Hello, my name is Matt. I record, edit, and mix music for a living. My profession requires an extremely discerning ear. This little listening test is to see if you can pick up subtle differences in pitch.
What I have below is a series of approximately 1khz sine waves, in sets of two. In each test I’d like you to try to discern which tone is sharper than the original tone. Pitch is measured in tones, and cents. A semi-tone is considered one pitch. Thus, A# is a semi-tone higher than A. A cent is a percent of a tone. So 50 Cents up from A would be half way between A and A#.
Supposedly, the smallest discernible difference in pitch is +/- 6 Cents. That’s a 1/16th of the way to the next semi tone. So, we’ll start off just by comparing a tone and a tone that is 50 Cents sharper. Then we’ll move down the ladder, to 25 Cents, 12 Cents, etc. Personally I find 12 Cents to be difficult to identify, and I’ll concede that it’s easier to hear pitch difference when two sounds are played simultaneously.
Have a listen, and if you can’t tell the difference, don’t guess – just answer “can’t decide.”
Can you hear like an audio engineer?
Well, 4 out of 4, that wasn’t so hard.
None of the links work for me. Safari 4.0.3
Simple
4/4
I got all 4 correct…but, It would be far better to have dedicated players for these test instead of having to use WMP or QT player.
I personally thought that this was really really easy.
[...] at Noiseaddicts they have a little audiotest to see if you can “hear like an audio engineer“. …a series of approximately 1khz sine waves, in sets of two. In each test I’d like [...]
Having forgotten my own answers I was able to find this not terribly difficult. The last two are pretty easy to identify by “feel”.
^^^You’re so full of b.s.
Retitle this article
“Can you hear like a musician.”
put this link in and have everybody tell their percentages.
tonometric.com
quite easy
fun! only got em all right second time…more tests please :>
4 correct out of 4? Wow. Are you sure this are small differences? Works fine with Firefox 3.6.12 with VLC opening the files external to FF.
what does it mean, a sound is ‘sharp’ or one sound is ‘sharper’ then the other?
[...] the world of audio engineering, there is frequent debate surrounding sample rates – that is the number of samples of audio [...]
[...] producer can be involved in the song-writing, audio engineering, recording, adding musical instruments and effects, hiring outside musicians if needed, help plan [...]
I got 50%…also listened to them on my phone..so the audio wasnt all that good ,and it took a min to load them up….f i had headphones on or listened on better speakers i could guarentee 100%
I got them all right, not surprising since I am a composer who works mainly with computers.