01
Pick a module
Twenty-one of them, from EQ and compression to masking and the precedence effect. Difficulty adapts as you go.
Premium · A Squaresmile app
Ear training for engineers. On real stems.
EQ, delay, compression, reverb, distortion, filters, phase, width, pitch, tempo — plus Haas, masking, precedence and equal-loudness. Real instrument stems, tolerance-based scoring, per-module mastery, seven ranks. One purchase.
Real stems, not sine sweeps
Buy once, train forever
A psychoacoustics wing nobody else has
How it works
Most ear training teaches you to pass its own test.
A sine sweep tells you what a sine sweep sounds like. SoundSense plays real recorded material, asks the question a mix actually asks, then shows you the answer on an analyzer — so the skill transfers to the console instead of to the next quiz.
02
Listen to real material
Drums, bass, guitar, keys, vocals, full beats and complete four-track songs — not tones.
03
Get scored on how close
Proximity earns partial credit, because that is how ears actually improve. Near misses are worth knowing about.
04
See what you missed
EQ, delay, filter and reverb analyzers reveal the answer visually, and a review queue brings back what you keep getting wrong.
The curriculum
Twenty-one modules, in three wings.
The mix-engineering wing is the vocabulary of the job. The psychoacoustics wing is the part almost nobody teaches by ear — and the reason engineers who have used SoundSense hear rooms differently.
Mix Engineering
11 modulesEQ
The boosted or cut frequency
Delay
Comb, chorus, slap-back or echo
Pan
Position in the stereo field
Level
Match a reference level with the fader
Mix Balance
Balance a 4-track song to a reference
Compression
Transparent, punchy, squashed or pumping
Reverb
Room, plate, hall or spring
Distortion
Tube, tape, transistor, fuzz or bitcrush
Filter
Low-pass, high-pass, band-pass, notch or shelf
Phase
In phase, polarity-flipped or comb-filtered
Width
Mono, narrow, normal, wide or super-wide
Musicianship
2 modulesPitch
Flat, in tune or sharp — and by how much
Tempo
Find the BPM by ear
Psychoacoustics
8 modules · nobody else ships thisHaas
Inter-aural delay: widening, image pull, or two sources
Fletcher-Munson
Match loudness across frequencies
Masking
Is the quiet tone masked by the loud one?
Phantom
Catch the phantom-centre shift as early as you can
Binaural
Hear the phantom pulse from two ears (headphones)
Loudness
Which master is louder — and why it loses on streaming
Precedence
Localise by the first wavefront: one source or two?
Combination tones
Hear the difference tone two tones create
Plus two extras: the Ring-Out Simulator, where you kill feedback on a 31-band graphic EQ before it howls (unlocked at 150 correct answers), and a pure-tone hearing check per ear. The hearing check is not a medical test — it is a screen, and if it worries you, see an audiologist.
Features
Training, measured.
Real stems, not sine sweeps
Drums, bass, guitar, keys, vocals and full multitrack songs — about 73 MB of real audio. It downloads once, then it's fast.
A psychoacoustics wing
Haas, masking, precedence, equal-loudness, combination tones. Eight modules on how hearing actually works, trained by ear rather than read about.
Scored by how close you got
Tolerance-based partial credit. Being 200 Hz out is not the same as being wrong, and your score says so.
Mastery, streaks and seven ranks
Stage Hand → Monitor Tech → FOH Trainee → Junior → Senior → Tour Engineer → Legend, earned from real module averages.
Ring-Out Simulator
A 31-band graphic EQ and a room that is about to feed back. Find the ringing band and pull it before it howls.
See the answer
Live EQ, delay, filter and reverb analyzers explain what you missed, so a wrong answer teaches you something.
A review queue
The material you keep missing comes back around until it stops being the material you keep missing.
Hearing check
Pure-tone audiometry per ear. Not a medical test — a reason to take the only tool you can't buy seriously.
Progress follows your login
Mastery, streaks and ranks sync with your Squaresmile account. Train on the studio machine, continue on the tablet.
Pricing
€49 one-time · via Gumroad
One purchase, claimed to your Squaresmile account. The category leader bills by the year — this is the whole curriculum, bought once and kept.
Who it's for
Anyone who has ever guessed at a frequency.
Live-sound engineers
Ring-out, phase and comb filtering are the daily job. Train them somewhere other than a room full of people.
Mixing & mastering
EQ, compression character, reverb type, width and loudness — the calls you make hundreds of times per mix.
Students & self-taught
A structured curriculum with measurable progress, instead of a playlist of tutorials and a hope that it's sinking in.
FAQ
Quick answers.
Do I need headphones?
For the psychoacoustics and binaural modules, yes — they depend on each ear getting its own signal. Everywhere else, decent monitoring is fine.
Is it a subscription?
No. One Gumroad purchase, claimed to your account and kept.
Is it for live sound or studio?
Both — and the live modules are the part you won't find elsewhere. Ring-Out, phase and precedence are aimed squarely at people who mix rooms, not just sessions.
Does it use real music?
Yes: real recorded stems and complete multitrack songs. About 73 MB of audio downloads on first use, then it's quick.
Is the hearing test medical?
No. It's a pure-tone screen per ear, not a diagnosis. If the result concerns you, see an audiologist.
Are there leaderboards or a community?
No — this is training, not a social network. Mastery, streaks and ranks measure you against your own past scores.
Will it work on my iPad?
Yes — laptop or tablet in the browser, and several games are phone-ready. The full module set wants a bigger screen.
Ready when you are
Sharpen the only tool you can't buy.
Create a free Squaresmile account, unlock SoundSense once, and start hearing what you've been guessing at.
