)

Instructions

1. Instantiate a sine wave oscillator and listen to these basic frequencies
   • 100 Hz
   • 500 Hz
   • 1000 Hz
   • 4000 Hz
   • 8000 Hz
   • 12000 Hz
2. A sine wave is a pure tone with no harmonic overtones
   • Go here for more info: MusicTheory:Harmonics
3. Watch the Real-Time Analyzer as you listen
   • What you hear will be dependent upon your speakers and/or your headphones
   • If your speakers aren't capable of reproducing 100hz, you will see the frequency on the analyzer, but you won't hear it
   • This is also all influenced by your room acoustics
     • Which is a whole other art and science
4. After listening to different frequencies using a sine waves, listen using a complex wave form like sawtooth wave
   • A sawtooth wave is comprised of sine waves and contains both even and odd harmonics
   • Use this to train your ears to hear the difference between sawtooth and sine wave
   • Notice it has a buzzy sound and that your RTA is displaying all of the frequencies that are comprising the sawtooth wave
5. Change the fundamental frequency of the sawtooth wave and see how the corresponding harmonics change
6. Now listen to the same frequencies you did using the sine wave (100hz, 500hz, 1000hz, 4000hz, 8000hz, 12000 hz)
7. On the same track, instantiate a filter. Apply the filter to the sawtooth wave
8. Watch and listen to how the different filters (High Pass, Low Pass, etc) affect the sound
9. Create a 1 min video screencast of you listening back to different waveforms while using your analyzer
10. Upload that video file to a platform like YouTube or Vimeo
    • It can be private/unlisted with permissions set so that anyone with the link can view

Submit in Canvas

1. Paste a link to your video (on YouTube, Vimeo, etc.)
   • Double check that your sharing/viewing permissions are correct

Next Steps

In the future, as you have time...

1. Replace the oscillator with Music!
   • 24 bit WAV files!
2. Mastered Mixes
3. Unmastered Mixes
4. Vocals
5. Various Instruments
   1. Drums
   2. Bass
   3. Guitars
   4. etc...
6. Use Equalizers (filters) to boost and cut various frequencies
   • Train your ears to recognize these frequencies