Hey man, (currently at level 21 right now)
Distorted reality works kinda different from the other games, what you want to look for here is not a boost, cut or specific sign.
Here you will need to compare both signals and find which one is more distorted, in order to do this you will need to look for some signs.
What i usually do is to search for the most "dirty" signal, sometimes there will be a fuzz in high end, and you can really feel that sometimes, like a "PZZZZ" or "zzzzzz" going through the signal. (Specially in the highs 8K and up)
If you are familiar with the "Analog" button on most analog emulation plugins you are familiar with the buzz and electrical feel that it gives, it's almost the same when you distort a sound, you will get a similar buzz.
When you are doing the exercise, close your eyes and hear both options.
Ask yourself :
1- Which of these 2 signals gives me a more "dirty" feel?
2- Which of these signals sound less clean than the other?
3- Which has a more messy high end?
And go for that option!
Obviously it would take some time, i would say at least a week of practice so the concept stays on your brain. (Doing at least 30 min a day of distortion reality).
There's also a way that you can experience distortion for yourself and start getting familiar with it,
* Simply put an audio source inside a channel in your daw.
* Lower the master fader to -15 and start to increase the gain in the channel, you will start noticing the point where the sound starts to distort, you will find the exact process that a sound takes from "normal" to "distorted" repeat a lot of times with different sounds and you will start catching an intuitive grasp.
Great thing is when you can recognize distortion, you will be able to use it more properly in your mixes .
The power of distortion in music is IMPRESSIVE, it can detail, alter and mutate your sounds in a way no other fx can do.
It brings them upfront, can fix a thin sound in seconds, and can make the lead sounds SPARK, with the right settings off course.
Hope this helps , and feel free to contact me in direct if you have more questions.

great tips bakho! I would also say that the distorted sound "feels" fuller, there are more harmonics and you can look for some fullness in the lower mids.

Thanks for the add up Marcel!,
Great tip as well

Great tips guys! It helped me a lot. What I would add to this that more distorted sound has louder transients.

Not much to add to all those great tips. I also improved from those =) thanks guys. One thing i noticed aswell is that the lower frequencies start to sound muddy and rumble a bit. The distorted one is not always the one that sounds sharper, sometimes it sounds muddier, depending on the source signal. If the base is cleaner and tighter and the dynamics sounds more controled its most likely the less distorted one.

Wow great tips here :)

I'm at level 17, and my suggestion is first listen to the mid/low mid range. The distorted sample will sound like it looses the clarity and gets a subtle diffusion.

Currently at Level 10 here. Seems like a lot of what I’m hearing in DR is slight saturation (ala tubes or tape or transformers) versus blatant distortion. “Distortion” is one of those words that means different things to different people, even in the audio world. If you ask most guitarists what they think distortion is you’ll probably get a different set of answers than if you’d ask non-guitarist engineers. And rightfully so. For me (as a guitarist) I’ve had to unlearn certain mindsets or word associations in order to function as a producer and engineer. When playing “Distorted Reality” I can’t wear the guitarist hat because the scope of “distortion” is way broader when it relates to engineering. I may need to listen for a smoothness in transients, or a barely audible noise level across the spectrum, or a slight clipping on certain elements. But it’s almost always subtle. Distortion (the good kinds) in a mix is almost something that, if dialed in right, isn’t blatantly obvious until you remove it and then suddenly things feel sterile or two-dimensional without it. To me that’s a good use of distortion in a mix and if it becomes too obvious then it’s probably too much (unless your going for the effect itself). Distorted Reality is easier IMHO if I’m trying to discern which clip sounds less 3D or sterile, not so much listening for blatant distortion. Just my 2¢. Hope that all makes sense and is helpful. 🙂

since this is discussed here, i play more the distorted reality game again.. now tried out the piano sample and it was totally confusing. i didn't knew where is up an down ;) i had nothing to rely on.. i would even go so far and say that soundgym mistaked the samples haha :D
no seriously, with the drum samples and others, i can agree on mostly whats said here.. but with that piano sample i'm guessing mostly the opposite and wasn't able to get higher than stage 5 or six. do you guys experience that as well? maybe just a bad ear day today..

No, I mostly play games with piano, it has a full range of frequencies which helps a lot.
But regarding the mistakes, sometimes I hear like one obviously more distorted than the other and it's a wrong answer, which make me think that there are "bugs" in this game. Fortunately we have more than one life to try again.

