• Welcome to the Speedsolving.com, home of the web's largest puzzle community!
    You are currently viewing our forum as a guest which gives you limited access to join discussions and access our other features.

    Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free so please, join our community of 40,000+ people from around the world today!

    If you are already a member, simply login to hide this message and begin participating in the community!

Mike Hughey

Administrator
Staff member
Joined
Jun 7, 2007
Messages
11,303
Location
Indianapolis
WCA
2007HUGH01
SS Competition Results
YouTube
Visit Channel
Okay, I'm getting really frustrated with 3BLD now.

I switched to images for corners, audio for edges about a year ago (I had always done images for edges, audio for corners before.) Ever since I switched, I have found it almost impossibly difficult to put together and maintain audio for edges when it goes over 10 edges (5 pairs to memorize). Give me 14, and it's almost hopeless. 10 edges goes okay, but still is never as fast as my old method used to be. A few years ago, when I was in practice, I was able to memorize a whole cube in less than 30 seconds pretty consistently. Now, it's extremely rare that I go under 30 seconds to memorize, and I'm usually more like 45 or 50 seconds to memorize a cube, and if I have 14 edges to memorize, my memorization almost always takes more than a minute.

I'm wondering if this is just that I'm doing it wrong, or that I have a limitation to my audio memory that keeps me from being able to do it as fast as most other people. I admit that my audio memory is done with one syllable per edge pair. I tried to construct audio by combining more letters in a syllable, like I've seen that Noah Arthurs does, and like I know Brandon Satterstrom does, but I don't seem to be able to do that; I get horribly confused as I try to put them together and I never seem to succeed with that approach at all.

Is that the problem? Are there fast people who do audio edges with just 2 edges per syllable, or are all the fast people combining more edges per syllable? Do I simply have to go to 4 edges per syllable to make this work? Any pointers anyone could give to me to make this more successful?

I'm really becoming tempted at this point to go back to images for edges and audio for corners, since I was so much better that way. It's frustrating to have once been fairly regularly sub-1, but now be unable to get even close to a minute without a ridiculously easy scramble.
 

mark49152

Premium Member
Joined
Oct 29, 2012
Messages
4,719
Location
UK
WCA
2015RIVE05
YouTube
Visit Channel
@Mike Hughey : I had similar problems when I started audio edges. It take time and practice to build up audio capacity, speed and accuracy. One thing that really helped my 3BLD was starting audio centres for 4BLD. After practising 14-18 targets, even relatively slowly, it became much easier and faster to do just 10-14.
 

Mike Hughey

Administrator
Staff member
Joined
Jun 7, 2007
Messages
11,303
Location
Indianapolis
WCA
2007HUGH01
SS Competition Results
YouTube
Visit Channel
I think 2 letters per syllable is fine. It's important to choose good distinct words to avoid confusion but what really helps me, especially with the longer memos is to use a rhythm. Something like one, two, three, four... five, six, seven, eight. Have you tried this?
I have tried it (after previous people recommended it), but it doesn't seem to help. The rhythm just seems separate to the actual syllables to me. But I've pretty much just used an alternating rhythm, like your example - I haven't tried varying the rhythm between solves for variety, I suppose.

I can eventually get it to stick; it's just that it takes so horribly long to put it together and get it stuck. I have to admit - I haven't tried it, but 4BLD centers sounds just crazy to me. I'm guessing my times on 4BLD would increase from 6-7 minutes to 10+ minutes if I did that...

Maybe it's just that I underestimate the amount of practice required to get good at it. I would have thought my current total of probably around 1000 3BLD attempts I've tried with this method to be enough to start getting reasonable memo times. Perhaps it needs to be more on the order of 10,000?

Edit: I guess I should add - I have seen noticeable improvement over those 1000 or so attempts. It's just that I somehow expected to be making faster progress than this. I am now seeing a lot of sub-1:30 solves now, with sub-45 memo times; those were rare several hundred solves ago. And as I reported in another thread, I got a 1:00.74 single yesterday, which is the first time with this method and the first time in several years that I've gotten so close to a minute on a proper scramble. But that was with just 10 edges to memorize.
 
Last edited:

GarethBert11

Member
Joined
Feb 1, 2014
Messages
162
Location
Indonesia
WCA
2017PURB01
Is there any tips to get faster at 3BLD memo? No matter how hard I tried, somehow sub-3 minutes is far from possible. Currently use Audio for corners and audio or sometimes use letter pairs for edges.
 

pinser

Member
Joined
Feb 12, 2014
Messages
209
WCA
2016GOHT01
YouTube
Visit Channel
I have tried it (after previous people recommended it), but it doesn't seem to help. The rhythm just seems separate to the actual syllables to me. But I've pretty much just used an alternating rhythm, like your example - I haven't tried varying the rhythm between solves for variety, I suppose.

