Better Ears Beginner vs Drumgenius
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Better Ears Beginner
Enhance your musical skills and hearing with this comprehensive ear training app. It offers 13 diverse exercises, from interval recognition to chord progressions, with customizable training routines and instrument options. Track your progress and sync across devices for a seamless learning experience.
- 13 music theory and ear training exercises
- Customizable training routines
- User-created chords, scales, and progressions
- Six instrument sound options
- Pitch detection for vocal or instrument answers
- Virtual keyboard and guitar fretboard
- Cross-device synchronization
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Better Ears is the complete ear training and sight‑reading workout for musicians, students and teachers. Train your musical ear and master music theory — from interval recognition all the way to chord progressions and rhythm training. 15 exercises take you from absolute beginner to pro, at your own pace, with no rules and no pressure. NEW: RHYTHM TRAINING Sharpen your sense of timing with two brand‑new exercises. Hear a rhythm and clap or tap it back, or read rhythmic notation and perform it in time — with count‑in, metronome, triplets and time signatures like 3/4, 4/4 and 5/4. Clap straight into your device's microphone and Better Ears listens. YOU DECIDE HOW TO TRAIN There are no rules to follow. You decide when to start, what to practice and how often. 15 EXERCISES INCLUDED • Interval recognition • Scale recognition • Chord recognition • Chord progressions • Pitch recognition • Melodic dictation • Tempo recognition • Key signature recognition • Music reading • Interval music reading • Scale music reading • Chord music reading • Melody music reading • Rhythm recognition (new) • Rhythm reading (new) ANSWER WITH YOUR VOICE OR A REAL INSTRUMENT Built‑in pitch detection lets you answer by singing or by playing a real instrument (e.g. piano or guitar). Just sing or play the notes when the microphone button lights up red. CUSTOM CHORDS, SCALES & CHORD PROGRESSIONS The built‑in editor lets you add your own chords, scales and chord progressions. FOUR PRESET LEVELS + UNLIMITED CUSTOM LEVELS Start at Beginner, Easy, Normal or Professional — then build your own levels to focus exactly where you need to: church modes, those two pesky intervals, custom rhythms, whatever you like. 6 INSTRUMENTS & CUSTOM SOUNDFONTS Train with Acoustic Grand, Bright Acoustic Piano, Electric Grand, Drawbar Organ, Nylon and Steel Acoustic Guitar — or extend Better Ears with your own sounds via SoundFonts (.sf2). KEYBOARD & FRETBOARD Answer on a virtual piano keyboard or a virtual guitar fretboard. MIDI SUPPORT Route sound through an external MIDI device and even control Better Ears with a connected master keyboard. SYNC ALL OF YOUR DEVICES Keep your Mac, iPhone and iPad in sync via Dropbox. You choose what to sync: your own levels, your statistics, your settings — or all of it. STATISTICS Better Ears tracks your progress for every exercise and every question — right and wrong answers at a glance. WIKIPEDIA INTEGRATION The matching Wikipedia article is shown for each exercise, so the theory is always one tap away. REFRESHED DESIGN A modern, fully redesigned interface on iPhone, iPad and Mac — with full Dark Mode and crystal‑clear music notation.
Drumgenius
Explore an encyclopedia of drum grooves from Jazz to Rock, played by legendary drummers. Practice with expert virtual drummers to develop your time-feel and expand rhythmic knowledge. Includes a smart metronome with "clave" and "swing regulator" features.
- Encyclopedia of 500+ drum grooves
- Play along with master drummers
- Develop time-feel and rhythm knowledge
- Stretchable and loopable drum loops
- Smart Metronome with clave and swing regulator
- Descriptions and discography references
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Play along with the greatest drummers in the world and improve your knowledge of rhythm. Drumgenius (only Infinite Credits pack) includes Metrogenius: the smart Metronome, with "clave" and "swing regulator"! Drumgenius (created by a musician for musicians) is the first encyclopedia of drum grooves (500 loops from Jazz to Rock) as played by the masters of drums: a unique tool for any musician that wants to practice with an amazing expert virtual drummer, to develop time-feel and to expand the knowledge of any kind of rhythm, from the basic to the most complex one! The loops (stretchable) are accompanied by useful descriptions and discography references. The special "clave" button helps to go deep into the nature of different rhythms. ▶"Mauro Battisti has made it possible for anyone to play along with the greatest drummers in the world, historical and contemporary, with the ability to alter tempo. Drumgenius is a great resource that can bring any player closer to the flame.” (Dave Liebman) ▶ "Drumgenius sounds very good; I find it very handy to practice my instrument with real drums pattern that I can have always with me in my phone: thanks Mauro for this App." Dominique Di Piazza - Electric bass player (John McLaughling, Trilok Gurtu, Bireli Lagrene, Dennis Chambers) ▶ "Love this app: these loops sound fantastic! They are real drum loops – not midi or sequences – and they loop flawlessly. In addition to being a fantastic groove reference for drummers (or musicians of any kind), I think this app is fantastic for groove development as a bassist." Damian Erskine - Electric bass player (Peter Erskine, The Jaco Pastorius Big Band, Gino Vannelli, Tony Furtado), studio musician, author of bass method book series, adjunct Professor at both Portland State University and Marylhurst University – USA. ▶ “Drumgenius is a world-class teaching aid that addresses