EQ Ear Trainer

Pink noise plays with one band boosted - toggle the boost, name the band. The "golden ears" drill every mixing engineer runs, free in your browser. Octave bands 100 Hz to 12.8 kHz, boosts from an obvious +12 dB down to a realistic +3 dB.

Boost size

Use headphones or decent speakers at moderate volume - laptop speakers can't reproduce the 100 Hz band, which turns those rounds into guesses.

The band anchors

100 Hz

boom, weight, kick-drum body

200 Hz

mud when excessive, warmth when right

400 Hz

boxiness - singing into cardboard

800 Hz

honk, nasal midrange

1.6 kHz

presence edge, forwardness

3.2 kHz

harshness, bite - ear sensitivity peak

6.4 kHz

sibilance, sizzle

12.8 kHz

air, sparkle, shimmer

Hear any single frequency in isolation on its landing page (100 Hz, 500 Hz, 4 kHz...) or sweep the whole spectrum with the sweep generator. The written map is in the frequency chart guide.

EQ Ear Training FAQ

What is EQ ear training?

Learning to hear which frequency region changed - the core skill of mixing and mastering. Classic audio-school programs ("golden ears" training) play filtered noise or music and ask you to name the boosted band; engineers who can do this stop sweeping EQs hunting for problems and go straight to the frequency they hear.

How does this game work?

Pink noise plays continuously with one octave band boosted by a peaking filter. Toggle between boosted and flat as many times as you like, then name the band. Ten rounds, octave bands from 100 Hz to 12.8 kHz. Easy uses +12 dB boosts (obvious), hard uses +3 dB (the size of real mixing moves).

What do the frequency bands sound like?

Rough anchors: 100 Hz = boom/weight, 200 Hz = mud/warmth, 400 Hz = boxiness, 800 Hz = honk/nasal, 1.6 kHz = presence edge, 3.2 kHz = harshness/bite, 6.4 kHz = sibilance/sizzle, 12.8 kHz = air/sparkle. Learning these octave names is half the skill; hearing them at +3 dB is the other half.

Why train on pink noise instead of music?

Pink noise is the same every time and contains every frequency at equal perceived weight, so the boost is the only thing changing - the fastest way to build the mapping. Once you clear the hard level here, apply it to real material: boost a band on a song in your DAW, guess before looking, and repeat.