I can eventually get it to stick; it's just that it takes so horribly long to put it together and get it stuck. I have to admit - I haven't tried it, but 4BLD centers sounds just crazy to me. I'm guessing my times on 4BLD would increase from 6-7 minutes to 10+ minutes if I did that...

Maybe it's just that I underestimate the amount of practice required to get good at it. I would have thought my current total of probably around 1000 3BLD attempts I've tried with this method to be enough to start getting reasonable memo times. Perhaps it needs to be more on the order of 10,000?

Edit: I guess I should add - I have seen noticeable improvement over those 1000 or so attempts. It's just that I somehow expected to be making faster progress than this. I am now seeing a lot of sub-1:30 solves now, with sub-45 memo times; those were rare several hundred solves ago. And as I reported in another thread, I got a 1:00.74 single yesterday, which is the first time with this method and the first time in several years that I've gotten so close to a minute on a proper scramble. But that was with just 10 edges to memorize.
Don't get discouraged, audio is hard. It took me over 5000 solves before I got comfortable with it. It may help if you set certain rules for the phonemes (eg- "a" always sounds like the "a" in "father").

Is there any tips to get faster at 3BLD memo? No matter how hard I tried, somehow sub-3 minutes is far from possible. Currently use Audio for corners and audio or sometimes use letter pairs for edges.
Is there anything in particular that you are struggling with (tracing, coming up with letter pairs, reviewing, etc)? Regardless, the main thing is to just keep doing solves.
 
Joined
Jun 30, 2015
Messages
1,320
Location
Brisbane, Australia
WCA
2015PEAR02
YouTube
Visit Channel
Okay, I'm getting really frustrated with 3BLD now.

I switched to images for corners, audio for edges about a year ago (I had always done images for edges, audio for corners before.) Ever since I switched, I have found it almost impossibly difficult to put together and maintain audio for edges when it goes over 10 edges (5 pairs to memorize). Give me 14, and it's almost hopeless. 10 edges goes okay, but still is never as fast as my old method used to be. A few years ago, when I was in practice, I was able to memorize a whole cube in less than 30 seconds pretty consistently. Now, it's extremely rare that I go under 30 seconds to memorize, and I'm usually more like 45 or 50 seconds to memorize a cube, and if I have 14 edges to memorize, my memorization almost always takes more than a minute.

I'm wondering if this is just that I'm doing it wrong, or that I have a limitation to my audio memory that keeps me from being able to do it as fast as most other people. I admit that my audio memory is done with one syllable per edge pair. I tried to construct audio by combining more letters in a syllable, like I've seen that Noah Arthurs does, and like I know Brandon Satterstrom does, but I don't seem to be able to do that; I get horribly confused as I try to put them together and I never seem to succeed with that approach at all.

Is that the problem? Are there fast people who do audio edges with just 2 edges per syllable, or are all the fast people combining more edges per syllable? Do I simply have to go to 4 edges per syllable to make this work? Any pointers anyone could give to me to make this more successful?

I'm really becoming tempted at this point to go back to images for edges and audio for corners, since I was so much better that way. It's frustrating to have once been fairly regularly sub-1, but now be unable to get even close to a minute without a ridiculously easy scramble.
I haven't exactly read it all, but I had this problem as well, something I did to make it more manageable is to visualise the first 2 (or 4) edge targets and do the rest with audio.
I'm sure many people do this as well. The way I do it is trace and put my finger on 2 targets then audio the rest and then come back, immediately execute the targets my fingers are on then the rest of the audio.
 

Avoirpaspeur

Member
Joined
Dec 3, 2017
Messages
3
I have a memo question.

If you use "th" sound for Q letter for the audio letter-pair,
do you still use "th" for the image letter-pair?
Or you just use normal Q letter for image?

That confuse me a bit in terms of how my brain can transfer that letter.
 

TheGrayCuber

Member
Joined
Feb 21, 2012
Messages
188
WCA
2012GRAY01
YouTube
Visit Channel
I have a memo question.

If you use "th" sound for Q letter for the audio letter-pair,
do you still use "th" for the image letter-pair?
Or you just use normal Q letter for image?

That confuse me a bit in terms of how my brain can transfer that letter.

I use ‘th’ for Q in audio, and sometimes in images, but sometimes I use q. It just depends on the image.

For example, I use quiver for QV and Q-Tip for QT, but Thor for QR and Thanos for QN. After enough practice you will just associate the letter pair to the image without having to remember why.
 

