Frequency Identification Quiz
A pure sine tone plays at a random frequency and you guess which band it sits in — from sub-bass right up to "air". Choose a difficulty (octave bands, half-octave, or one-third-octave precision) and a range, then listen and pick. After every answer you see the exact Hz, the correct band, and a one-line note, with a running score and streak.
🔊 Use headphones or good speakers at a moderate volume. This is an uncalibrated, ear- and device-dependent practice aid — your score is a personal practice metric, not a certification, test, or measurement. The tones are exact in pitch (12-TET, A4 = 440 Hz) but naming an exact frequency by ear is genuinely hard, so guessing the band is the realistic, trainable skill. Small speakers and earbuds can't reproduce the extremes (deep sub-bass below ~40 Hz or "air" above ~14 kHz), so those bands will be harder on modest gear. Your best score is saved only in this browser.
Set up the quiz
Pick a difficulty and range, then press Start quiz.
Session score
How It Works
Each round, the quiz picks one band at random, then synthesises a clean sine tone at a random frequency inside it using the Web Audio API. The frequency is exact — pitches follow 12-tone equal temperament with A4 = 440 Hz — and the tone gets a short click-free fade in and out so nothing pops. Your job is to map what you hear onto one of the labelled bands. When you choose, the tool reveals the exact Hz, highlights the right answer, and shows a short note about what that part of the spectrum does. You can replay the tone as many times as you like before answering.
The bands come straight from how engineers carve up the spectrum. L1 uses the ten classic ISO octave centres — 31.5, 63, 125, 250, 500 Hz and 1, 2, 4, 8, 16 kHz — so each choice is a full octave wide and the differences are obvious. L2 halves that to roughly half-octave steps, and L3 goes to one-third-octave resolution, the same fine grid used on real-time analysers, where neighbouring bands are only about 26 % apart in frequency. The range selector (full, bass, mids, or highs) limits which bands appear, so you can drill the part of the spectrum you find hardest.
The labels — sub, bass, low-mid, mid, presence, brilliance, air — are the conventional, somewhat subjective vocabulary mixing engineers use; the boundaries between them are soft, not physical laws. What is exact is the frequency itself and the octave maths. Pitch perception is also not flat: the ear is most sensitive around 2–4 kHz and far less so at the extremes (a well-known result captured by the equal-loudness contours, ISO 226), which is part of why low and very high bands feel harder to place. Treat this as ear-training practice, not a hearing test.