Distortion Ear Trainer

This is Distortion Ear Trainer, a tool that will help you identify various distortion types by ear and not be biased by the loudness of what you’re hearing. Simply click or drag your mouse/trackpad around and play in an interactive way. Alternatively, use your computer’s keyboard to easily control all functions. It offers both sound comparison and visual waveform analysis to sharpen your ears capabilities.

It offers many controls and options for five types of clips, three instrument sources (bass, guitar, and drums), and several control function. To choose your type of clipping (Soft clip, Hard clip, Valve curve, Fuzz square, and Foldback bend), press numbers one through five. To change the source you’re sampling from (Guitar chop, Bass pulse, and Drum break) press Z, X, or C. Press E to turn the circuit on and B to go straight past the pedal. Press Space to turn the audio feed on or off and G to trigger the drive gauntlet.

How to Use the Distortion Ear Trainer

When the probe’s in focus, use the arrow keys to guide it around the transfer curve. The Transfer Curve Probe shows the math behind the relationship between input and output signal values. Move the horizontal probe around to view the circuit’s response to varying amplitudes. At any given point on the curve, the bottom readout reveals the actual input and output values. It also shows the knee behavior of the chosen distortion type. When the graph has focus, pressing Enter or moving the probe makes you hear the probe’s location as a brief tone. This helps you relate changes in the wave shape to noticeable differences in harmonics.

With the pedal test bench, you can shape the sound and then test your ear. Select a source cartridge to pick out a drum break or a bass line or maybe a guitar riff. Select a clipping circuit to alter the character of the distortion. Set the drive pressure to add more saturation and gain. Tone aperture controls the brightness and filters high frequencies. Wet blend adjusts how much of the original sound is mixed in with the distorted output. Bench trim allows you to compensate for volume differences between circuits. Riff pace slider sets the tempo of the loop expressed in beats per minute. Master volume controls overall level output. Enable RMS calibration to remove any volume cues that could clue you into the answer. This makes sure the engaged and bypassed signals have the same perceived loudness. Feed the pedal to loop the selected source through the active circuit. Strike a test note once for a quick listen, but do not start a continuous loop.

A Harmonic Fingerprint shows the spectral content of what is being played. It shows the strength of the first ten harmonic overtones produced by the distortion. Even harmonics are shown as a different colour, as are odd harmonics. Mostly odd harmonics will be heard from symmetrically clipped circuits (hard & soft clip). Warmth comes from big even harmonics which is added by asymmetric circuits (valve curve). Listen to your distortion pedals to hear the difference and let this visual information explain it.

RMS Meters, These are the reference and the pedal level meters, showing the calculated loudness levels to confirm calibration.

The Drive gauntlet is a timed comparison of the five distortions in one go. When you’re ready, press play and listen to each circuit through on top of each other, at the same gain levels. It highlights which circuit is being played as it progresses down the stage rail. You then train your ear to pick up on slight variations in the saturation without any change in volume. The button under the patch cables pauses the sequence.

You perform a blind stompbox diagnosis by diagnosing a mystery stomp’s hidden circuits. Generate a random distortion setting by calling a mystery stomp. Listen to the dry reference lane to set up the baseline of what the clean source sounds like. Listen to the hidden lane to hear how it distorts. Carefully compare the two sounds to see if you can detect any change in harmonic content or attack texture. Choose one of the six available diagnoses. Select your circuit diagnosis to see if you’re right and update your score. The status box will tell you if you are right or wrong and provide a hint to help you find the right circuit. The hot streak counter tracks how many correct answers you get in a row.

These directions are available on demand by toggling the help panel. It’s positioned beside the fullscreen control in the header area. To activate fullscreen, click on the fullscreen button; this expands the widget and hides other elements of the page. This is handy if you are working on a small screen or simply want to concentrate fully on the visual graphs. By default it adapts to your system preference for either light or dark mode. Keyboard navigation is available for those who would rather avoid using a mouse. All controls can be accessed this way.

Begin with higher drive settings so you can clearly hear how each effect distorts. Then, reduce the drive slowly as you train yourself to pick up on fainter levels of saturation. When comparing soft and hard clipping, listen for the sharpness of the attack. Be aware that the valve curve adds warmth and even tones. With the fuzz circuit, note the square-wave buzz and squashed sustain. The foldback bend introduces a metallic upper movement.

To really nail distortion in all its forms, test it using different types of instrument sources. Drum breaks will draw attention to transient response while bass pulses bring the low end into focus. Experiment with the tone aperture control to emulate various pedals. The lower, the less you will be able to pick out the higher frequency harmonics. As you go higher, the top partials produced by the clipping circuit become more evident. Turn down the mix and listen to how the distorted sound interacts with the clean. In the real world this is never going to be all wet so try it now.

Set the RMS calibration on so that you get used to listening in terms of texture instead of volume. Occasionally turn off the calibration and see if you can identify the circuits even though there are loudness clues. The hot streak and bench score show how well you’re doing. Aim for consistent accuracy across different drive levels and types of source material.

It’s meant to support what you hear visually. If you think you hear something, compare it to the harmonic display and transfer curve. Eventually, you’ll learn what sounds like what immediately without having to look at the waveform.

Begin by choosing a soft clip circuit and a guitar chop as a starting point. Listen to the loop and adjust the tone and drive as you want. Now try changing to hard clip and hear what harmonics appear. After exploring the widget for a while, use the blind diagnosis mode to see if you can guess correctly.

The widget aims to be an assessment tool but also one of learning. Spend some time getting used to it on each comparison to develop your ear for accurate listening. Have fun finding out about how math transforms into music.