Comparison

Complete Ear Trainer vs Aural Skills Training

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Complete Ear Trainer

Develop your musical ear and music theory knowledge with this comprehensive training app. It offers progressive drills, various sound options, and a gamified learning experience to improve improvisation, composition, and performance skills.

Highlights
  • 150+ progressive drills
  • 11 drill types
  • 24 intervals, 36 chord types
  • Melodic dictations and chord progressions
  • Gamified learning with star system
  • Custom drill and program creation
  • Cloud sync across devices
Features
Read full description

The ultimate ear training app for musicians. Develop your relative pitch to the full by improving your aural skills and your music theory knowledge. This will better many aspects of your life as a musician, be it regarding improvisation, composition, arrangement, interpretation, singing, or playing in a band. Designed like a video game and with strong pedagogical concepts in mind, this app will make you truly master each interval, chord, scale, etc. before taking you to the next one. Features • 150+ progressive drills arranged over 4 levels / 28 chapters • 11 drill types, 24 intervals, 36 chord types, chord inversions, 28 scale types, melodic dictations, chord progressions • Easy mode: 50+ progressive drills arranged over 12 chapters especially designed for beginners • Play a selection of 21 drills in arcade mode • 5 octaves of actual recorded grand piano sounds • 7 additional sound banks are available, all with actual recorded sounds: vintage piano, Rhodes piano, electric guitar, harpsichord, concert harp, strings and pizzicato strings • In each chapter, a theory card will introduce you to the concepts you will need to know • No need to know how to read music on a staff • Designed like a video game: earn 3 stars in each drill of a chapter to unlock the next one. Or will you be able to obtain perfect 5-star scores? • Don't want to follow the preestablished path of progression? Create and save your own custom drills and rehearse them at your own convenience • Create full custom training programs and invite friends or students to join them. If for example you're a teacher you can create custom programs for your students, add drills every week and view their scores on private leaderboards • Never lose any progress: cloud sync across your various devices • 25 achievements to unlock • Worldwide leaderboards (global, per level, per chapter, easy mode, arcade mode) • Nice and clean user interface with 2 display themes: light and dark • Designed by a musician and music teacher with a Royal Conservatory master's degree Full Version • Download the app and try out the first chapter of each mode for free • One-time in-app purchase to unlock the full version on all your devices Having a problem? Got a suggestion? You can reach us at hello@completeeartrainer.com Terms of use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

About

Aural Skills Training

Enhance your musical understanding with this ear training application. It covers intervals, chords, scales, melodic dictation, and rhythm, offering practice quizzes with immediate feedback and musical examples. Difficulty settings allow for personalized learning paths.

Highlights
  • Interval, chord, and scale training
  • Melodic dictation practice
  • Rhythm exercises
  • Musical examples for context
  • Quiz mode with immediate feedback
  • Adjustable difficulty settings
Features
Read full description

Practice your ear training with Aural Skills Trainer! Learn from the ground up and test yourself on these topics: - Intervals - Chords - Scales - Melodic Dictation - Rhythm ------ HARMONY ------ NEW!!! Download now and start the path to becoming a better musician, prepare for the AP Music Theory test or music class, or just open your ears and improve your musicianship! Benefits: - Training section to get ear training started: review the basics of intervals, chords and scales, and practice individual examples of each of those topics until you’ve mastered them - Musical examples for context and hearing how each big idea fits together - Ear training quiz questions with immediate feedback - Listen as many times as needed to the questions and answers to reinforce what you’re hearing - Developed by music theorists with ear training teaching experience - AP Music Theory contains a significant listening component (including melodic dictation) and this will help you practice as much as needed More details: Music takes practice, but nobody can do it alone and we’re here to help. Are you a student looking to work on your aural skills, ear training or musicianship class? Have you been a lifelong musician and want a chance to learn more about the music you’ve been playing? Or maybe you're a curious music lover? You’re in the right place! You’ll have a chance to learn about intervals, chords, scales, melodic dictation and common practice era harmonies with our training section. Then you’ll get to practice what you learned with our quiz mode. We have relevant examples with musical context to help make what you're listening to fun and interesting. Difficulty settings allow you to focus on your current ability. For example, if you’re already comfortable with major and minor chords, skip straight to 7th chords. If chords feel like too much for now, start with going over intervals first and work your way up. You can limit what you get quizzed on: if you prefer to focus only on what’s introduced in a higher difficulty (the intermediate scale difficulty is primarily modes and pentatonic scales, for instance), you can be quizzed on just that. Or you can make the quiz cumulative and include all the easier difficulties as well as the one selected. Fine tune for your learning! Box Metaphor Studios is committed to providing a musical experience to help you become a more well-rounded musician. We are always open to feedback on our musical goals, as well as any other comments or concerns around our app. Thanks for including us in your musical journey. Any issues or concerns? Contact us at support@boxmetaphorstudios.com or check out https://boxmetaphorstudiosinfo.com for additional information. Based in Salt Lake City, Utah. The team that made this possible: Nathan Foxley, M.M., music theorist, full-stack developer Steven Mathews, Ph.D., music theorist James Lloyd, designer, artist Derek Schaible, church organist

Screenshots

Complete Ear Trainer4 screens
Aural Skills Training4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Aural Skills Training at none against Complete Ear Trainer's 3. Aural Skills Training also leads on rating (5.0 vs 4.7). Complete Ear Trainer's advantage is ads (none vs shown) and ratings volume (200 vs 2). On price, update cadence, device support and iOS requirement there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Complete Ear Trainer sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $0.99 per month. Aural Skills Training asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Aural Skills Training holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.7. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Complete Ear Trainer has 200 ratings behind it against 2, so its average is the more settled of the two.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Complete Ear Trainer ships an update fortnightly, Aural Skills Training every 3 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 26, 2026 and October 7, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard5 real differences · 5 level
Complete Ear Trainer versus Aural Skills Training: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterComplete Ear TrainerAural Skills Training
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.7 (200 ratings)5.0 (2 ratings) — better
Positive reviews85.1% of reviews—
Number of ratings200 — better2
Update frequencyFortnightly — betterEvery 3 weeks
AdsNo — betterYes
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesAd-supported — better
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad
Requires iOS17.517.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size78 MB134 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperBinary GuiltNathan Foxley

Customer experience

Complete Ear Trainer

All ratings199 ratings
Positive93.5%
Neutral2.0%
Negative4.5%
Written reviews174 reviews
Positive85.1%
Neutral7.5%
Negative7.5%

Aural Skills Training

All ratings2 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

In-app purchases

3 purchases

Complete Ear Trainer

Subscriptions2
  • Cloud Sync and Web access$0.991 Month
  • Cloud Sync and Web access$9.991 Year
One-time1
  • Full Version$6.99
None

Aural Skills Training

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Complete Ear Trainer free?
Complete Ear Trainer is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Aural Skills Training free?
Aural Skills Training is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Complete Ear Trainer or Aural Skills Training?
Aural Skills Training is rated higher. Complete Ear Trainer averages 4.7 out of 5 from 200 ratings, while Aural Skills Training averages 5.0 from 2 ratings.
Do Complete Ear Trainer or Aural Skills Training have ads?
Aural Skills Training shows ads; Complete Ear Trainer does not.
Which is updated more often, Complete Ear Trainer or Aural Skills Training?
Complete Ear Trainer ships an update fortnightly, and Aural Skills Training every 3 weeks. Most recently, Complete Ear Trainer was updated on October 26, 2026 and Aural Skills Training on October 7, 2026.

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