How to train your ears for EQ

By Dan Murtagh · Updated 3 October 2026

Short answer: practise a little every day, on a few bands at a time. Start on pink noise with big boosts on three bands far apart. Add bands as it gets easy, then move to drums and a full mix, then to cuts and smaller moves. Always compare at the same loudness. Put each band into words, and spend most of your time on the pairs of neighbouring bands you mix up. A few minutes every day does more than an hour once a week.

EQ ear training is learning to link what you hear to a range of frequencies, so that when something sounds wrong in a mix, you know where to reach. A frequency chart tells you where to look. Training is what lets you hear it.

A routine that works

1. Use headphones or decent speakers, at a comfortable, moderate level. Laptop and phone speakers can’t play the low bands, so 63 and 125 Hz turn into guesswork.
2. Start on pink noise, with three bands far apart and big boosts. Pink noise plays every frequency at once, so whichever band moves, you hear it, and there’s no song to distract you.
3. Add bands as it gets easy: five, then all nine octave bands from 63 Hz to 16 kHz. The closer the bands, the harder it gets.
4. Move to music: a drum kit, then bass and drums, then a full mix. Music is harder than noise, because a band only changes the instruments that have something there.
5. Then cuts, then smaller moves. A cut is harder to hear than a boost: you’re listening for something that’s gone. Small moves are where mixing happens.
6. Include “no change”. Sometimes nothing moved. Saying so when it’s true trains you not to hear changes that aren’t there.
7. Compare at the same loudness. A boost makes the sound louder, and louder usually sounds better. If the levels aren’t matched, you’re judging volume, not tone.
8. A few minutes, every day. Stop when your ears are tired. Short and often beats long and rare.

The levels of Mix Chops’ Identify exercise follow steps 2 to 5 in order, and from level 2 some questions have no change at all. Identify turns the EQ side down after a boost, roughly, to make up for the extra level. The Daily Session gives you twelve questions a day, weighted toward the bands you miss.

Put each band into words

It’s much easier to remember a sound with a name on it. These are the words Mix Chops uses for the nine octave bands. What is EQ? describes each one.

• 63 Hz: sub weight
• 125 Hz: body and warmth
• 250 Hz: the mud zone
• 500 Hz: boxiness
• 1 kHz: honk
• 2 kHz: bite and attack
• 4 kHz: presence and edge
• 8 kHz: sizzle
• 16 kHz: air

The bands people mix up

Many wrong answers are a neighbour: one octave too high or too low. Each pair has its own way to tell them apart.

• 63 or 125 Hz? 63 you feel: the thump in your chest, the part a laptop can’t play. 125 you hear: the note of the bass, the body of the kick. If it would still show up on small speakers, it’s 125.
• 125 or 250 Hz? 125 makes it bigger: weight, size, warmth. 250 makes it thicker, like a blanket over the mix. Bigger, or cloudier?
• 250 or 500 Hz? 250 is mud: woolly, covered up. 500 is box: hollow and wooden, a snare in a cardboard carton. Covered up, or boxed in?
• 500 Hz or 1 kHz? 500 hollows the sound out. 1k is nasal, and shoves it at you.
• 1 or 2 kHz? 1k honks, in the middle of the sound. 2k bites, the crack of a snare and the pick on the string, and comes toward you.
• 2 or 4 kHz? 2k is bite: crack and pick attack. 4k is edge: consonants, stick on skin, the hard front of every note. Too much 2k gets pushy. Too much 4k hurts.
• 4 or 8 kHz? 4k is the front of the note. 8k is sizzle: cymbals, breath and S sounds. If the S’s start to spit, it’s 8k.
• 8 or 16 kHz? You can point at 8k: it’s cymbals and S’s. You can’t really point at 16k: the top just opens up. You notice air most when it’s taken away.

When you miss one in Identify, Help me hear it plays your answer against the real one, then tests you on that pair.

Questions