AvGalen

Premium Member
Joined
Jul 6, 2006
Messages
6,857
Location
Rotterdam (actually Capelle aan den IJssel), the N
WCA
2006GALE01
YouTube
Visit Channel
Does anyone use multiple languages? I am currently using numbers for edges and letters for corners but I like letters better. I am thinking to use Dutch and English (almost the same level) or maybe Dutch and Japanese (motivation to extend my vocabulary). I have never spend the time for fixed images because blind isn't a priority for me, but I am thinking about slowly building up multiblind or trying bigcubes blind
 
L

lucarubik

Guest
Does anyone use multiple languages? I am currently using numbers for edges and letters for corners but I like letters better. I am thinking to use Dutch and English (almost the same level) or maybe Dutch and Japanese (motivation to extend my vocabulary). I have never spend the time for fixed images because blind isn't a priority for me, but I am thinking about slowly building up multiblind or trying bigcubes blind
i use some english words
its not good really its not horrible but it burns some brain power

Okay, I'm getting really frustrated with 3BLD now.

I switched to images for corners, audio for edges about a year ago (I had always done images for edges, audio for corners before.) Ever since I switched, I have found it almost impossibly difficult to put together and maintain audio for edges when it goes over 10 edges (5 pairs to memorize). Give me 14, and it's almost hopeless. 10 edges goes okay, but still is never as fast as my old method used to be. A few years ago, when I was in practice, I was able to memorize a whole cube in less than 30 seconds pretty consistently. Now, it's extremely rare that I go under 30 seconds to memorize, and I'm usually more like 45 or 50 seconds to memorize a cube, and if I have 14 edges to memorize, my memorization almost always takes more than a minute.

I'm wondering if this is just that I'm doing it wrong, or that I have a limitation to my audio memory that keeps me from being able to do it as fast as most other people. I admit that my audio memory is done with one syllable per edge pair. I tried to construct audio by combining more letters in a syllable, like I've seen that Noah Arthurs does, and like I know Brandon Satterstrom does, but I don't seem to be able to do that; I get horribly confused as I try to put them together and I never seem to succeed with that approach at all.

Is that the problem? Are there fast people who do audio edges with just 2 edges per syllable, or are all the fast people combining more edges per syllable? Do I simply have to go to 4 edges per syllable to make this work? Any pointers anyone could give to me to make this more successful?

I'm really becoming tempted at this point to go back to images for edges and audio for corners, since I was so much better that way. It's frustrating to have once been fairly regularly sub-1, but now be unable to get even close to a minute without a ridiculously easy scramble.
im confortable with audio edges for the most part but ill admit sometimes i feel overwhelmed
genetics are an important factor here for sure but
well these are kind of desperate meassures but you can try to group the sounds by similarity, so you have less chances to get similar sounding pairs in the same scramble
if changing your letter scheme is too drastic you can try using 10 vowels see if you like it, its super low risk, no commitment needed. i really like it
i use A as auxiliar vowel and A is a sound (two actually) so there is some ambiguety, but its fine
And what newtonbase said is a great tip aswell
Ive also considered but not really tried using something extra to have more sounds and therefore less confusing ones, like tapping your foot or something
while memoing you can try to go for well chained sounds when breaking into cycles but im guessing you already do that
and.. what was i thinking? oh yeah you can try to yolo the memo for a while and see what happens, you might surprise yourself. you are not supposed to repeat the cycle at all anyway so
if you don't mess up and have to "unmemorize" stuff you will be doing much better than if you do, aswell as if you track fast (but not too fast)
 
Last edited by a moderator:

cubeshepherd

Member
Joined
Feb 18, 2018
Messages
2,258
WCA
2016STEE01
Does anyone use multiple languages? I am currently using numbers for edges and letters for corners but I like letters better. I am thinking to use Dutch and English (almost the same level) or maybe Dutch and Japanese (motivation to extend my vocabulary). I have never spend the time for fixed images because blind isn't a priority for me, but I am thinking about slowly building up multiblind or trying bigcubes blind
Every once and a while I will use German, since that is the other language that I know, but the only times I use that is if I want to add variety to my memo when I am doing 10+ MBLD or sometimes I use German for my corners on 4x4, and 5x5 BLD since that if course ins the last thing I solve, and for me sometimes having the corners in a different language helps me to remember whatever it is I memoed it with longer. Other then that I do not use German, although I think that I will try a few different things now that I am thinking about it : )
 

Avoirpaspeur

Member
Joined
Dec 3, 2017
Messages
3
When I was working on my memo,
I still find V crashing with F sound a lot.
How do you guys fix it?
I saw quite some people don't assign a new letter/sound to replace V.

I appreciate any help.
Thanks.
 

