The Earlytics Blog

Ear training, mixing, and the occasional rabbit hole

Notes on training your ear for both classic solfège and modern mixing skills, from the people building Earlytics.

• Quiztones Alternative: Ear Training Beyond EQ

  Quiztones is a focused EQ ear trainer for iPhone and Mac. If you also want to train compression, saturation, panning or reverb, or you're on Android or Windows, here's how Earlytics compares.

  4 min read

• How to Train Your Ear for Reverb Decay and Room Size

  Reverb is the effect people add most and judge least accurately. Here's how to hear decay time, room size and pre-delay on their own, and a simple drill to get reliable at it.

  5 min read

• SoundGym Alternative: Earlytics vs SoundGym for Ear Training

  An honest comparison of SoundGym and Earlytics: what each trains, how the free plans differ, and what the paid plans cost, so you can pick the one that fits how you work.

  4 min read

• TrainYourEars Alternative: Mixing Ear Training in Your Browser

  TrainYourEars EQ Edition is a deep desktop EQ trainer. If you also want compression, saturation, panning and reverb training, or want to practice on your phone, here's how Earlytics compares.

  3 min read

• Panning and Stereo Width: Ear Training Exercises for Better Placement

  Panning position and stereo width are easy to misjudge, and judgments made on headphones often don't hold up on speakers. Here's how to train a reliable internal reference for both.

  4 min read

• Compression Ear Training: How to Hear Ratio, Attack, and Release

  Compression is harder to train than EQ because three separate variables are moving at once. Here's how to isolate ratio, attack, and release so each one becomes recognizable on its own.

  5 min read

• How to Recognize Saturation and Distortion by Ear

  Saturation is designed to be subtle at first, which is exactly what makes it easy to overdo without noticing. Here's how to train the specific skill of catching it early.

  4 min read

• Why Can't I Hear EQ Changes in My Mix? Common Reasons and Fixes

  Struggling to hear a boost or cut, even a big one? It's usually one of a handful of specific causes, some about your setup, some about training, and they call for different fixes.

  4 min read

• Best Ear Training Apps for Music Producers, Compared

  A fair look at where EarMaster, Perfect Ear, and similar apps focus their training, and where a producer working on mixing skills specifically needs to look elsewhere.

  4 min read

• How to Train Your Ear to Identify EQ Frequencies

  A practical drilling progression for learning to hear where a boost or cut sits on the spectrum, from obvious wide-Q moves down to the subtle stuff that actually matters in a mix.

  4 min read

• How to Train Your Ear for Mixing (EQ, Compression, and Beyond)

  Most ear training only covers solfège. Here's why mixing skills like EQ and compression recognition need the same deliberate practice, and how to build it, category by category.

  8 min read