Hey Marcel! Try this game on the vocal samples! For me that's the most audible for distortion.

Pianos can be tricky in that some pianos "distort" naturally and especially on recordings. I can't tell you how many piano recordings I've heard that distort on peaks or in certain freq ranges (Dave Brubeck "Time Out" LP comes to mind). I first ran into this on a recording job where I was hired to go to a pianist's home to record her very nice, very well maintained Yamaha upright. After we experimented with moving the piano around in the room to find the best "room sound" I then proceeded to move my head around the rear of the piano to find the best mic placements for the piano's soundboard. At that point I started hearing distortion coming from the soundboard itself with just my ears, no mics yet. There were no structural issues with the piano, and they even hired a trusted piano tech to come in that morning to go over everything just to be safe (check the tuning, replace a couple questionable felts, tweak the action on a couple keys, etc). The mics I chose for the rear soundboard were a pair of Neumann KM184's and so the naturally occuring distortion was a huge concern since the 184's would most certainly pick up the distortion. It was a tricky mix on the backend because I had to rely on the room ribbon mics and a pair of LDC's above the piano's open lid to help mask the distortion sneaking through the 184's. But ever since those sessions I've noticed similar distortion on lots of commercial piano recordings. My best guess is that the tone and timbre of piano notes are so pure and dense that there are no soft spots to absorb certain transients and so they have a tendency to naturally distort everything around them such as piano soundboards, mics, anything that resonates in the surrounding room or environment, our eardrums when up close, etc.
A good online article for all of this is https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/piano-recording where they cite issues with pianos having a tendency to distort, in particular distorting electronics.
So all of that being said, adding saturation to piano tracks may in fact help mask some of that naturally occuring distortion by softening the transients and blurring the details in a helpful way. There is a fine line of course on how much helps and how much is too much. But all of that may be contributing to how certain "unprocessed" piano clips in Distorted Reality sound more distorted than the "correct" distorted answers. When mixing I sometimes I think of saturation in terms of photography or filming where lens filters are used to reduce UV or glare and improve color and richness and contrast. Lens filters can round off the edginess of images or film in a natural way that is more akin to how we naturally see things. Or kind of like how good aperture settings can help photos look more 3D and natural by focusing on certain things while blurring others (one of my best friends, Jake Lockard, is a natural at aperture and I always enlist his help for my website pics...90% of the page background stills on my website were taken by him and his pics really set the vibe of things - see https://www.mauvemediaproductions.com to get the gist...his pics are awesome). Same goes for audio saturation in that it can smooth off certain details to help us focus on the overall sound versus certain distracting details. All of this is why so many engineers like to record to tape or through certain transformers. It helps things sound and feel more natural.
Again I hope this helps. Just my 2¢. There are no simple answers here regarding Distorted Reality but the scope of distortion/saturation/clipping etc is immense and it can take on a myriad of personalities, many of which sound more natural than the original source material.

Great tips here, thanks. I finally pushed through to level 7. A few notes:
* I could usually answer all correct very quickly, meaning that the distortion is so obvious, up to the 11th round or 12th. Then, like clockwork, there's a curveball
* I strongly dislike how the game scores you. If you miss on the 11th, it pushes you back to stage 10. It's a minor irritation that becomes major when it's the 10^nth time you've tried the make it to the next level!
* I love what the game is making me do, though: it's making me build my own hierarchy of tests for distortion. First I listen to the bass drum, then I listen to ___, then I listen to ____. It's basically helping me build a 'rip list' of items to check. Seems that this is helping me build a habit.
* I would like a little more guidance on why I missed something. It's nice to hit 'c' on the keyboard and compare, but still, sometimes I need more guidance.
Question: has using the trainer for the game been helpful to people here? I could probably spend more time training outside of playing the game, but not sure how to best use it.

Agreed that it'd be awesome to have A/B comparisons on any incorrect answers, in all of the games. Being able to learn from mistakes would be hugely helpful! 🎧💻🎓😀

I also perceive the distorted signal as kinda 'washed out'

I've reached level 22 today, and I think that I found the "secret trick", and it works not only for this game. Give your ears time to get used to the sound, let's say 15 second, and then switch the sample. Even without thinking, your brain will detect the more distorted one.