I love Max for Live, it’s DIY audio in the software domain and it makes trying out ideas and building new audio tools extremely easy.

I built this device to help improve your ability to judge and apply EQ, you will of course need Ableton Live and Max For Live to be able to use it, you can download the device here:

http://www.maxforlive.com/library/device/3657/eq-ear-training

The concept is simple; you listen to some source material and the plugin applies random EQ boosts (or cuts) and you have to guess what the frequency band is. If you do this regularly enough your ear will become attuned to the different EQ frequency bands and their effect on the source material. Just as with musical interval training, the more you do the quicker and easier it becomes to identify and apply EQ effectively, ultimately leading to better mixes / masters.

The idea came from Bob Katz book Mastering Audio: The Art and the Science , which I thoroughly recommend if you want some in-depth knowledge on some of the concepts and practices in mastering. In an early chapter he outlines various exercises to improve your ear in the context of mastering, and this is based on one of those.

I’ve put together a video to explain how to use it, it’s pretty straightforward:

Main features are:

• Audition mode to hear the effect of each EQ band
• training mode to test your ability to identify the frequency band in use
• Apply EQ cut or boost, 3 or 6 dB and with Q factor of 0.5 (broad) to 1 (narrow)
• Choose between your own source audio material or pink noise

Building it was relatively straightforward, there are a few quirks with max that I’m still getting used to, for instance, I only just figured out the sequence of execution of objects triggered off the same bang depends on the position of the objects in the patch editor (bottom to top, right to left).

Hope you find it useful, let me know what you think.