A tour of Mix Chops: an EQ question, a compressor, a mix's faders, a part placed in the stereo field, Ask Dan's reply and your ears improving. Press play to answer the first question yourself, with sound.
Identify · on a songCompressed or Dry · DrumsLouder or Softer · Full songPlace the Sound · GuitarAsk Dan · in the Attack drillRanks & XPYour turnNailed it.
Hear a mix and know what it needs. A few minutes a day trains your ears to catch the frequency muddying it, the compressor flattening the drums, the vocal sitting a touch too loud.
Made by Dan Murtagh, a Melbourne mix engineer: 20 years mixing, 10 years teaching audio production.
What changes
From guessing to golden ears.
BeforeAfter training
EQBefore: Something’s muddy. You sweep an EQ and hope.After training: It’s the guitars, around 300 Hz.
CompressionBefore: You turn the knobs and can’t hear what changed.After training: You hear the snare’s crack come back.
BalanceBefore: The vocal goes up, down, up again.After training: It’s a touch loud. One move.
SpaceBefore: The mix feels crowded and flat.After training: You hear what’s piled up in the middle.
Your ears
And you can watch it happen
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First answersNowAn illustration, not real results. Yours fills in as you train.
Test your ears Three sounds, a minute or two. Free, no account.
Four modules
Tone. Dynamics. Balance. Space. The whole mix.
Start with EQ: name bands on pink noise, then find the one instrument muddying a full mix. Then hear what a compressor is really doing, and set a song’s faders by ear. Every exercise has levels that get harder as you go.
Every right answer is XP. Climb eight ranks, from the studio runner up, and collect badges along the way. Golden Ears is a Pro rank: it also takes the last level of Identify, Compressed or Dry and Restore the Balance, and those are Pro levels.
Runner0 XP
Intern100
Assistant300
Engineer1,000
Mixer2,500
Producer5,000
Mastering Engineer10,000
Golden EarsPro20,000
Who’s behind it
Made by Dan Murtagh
“Good ears aren’t a gift. They’re a skill, and I’ve spent ten years teaching it.”
The daily session and the first levels of two exercises in each of EQ, compression, balance and space are free for good. Pro opens every exercise and every level, your own songs and the whole track library.
Your own songs
Upload the song you’re mixing. It’s split into six parts, and you train on the bars that never sit right.
Headphones or decent speakers. Laptop and phone speakers can’t reproduce the low bands, so 63 and 125 Hz turn into guesswork. Set a comfortable level on the first sound and leave it there: every exercise plays at the same loudness.
Is it really free?
Yes. The daily session and the first two levels of two exercises in each of EQ, compression, balance and space are free, with no account and no card. Pro, for every level, is US$12 a month (the first 7 days free) or US$99 a year. Accounts made in early access, before Pro opened, keep every exercise that was open to them, free, and pay US$8 a month or US$79 a year for Pro.
Do I need an account?
No. Your progress saves in this browser. Sign in with Google or an email link (no password) and it follows you to your phone or any other computer.
Does it work on a phone?
Yes, in any modern browser. Plug in headphones first.
What do I get with Pro?
Every level of all seven EQ exercises, seven compression exercises, seven balance exercises and seven space exercises, your own songs to train on, Ask Dan all session (about 100 replies a day, against 10 on a free account), a plan for each day on the Daily page with one short task each in EQ, compression, balance and space picked from your answers, focus drills on any EQ band and the full track library. Pro is US$12 a month (the first 7 days free) or US$99 a year. Accounts made in early access, before Pro opened, pay US$8 a month. See Pro
Who is it for?
Anyone who mixes: students, producers, bands recording themselves, and engineers keeping their ears sharp between sessions.
How does it compare with SoundGym?
Mix Chops trains EQ, compression, balance and space in your browser, and it goes past naming bands to fixing the problem in a full mix: cutting the instrument that’s muddying it, or setting the faders back by ear. See how it compares with SoundGym and eight other ear trainers.
Start here
Golden ears aren’t born. They’re trained.
Three sounds, a minute or two: hear what your ears already catch, then train the rest.
Made by Dan Murtagh, a Melbourne mix engineer: 20 years mixing, 10 years teaching audio production.