An interactive study of the musical signal. We take apart the physics of frequencies and the maths of rhythm on live audio examples, right in the browser.
Not sure where to begin? Open “Compressor”
Live example · saturation Open the section →
Harmonics above −60 dB: 1
Turn the knob: the peaks of the wave get squashed and harmonics grow on the right. In the sections you can hear all of this too.
What you can usually only hear is drawn: what happens to the sound and why.
The sound changes at once, right in the browser. Nothing to install.
Every section has real-world cases: a question, an answer and an explanation in plain words.
Not sure where to begin? Open “Compressor”
This site grew out of hands-on work with sound. When you study it, there is too much information around: hundreds of videos, articles, forums. To find an answer you need to know what exactly to look for, and putting a problem into words at the start is not easy. You can hear that the sound needs work, but what it is called and where to begin often stays unclear.
Books give a solid theoretical foundation, and their value is hard to overstate. Yet to make the material stick, a practical, visual companion to the printed page was always missing. Written explanations exist, but picturing from them what actually happens to the sound does not always work. Plugins show a lot, but they speak their own technical language: curves and numbers with no hint of what they mean for the ear.
This kind of breakdown is useful not only to beginners. Experienced engineers also benefit from quickly refreshing the details or seeing the link between dry parameters and the real result.
A tool that shows the same things plugins do, only in plain language, was long overdue. Here it is clear at once what a particular knob does to the sound, what it looks like and what it costs. The site was built as exactly that kind of resource: for putting knowledge in order and making it stick, at any level.
Set the volume lower than you want: the level of a conversation next to you, not a concert. The balance is honest at a moderate level, and the ears tire later. If you have to raise your voice over the music, it is already too loud. For reference: from 85 dB the damage adds up over hours, and every extra 3 dB halves the safe time.
Every 45–60 minutes, take the headphones off for 5–10 minutes and sit in silence. By the end of a long session the highs and the bass sound different than at the start: check decisions with fresh ears.
Some trainer moves tire you more than ordinary music: a narrow band in solo (mud, harshness, air), a squeezed and overloaded top, heavy sub. Turn the volume down first, then switch such a mode on, and never for more than a few minutes in a row. Compare with the original (Bypass) at the same loudness: the louder it is, the better it seems, and that is a trap.
Ringing, a feeling of cotton in the ears, pain, or unpleasant harshness in ordinary sounds - stop at once instead of listening on. If the ringing does not go away within a day or comes back, see a doctor (an ENT or an audiologist). Hearing does not recover, and the whole craft rests on it.