Functional Ear Trainer vs EQ Perfect
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Functional Ear Trainer
Develop your musical ear by learning to recognize tones within the context of a specific musical key. This app helps you understand the function of each note, improving your ability to transcribe, improvise, and play music by ear. Suitable for all ages and skill levels, with just 10 minutes of daily practice.
- Recognize tones in musical key context
- Understand note function
- Improve transcription skills
- Enhance improvisation
- Develop perfect pitch
- Daily 10-minute practice
Read full descriptionHide full description
Have you (or maybe one of your friends) ever wanted to learn to transcribe or play music by ear? It is so important for a musician to know what you are hearing. A good musical ear helps when you are composing, improvising, transcribing melodies, or playing with others. Most likely you have already tried different programs to learn to recognize intervals or even to acquire perfect pitch. However, although such programs develop your ear, but can you actually play any melody you hear as soon as you listen to it? Imagine you could understand music... It is like when somebody is talking to you, you not only hear pleasant sounds, but you recognize words and their meaning. One day I came across Alain Benbassat's program called "Functional Ear Trainer" and have been using it ever since. It is based on Alain's method to learn to recognize tones. The main difference between the Functional Ear Trainer and other methods is that it teaches you to distinguish between tones in the context of a particular musical key. You begin to recognize the role (or function) of each tone in this key, which is incredibly similar to its role in other keys of the same scale. And it is *guaranteed* anyone can gradually develop this skill. It does not matter: - who you are - an absolute beginner in music or a virtuoso professional musician; - how old you are - a 3 yo kid or a 90+ adult; - what musical instrument you play (you don't even have to play one). The only requirement is to practice for 10 minutes a day. I was so excited about this ear trainer that I have developed a mobile app based on the Alain Benbassat method. I hope you will find it useful.
EQ Perfect
This app offers a unique approach to EQ ear training for music production. It features a real parametric EQ and structured lessons to develop your skills, mirroring the workflow of professional DAWs and plugins. Track your progress and focus on areas needing improvement.
- Real parametric EQ
- Step-by-step EQ lessons
- DAW-like workflow
- Performance tracking
- Variety of training songs
- Focus on frequency, gain, and curve
Read full descriptionHide full description
EQ Perfect is a revolutionary EQ ear trainer app. Unlike other EQ training apps where you can only choose from few pre-defined options, EQ Perfect's way of training can be immediately applied to your production workflow. We have developed our new EQ ear trainer app which contains a real parametric EQ, and a comprehensive list of lessons to build your EQ skills step by step. Because you are learning with a real parametric EQ, the workflow is just like how you would later use an EQ in your favorite DAW: FL studio, Ableton, Studio One, Logic Pro or a VST plugin such as FabFilter Pro Q 3. You will learn every aspect of a parametric EQ, including how does different frequencies sound, how much gain to apply, how steep is your EQ curve and what shape should you use. Along your journey of EQ training, we present you an overview of your performance in different aspects of the EQ skills, where you can easily spot your weaknesses and choose lessons accordingly to turn them into your strengths. The app comes with a set of FREE songs to train your EQ skills on, ranging from vocals to EDM. It is perfect for amateur music producers and mixing engineers to pick up EQ skills.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is update cadence: EQ Perfect at every 4 days against Functional Ear Trainer's every 7 months. EQ Perfect also leads on iOS requirement (10.0 vs 15.0). Functional Ear Trainer's advantage is ratings volume (3.9K vs 339) and review sentiment (97% vs 85%). On price, rating, ads and in-app purchases 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
Both are free to download. Functional Ear Trainer sells 1 one-off in-app purchase and EQ Perfect sells 4 one-off in-app purchases. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
Functional Ear Trainer holds the better App Store score, 4.9 against 4.7. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Functional Ear Trainer has 3.9K ratings behind it against 339, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 97% of Functional Ear Trainer's written reviews are positive against 85% of EQ Perfect's.
Functional Ear Trainer ships an update every 7 months, EQ Perfect every 4 days. The most recent releases landed on November 10, 2026 and November 7, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Functional Ear Trainer | EQ Perfect |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.9 (3.9K ratings) — better | 4.7 (339 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 96.7% of reviews — better | 85.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 3.9K — better | 339 |
| Update frequency | Every 7 months | Every 4 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free with in-app purchases |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 15.0 | 10.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 41 MB | 58 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Serhii Korchan | Ming Zhang |
Customer experience
Functional Ear Trainer
EQ Perfect
User reviews
Functional Ear Trainer
From 3.9K App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🚀 Effective ear training
- 👍 Simple and intuitive interface
- 💡 Customizable exercises
- 🎉 Noticeable improvement with regular practice
- 🎨 Visually appealing design
Room to improve
- 🐛 Occasional audio glitches
- 💡 Lack of support for other instruments besides piano
- 💡 Desire for more advanced features (e.g. chord recognition)
EQ Perfect
From 339 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 👍 Great app for EQ training
- 💡 Valuable learning tool
- ✨ User-friendly interface
- 💰 Exceptional value for price
- 🎶 Helps understand frequencies
Room to improve
- 📉 Difficulty too high for beginners
- 🔊 EQ causes distortion
- 🎶 Songs not ideal for exercises
- 🤔 Pricing can be deceptive
- 🎧 Headphone limitations below 100hz
Bugs and requests
Functional Ear Trainer
Reported bugs
2 issues- Keyboard display issues when selecting all chromatic notes
- Inconsistent note resolutions in some exercises
Requested features
5 requests- Add support for multiple notes/chords at once
- Implement a mode for training key recognition
- Provide more customization options for exercises
- Include voice input to play the notes
- Add support for German/Norwegian key names
EQ Perfect
Reported bugs
2 issues- Cannot unlock units 2 and 3
- Purchased unlimited hearts twice due to unclear wording
Requested features
6 requests- Ability to dial back difficulty for beginners
- More tracks or ability to play own music
- Option to select specific frequencies or ranges
- Headphone mode excluding changes below 100hz
- Clearer wording for upgrade packages
Show 1 moreShow fewer
- Songs that utilize the full EQ spectrum throughout
In-app purchases
Functional Ear Trainer
- Functional Ear Trainer Plus$19.99
EQ Perfect
- Unlimited hearts$1.99
- Unlock Unit 2$4.99
- Unlock Unit 3$4.99
Show 1 moreShow fewer
- Unlock Unit 2 & 3$6.99









