Hi ! For compression, a small tip that might help is to pay attention to the snare. When the signal is compressed, the snare tends to lose impact and move back in the mix. Of course, that’s not the only thing to listen for, but it’s the easiest to notice. Good luck !

For compression, I searched and found a different thread here on SoundGym where someone had shared this YouTube video that I found extremely helpful for identifying what to listen for in Dr. Compressor:

I started taking notes while I play, I can hear the cymbals wash in and out during drum hits on A more than B or the transients aren't as harsh in A compared to B and this has benefited me a lot

For delay control, I'm not that great at it, but my process so far has involved taking note of what a given delay sounds like while I'm playing, and eventually getting the hang of ok, this range sounds like slapback and this range sounds like an intentional delay effect and this range sounds like an echo. Sometimes I try to compare the long ones by getting 60 bpm (one tap per second) going, and counting out halves or fourths etc., and seeing if the delay is greater or lesser than the division. For example if I need to determine if the delay is 400 ms or 600 ms, I can try and count and see if the delay is greater than or less than a half second (half of 60 bpm).

Hope that helps some. I'm still a beginner too. Best of luck

Short answer is the snare sounds quieter when compressed. after a few more levels when it's harder to distinguish then try to listen for the tail of the snare, it should sound a bit longer.
for delay, pick an instrument that's easy to listen to like the guitar or piano. 1000ms delay is equivalent to 60bpm, 500ms delay is 120bpm on the metronome, so 250 is half of that and so on. At higher level it's easier to just feel what it sounds like, it'll take a while to get used to though. then at below 20ms delay, you'll have to look up comb filter effect, which alters the tone of the sound.
Maybe it's better to just go into practice mode and try them out. You can also press C after each question to compare the answers. Good luck!

Thank you everyone for these great tips, I appreciate the suggestions and I'll get to work with them. Also, great video suggestion above, I'll check that out later today. if anyone else has some suggestions to share, the more insight the better!

Check out these as well
https://www.soundgym.co/learn/index?m=videos&l=All&o=trending&f=0&s=romney

Delay Control discussion:
https://www.soundgym.co/space/talk?id=NASZ2448MAR&t=UQUJKQW5L8Q

Thanks so much! ill check these out now

Just bookmarked this. You guys saved my life for them higher level....levels haha

Hi Shaun, I had the same problems with Dr. Compressor even if Compressionist is by far the exercise in which I do/did the best; we wrote about this in some other post, that unfortunately I can't find now, and finally I decided that Dr. Compressor is quite useless for me, not having any feedback on my mistakes and having many variables in compression that can give different results... A lack of feedback is a problem I find in other exercises in SG and it's not very good on an educational perspective... (I say it as a Music teacher in school...)

No hints for delay control, as I practiced it not so much, while on equing in general I found very useful choosing a couple of exercises and doing them repeatedly every day, instead of doing all five daily training different exercises; on rock tracks in general it resulted easier to distinguish various frequencies but obviously it's not enough, even if it's very good starting point...

My two cents ;-)

Best,

Art

Hi Art, thanks for the response. I totally agree with the lack of quality education on what to listen for and feedback from the games, Id even go as far as to say theres a lack of direction as well. I wish I knew what the compression goal is for each dr.compressor round so at least I know im trying to squash transients with this one but make the groove pop on the next haha.

today I think im going to turn off certain games that arent that aligned with what im trying to achieve here. Its kind of funny, I didnt even put it into perspective until someone else mentioned it but the delay game isnt that useful for the real world

I posted a question in the same vein a few days ago. A lot of these games are useless, so I tried to figure out which ones are the must-dos. What will you guys settle for?

Right now I'm doing the compression games, distortion and the various EQ games. I agree with your point on the compression games, with it lacking direction and feedback. It does however help me recognize when a signal is being compressed, which is something I struggle with, what does compression sound like? So the usefulness of this game might drop off once I get the hang of that, but for now I'm keeping it

Hey TN, I find compressionist to be a good game to hear the compressor settings effect the signal. this is great for teaching how to sculpt a signal using compression, and the intensity of ratio settings. other than that, im only going to use eq, and gain level games from now on

Regarding the delay. I just say to myself that 1000ms is a second and 500ms is half that, 250 is 1/8. Then referring to that in my head. So I guess I kind of reference it like I would read sheet music. It seems to work. When I comes to the short delays, they are really hard to differentiate. I basically just ask my self which one is longer...

Regarding compression. I was struggling with it for a long time and didn't feel like I made progress. But I just kept listening for the differences and slowly by slowly I started to hear them. I won't say that I can predict what setting is right, but I can listen my way in to it, but only because I have kept at it.

Just my 2-cents

Oh and one more regarding compression.

I heard a podcast with Ian Sheppard (master mastering engineer), and he talked about compression sounding as if you'd hit a wall with your fist. So I started listening for how 'the sound hits the wall'. I suppose it sounds rather crazy - but it helped me a lot.

The second thing I listen for is how long the beat lingers (the longer the sound from the drum is there (for example a tom), the harder the compression is.

The third thing I listen for is the volume of the drum beats in relation to each other. On a track with less compression the snare could for example be a bit louder than one with more compression.