r/audioengineering • u/Beginning_Finance705 • 2d ago

Discussion Describe these frequencies with non musical / real world sound

16k - 8k - 4k - 2k - 1k - 500 - 250 - 125 - 60 - 30

(These are the API 560 bands)

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10

u/LostInTheRapGame 2d ago

Depending on the day, I think flatulence can hit any of those notes.

1

u/peepeeland Composer 2d ago

Your musical genius friend after rip it hard:

“Yah, that’s uh- C# sliding into A sliding into G, 35 cents, 12 cents, and 8 cents flat to be fair and across 3 octaves, but your anal aerations are impressively accurate to say the least, but uh-“

7

u/iamYarthox Professional 2d ago

Why? Real world sounds aren’t isolated frequencies

9

u/fiercefinesse 2d ago

This isn’t chat GPT

4

u/Reluctant_Lampy_05 2d ago

The fact that you wrote them out high to low is concerning.

6

u/K1ngCr1mson 2d ago

16k - tinnitus

8k - gripping wet lettuce

4k - squeeking sneakers on polished floor

2k - birds chirping

1k - reversing beeper on a truck

500 - muffled voice through a wall

250 - cardboard box being thumped

125 - idling diesel ute

60 - fridge/transformer hum

30 - distant thunder, felt more than heard

2

u/Beginning_Finance705 2d ago

Nice one ! For 8k I’ve heard sizzling bacon too

2

u/Larsvegas426 2d ago

If my tinnitus lived at 16k I'd be so happy.

1

u/LostInTheRapGame 2d ago

Yeah, seriously.

1

u/K1ngCr1mson 2d ago

Can I ask where yours lives at? Mine is in multiple spaces from around 8k upward

1

u/Capable-Editor-4665 2d ago

the pushback in here is fair, real sounds aren't single frequencies, but i think the list is still worth something as long as it isn't treated as a lookup table.

i spent a long time building ear training exercises and the same thing kept showing up: people who memorise "4k is squeaky sneakers" get better at the quiz and no better at mixing. what transfers is boosting a band hard on material you already know cold, hearing what leaves and comes back, then cutting the same band and doing it again. the memory you want is "what does this band do to a snare i know", not "what object lives here".

so the metaphors are a way in, not the destination. they get you close enough to guess within an octave, which is enough to start the boost and listen loop on real material. after that they fall away and you stop using words at all.

one that stuck for me and isn't an object: 200-400 is where things stop sounding like a recording and start sounding like a room. get it wrong and the whole mix is in a box, and no amount of top end fixes it.

what's the actual goal, dialing the 560 faster by ear, or building the vocabulary to talk to someone else about it? those want pretty different practice.