a fundamental challenge to successful performance practice for any musician: is a virtuoso educational work by a true musical virtuoso!” Harold Danko - Jazz pianist (Lee Konitz, Chet Baker, Thad Jones & Mel Lewis big band) and composer . Professor of Jazz Studies & Contemporary Media at Eastman School of Music - Rochester NY - USA. Download the app for FREE and use the PREVIEW FUNCTION for listening to all the loops before deciding to download them. You have at disposal three free loops to download from the list of 500 LOOPS TOTAL, so you can test the player functions and enjoy the practice with Drumgenius. Then, if you like it, on "Store" section, you can buy loops, having available three options: 10 Credits, 50 Credits and Infinite Credits. Each credit lets you download one loop at your choice from the complete list. When you choose a loop that comes with the alternate version with Clave (C), both versions will be automatically downloaded and will result as one credit only. You can use 10 and 50 credits option only once. Infinite Credits option lets you download all the loops included in Drumgenius 3.0 and will give you also unlimited access to all the loops that will be included in future updates. APP FEATURES 500 loops: 147 Jazz (from Baby Dodds to Eric Harland) 17 Jazz & Blues Shuffle 72 Afro-Cuban (traditional, contemporary and as played by jazz masters) 53 Brazilian (traditional, contemporary and as played by jazz masters) 21 Caribbean 65 Odd Times (Jazz, Funky, Afro-Cuban) 58 World (Africa, Balkan, India, Middle-East) 10 Straight eighths 3 Country 3 R&B 23 Funky 5 Hip-hop 12 Pop 19 Rock 1 Disco 16 Polymeters 1 Surf Easy search function by word or style Speed Stretching Function (+/- 20%) Pitch Bar Loops indicated with (C) include special Clave button on/off INFO: Drum genius 3.0 requires iOS 7 or later. Full pack (500 loops+clave versions) is 1,027 Gb in size. For any further information, leaving comments or suggestions please visit www.projazzlab.com or Drumgenius on Facebook at www.facebook.com/drumgeniusjazzloops
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is update cadence: Drumgenius at every 2 months against Better Ears Beginner's every 6 months. Drumgenius also leads on ratings volume (212 vs 35) and review sentiment (76% vs 67%). 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. Better Ears Beginner sells 1 one-off in-app purchase and Drumgenius sells 4 one-off in-app purchases. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.5 for Better Ears Beginner against 4.5 for Drumgenius. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Drumgenius has 212 ratings behind it against 35, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 67% of Better Ears Beginner's written reviews are positive against 76% of Drumgenius's.
Better Ears Beginner ships an update every 6 months, Drumgenius every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on September 14, 2026 and September 26, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Better Ears Beginner | Drumgenius |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.5 (35 ratings) | 4.5 (212 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 66.8% of reviews | 75.9% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 35 | 212 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 6 months | Every 2 months — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free with in-app purchases |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 15.6 | 13.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 86 MB | 7 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | MAMP GmbH | Projazz Lab |
Customer experience
Better Ears Beginner
Drumgenius
User reviews
Better Ears Beginner
From 35 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 👍 Free beginner version
- 🚀 Helpful for learning music theory
- 💡 Useful for ear training and pitch recognition
- 🎹 Ability to play piano-like keyboard
Room to improve
- 🐛 Crashes after purchasing add-on
- 🔒 No Airplay support
- 👎 Insufficient training functionality
- 🔊 Poor sound quality
- 🤔 Confusing for true beginners
Drumgenius
From 212 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🚀 Outstanding rhythm, time and groove development tool
- 👍 Improves my play
- 👍 Excellent practice tool
- 👍 Brilliant, high quality drum loops
- 👍 Versatile and inspiring
Room to improve
- 🐛 Crashes all the time
- 🐛 Keeps crashing/glitching
- 🐛 Crashes when changing tempo
- 🐛 Sound cuts off intermittently
- 🐛 Buggy when exiting and re-entering app
Bugs and requests
Better Ears Beginner
Reported bugs
4 issues- Reverts to beginner version after phone update
- Audio stops working after some time
- Keyboard unresponsive on iPad
- Chord spellings are incorrect
Requested features
5 requests- Add more instruments
- Include rhythm training
- Provide more customization options
- Implement a game-like format
- Add support for reading sheet music
Drumgenius
Reported bugs
3 issues- Purchased loops disappearing
- Inability to download/play some loops
- Crashes when downloading loops
Requested features
5 requests- Add more world rhythms and genres like Amapiano
- Add more Tony Williams-style medium-uptempo swing tracks
- Add ability to export/share loops
- Add dark mode support
- Improve organization and browsing of purchased loops
In-app purchases
Better Ears Beginner
- Unlock all functions$4.99
Drumgenius
- 10 credits pack$0.99
- 50 credits pack$1.99
- Infinite Credits pack$7.99
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- Lifetime Access$12.99
Questions
Is Better Ears Beginner free?
Is Drumgenius free?
Which has better reviews, Better Ears Beginner or Drumgenius?
Do Better Ears Beginner or Drumgenius have ads?
Which is updated more often, Better Ears Beginner or Drumgenius?
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