SoundGym

What SoundGym is

SoundGym is an online ear training platform for music producers and sound engineers. Its home page sums it up as "Audio Ear Training for Music Producers and Sound Engineers", and the About page describes it as an educational social network: a place for "soundheads" to meet, train, learn, improve their skills and talk about music making, audio engineering and live sound. It is a learner product. The reader it serves is someone who already makes or mixes music and wants better ears, along with the schools that teach them.

The company's starting point is that ears matter more than equipment. The About page puts it this way: "We all love gear, sure we do. But here at SoundGym we believe that our ears, our listening skills and our knowledge come first." It says SoundGym launched in May 2016 and is now used in more than 200 countries by sound experts, bedroom producers and educational facilities, and the School page invites visitors to join 500,000+ members. The stated mission is to help members make great sounding music and become better producers and engineers.

The Gym: daily ear training

The core of the product is the Gym, which the site calls "Your daily audio workout". Members train through short daily games on frequency, compression, panning and space, and the home page promises "Ten minutes a day, real progress, and mixes you can finally trust." The idea is that small, regular sessions build what the site calls golden ears, the listening skill that lets a producer hear what an EQ move or a compressor is doing.

Two focused areas sit beside the daily workout. EQ Training offers hands-on EQ ear training, and Beat Training works on beat-making skills. The site also lists an online tuner and a drum machine among its tools. The About page describes the learning environment as "Friendly, competitive, personalized and full of surprises", and the home page adds that it is meant for both novices and pros.

The School: production courses

Alongside the games is the SoundGym School, presented as a way to "Learn Audio & Music Production Online for Free". It offers five learning programs, each with its total running time:

• Recording & Audio Engineering, 18 hr 23 min
• Electronic Music Production, 17 hr 41 min
• Mix & Mastering, 13 hr 6 min
• Synthesis & Sound Design, 12 hr
• Live Sound, 8 hr 16 min

The School page says the programs are built from free online content, selected and put in order by sound experts and educators, so its work is in the selection and sequence rather than in producing its own videos. Between them they cover music production and audio engineering, mixing and mastering, electronic music production, sound synthesis and sampling, and live sound engineering; the page describes the aim as studying "the software, the art, and the craft of recording and producing." Members can "Choose a complete learning program or learn as you go", earn learning points for watching, see their progress and compete with classmates to stay motivated. The School frames the whole product in three steps: learn through the programs, train with practical ear training, and create, by making, recording, mixing and mastering music and getting feedback from other members.

Community, contests and progress

SoundGym leans on its community. The home page says "No one trains alone": members share knowledge, swap mixes and compete in weekly contests. Social lets members connect and get inspired, and Charts lets them post music and push it up the rankings. A progress dashboard tracks a member's SPI rank, streaks, total Soundcoins, workouts, games played, learning points and followers, under the slogan "Watch your SPI climb, your streaks stack, your listening sharpen."

Soundcoins and the store

Soundcoins are the site's own currency, and they buy items in the SoundCoins Store: artist sounds for training, sample packs, drum machines and virtual studio items, with a discounts section. The artist sound packs cover a wide spread of styles, including indie rock, indie pop, alternative hip hop, liquid drum and bass, fingerstyle guitar, pop and soul, folktronic, progressive thrash metal, IDM, reggae rap, alternative R&B, melodic techno, cinematic, post rock, ambient, deep house and vintage trance, and the drum machines include an RX15 and an 808 kit. The store sells them as artist sounds for training, so a producer can practice on music in the styles they work in. Musicians can submit their own music to be used in SoundGym training.

Pro membership

Beyond what any member gets, SoundGym sells Pro. The home page says Pro includes "Every game, every workout, every premium sound, plus focused training mode", and pitches it at serious producers who treat their ear training the way they treat their gear and their room. The site publishes no price for Pro.

Schools, sister products and support

SoundGym for Schools brings the platform into the classroom. The home page describes it as "A shared training home for educators, students, and institutions", where a class can train its ears, track progress and grow together, wherever the teacher is based. Educational institutes have their own section of the site.

The same company runs two sister products: ToneGym, ear training for musicians, and GuitarGym, for learning to play guitar.

Support comes in three layers, according to the About page: a help center with answers and guides to getting the most out of SoundGym, a community where members search for answers, post questions that other members answer quickly and suggest ideas for SoundGym, and customer support for anything the first two cannot solve. The About page also calls SoundGym "always a work in progress", with new features still coming. The site itself can be switched between English, Spanish, Russian, German, Portuguese, Italian, French, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Polish and Georgian. There is also merchandise, a press room, and a partnership and affiliate program.

Who it suits

SoundGym suits producers, mixing engineers and live sound engineers who want to train their hearing in short daily sessions, from bedroom producers to working engineers. The games make practice a habit, the weekly contests and SPI rank give it a competitive edge, and the School gives newer producers a structured path through recording, production, mixing, synthesis and live sound at no cost. Teachers of audio courses can use SoundGym for Schools to run ear training across a class.

It is a training tool rather than a taught course: the School's lessons are selected from free content elsewhere, and feedback comes from other members rather than from an instructor. Musicians who want to learn an instrument or general ear training are pointed to the sister products, ToneGym and GuitarGym.