JG Cubing

Member
Joined
Feb 18, 2019
Messages
6
Location
Ontario, Canada
WCA
2013GRAH01
YouTube
Visit Channel
Yesterday a couple of my friends saw me solve a 3x3 blindfolded, which they had never seen before. One of them was asking me about memorization and if I'm able to utilize the same techniques I use for cubing while studying. Essentially, can I memorize school work, like I would memorize a cube so that I could prepare for a test or exam. Now obviously 3BLD is short term memory and wouldn't exactly be effective like this, but when doing 4BLD or MBLD attempts, my memorization does tend to be long term and stick with me for a long time. Due to the specific nature of memorizing a cube (using letter pairs), it had me thinking if there was a way to put this to use in school. Have any of you utilized your memory techniques in high school or college/university? If you have or have considered it, how do you think you could memorize formulas or definitions in a similar way to a cube? I think this could be extremely useful for school if there was a good way to implement it.
 

CraZZ CFOP

Member
Joined
Jul 30, 2018
Messages
95
WCA
2018HUGE02
When I take the AMC 10, which is a math competition, I can remember the answers and solutions for each problem that I solve fairly easily. Maybe I should number each edge/corner with a number.
 

TheGrayCuber

Member
Joined
Feb 21, 2012
Messages
188
WCA
2012GRAY01
YouTube
Visit Channel
When I take the AMC 10, which is a math competition, I can remember the answers and solutions for each problem that I solve fairly easily. Maybe I should number each edge/corner with a number.

Ultimately you should do whatever feels the most comfortable for you, since everyone is different. However, I think that letters are better than numbers for most people. The strongest piece of evidence is the existence of the Major and Dominic Systems, which convert numbers to letters to make them easier to memorize. If numbers were the better method then those systems would not have such a large following. But of course if you want to use numbers go ahead, it probably won’t make a huge difference unless you do big/multi bld.
 

abunickabhi

Member
Joined
Jan 9, 2014
Messages
6,667
Location
Yo
WCA
2013GHOD01
YouTube
Visit Channel
I feel memorization methods in cubing have been a tad different from the memory sports.

It is good to see how letter pair system has proven to be so successful over the years, and making sentences using letter pairs or using a PAO structure for letter pairs is the go-to way of encode cube targets, be it 3BLD or 4BLD or multi.

https://forum.artofmemory.com/c/blindfolded-speed-cubing/14 The memory world also tries a bit of blindsolving from time to time, since they do notice some similarity between their methods and the method we use. But there is an extra level of difficulty in blindsolving where we also have to trace the cube and execute the algs, when having the memo at the back of our head.

I feel having bigger systems will be the key for the next decade in blindsolving. Personally, I started the project of making letter quads in late 2016, and have gotten a bit decent with it now. But it takes a lot of work for letter quads to be as fluent as letter pairs.

MBLD is definitely the event which is closely related to memory sports, and a lot of new techniques that they use, say for 1 hour cards, can be transferred over to MBLD.
 

Straniz33

Member
Joined
May 17, 2020
Messages
3
I've been trying to research memorization techniques in order to improve
my times and have been considering transitioning to PAO from regular letter pairs. I think it would alleviate some
issues I've had with regular letter pairs, for instance remembering the correct order of the words. Is there any particular downsides to it (besides that it would take some time to learn)?

Currently I just make up words (mostly nouns and people) for every letter combination and then integrate these with each other into one picture, with around 3-4 loci per 3x3.

It seems like PAO is far less popular in the cubing community, so I would be interested in hearing what you guys think.
 

Keroma12

Member
Joined
Jul 28, 2010
Messages
656
Location
Vancouver, BC, Canada
WCA
2010MATT02
YouTube
Visit Channel
I've been trying to research memorization techniques in order to improve
my times and have been considering transitioning to PAO from regular letter pairs. I think it would alleviate some
issues I've had with regular letter pairs, for instance remembering the correct order of the words. Is there any particular downsides to it (besides that it would take some time to learn)?

Currently I just make up words (mostly nouns and people) for every letter combination and then integrate these with each other into one picture, with around 3-4 loci per 3x3.

It seems like PAO is far less popular in the cubing community, so I would be interested in hearing what you guys think.

I often had trouble recalling people in PAO, and I've had other cubers tell me the same. I think it can work well, but it's difficult. Imagining how the person would react to what they're doing is much more helpful than just picturing them doing it.

(The following is more geared towards multi than 3Bld, but applies to both.)
I'm more flexible these days, and usually end up using PAOAOAOAO... or something close to that, for each cube. This way an attempt doesn't have too many people. Though if I forget something, it's still usually a person.
If I were starting again, I might just use myself (or some other default person) for every cube and have them do a sequence of AOAO..., which would require 2/3rds of the work to setup. Even if you only have actions for ~75% of pairs, that can still work alright (just do the action to 2 objects at once or in a row).
Either of these approaches is very helpful for getting the order of words correct; I've only made that mistake ~2 times in the past year. Or you can just come up with a bunch of rules to help remember order (for example: the first word is always on top of/outside the second word, etc.).
 
Top