Comparison

Matcha vs Ear Engineer Mobile

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

Head to head
About

Matcha

Create lo-fi music with intuitive chord buttons and pre-set sound packs. Effortlessly generate smooth melodies and export shareable videos with unique visuals. No music theory knowledge is required to start composing.

Highlights
  • Intuitive chord buttons with voice leading
  • Smart harmony and key fitting
  • Pre-set sound packs with distinct moods
  • Warm synth voices and sampler
  • Shareable video export with reactive visuals
  • One-time unlock for full studio features
  • Live Activity for Lock Screen integration
Features
Read full description

Tap a chord. It already sounds good. Matcha is a pocket lo-fi studio where every touch is musical — smooth chords, warm synths, lazy drums, and a share-ready video with ink-wash visuals that bloom to your music. No music theory required (but it doesn't hurt). PLAY BY FEEL • Big chord buttons with built-in voice leading — every change sounds smooth • Smart key harmony: whatever you tap fits the key • Drag the voicing slider to open up or tighten the chord • A keyboard that lights up to show what's playing — two octaves on iPad EIGHT PACKS, EIGHT MOODS Tokyo Rain, Study Session, Sunset Drive, Midnight Jazz, Rainy Cafe, Neon Sleep, Saturday Cartoon, Late Bus. Each pack is a complete kit — synth, bass, drums, swing, tempo, chord palette and colour. SHAPE YOUR SOUND • Warm synth voices (Rhodes, pads, bells, organ) and a sampler • Bass patterns: root, walking, fifths, arpeggio and more • Drums with swing, plus reverb and chorus to taste SHARE WHAT YOU MAKE • Export a share video with reactive ink-wash visuals that bloom with every chord • Save it to Photos or send it anywhere MATCHA STUDIO — ONE-TIME UNLOCK Try it before you buy: play the built-in demo song, and hear your own four bars arranged into a whole track as many times as you like. Studio is for keeping it. • Matcha Magic — four bars in, a finished arrangement out • Song Mode — build the whole track section by section • Chord Journey — never guess the next chord; pick a feeling instead • Four Signature Packs — Rainy Taipei, Dusty Cassette, Bedroom R&B, Night Train • Recording, plus Pro Export: MIDI, stems, and Matcha as an AUv3 plugin in your DAW One purchase, yours forever. No subscription, no account, nothing uploaded. CALM BY DESIGN A reactive Chinese-ink background that moves with your music, a quiet dark interface, and a Live Activity so your jam shows up on the Lock Screen and Dynamic Island. Just you and the keys.

About

Ear Engineer Mobile

Features
Read full description

YOUR EARS ARE THE INSTRUMENT Every plugin, every monitor, every room you will ever work in sits downstream of one thing: your hearing. Ear Engineer trains it. HOW IT WORKS Pink noise plays once, for five seconds. Somewhere inside it a single ISO third-octave band is lifted by 6 dB: the noise fades in, the boost swells and settles back, the noise fades out. Then the room goes quiet and the question appears. Which band was it? One replay per round. Ten rounds per set. Score 8 or better and you move up. FIVE LEVELS, FROM OBVIOUS TO BRUTAL Level 1 offers three options a decade apart, 100 Hz against 1 kHz against 10 kHz. You will get it right, and that is the point. You are calibrating, not guessing. Then the options close in. Two octaves. One octave. Two thirds of an octave. And finally Pro, where all 31 ISO bands sit on screen and the boost could be any one of them. The options are never the same twice. Every round draws a fresh ladder from a random anchor, so level 1 asks 100 Hz / 1 kHz / 10 kHz on one round and 80 / 800 / 8000 on the next. You learn the frequencies, not the layout of the buttons. THE DETAILS ARE THE PRODUCT The filter Q never changes. It is a one-third-octave bell on every level and every round, narrow enough that 1 kHz and 1.25 kHz stay clearly tellable apart. Bandwidth is never part of the test, so you only ever train one variable at a time. The analyser does not cheat. It shows the material breathing across the spectrum, but it is tapped before the equaliser, so it can never draw the bump and hand you the answer. The moment you answer, it draws the real filter curve exactly where the boost was. That is when you see what you just heard. The noise plays once, not on a loop. One pass, one decision, the way it works when a client is sitting behind you. LOW BANDS, ON OR OFF Training on the move without headphones? Switch the low bands off and everything at 100 Hz and below leaves the game, so a phone speaker never costs you a point. Switch them back on with headphones and the full 20 Hz to 20 kHz grid is in play. BUILT FROM YEARS OF TEACHING IT This is not a toy built around a random number generator. It is a training method that has been run with real students for years, put into an app: the same intervals, the same progression, the same insistence that you name the band rather than wave at the general area. PROGRESS YOU CAN SEE Every level remembers your best set, so you can watch the day 250 Hz stops being a coin toss and starts being obvious. Every level is unlocked from the start, so you can drop into Pro whenever you feel like being humbled. FOR MIXERS, LIVE, MASTERING, POST AND BROADCAST Anyone who has swept a parametric hunting for a resonance knows the feeling of finding it by accident. This is how you stop doing that. A few minutes a day and you start reaching for the right band first, on instinct, while everyone else is still sweeping. Your ears are the one piece of gear you cannot upgrade. Maintain them. No ads. No account. No internet connection required.

Screenshots

Matcha4 screens
Ear Engineer Mobile3 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: Matcha at Free against Ear Engineer Mobile's $9.99. Ear Engineer Mobile's advantage is update cadence (weekly vs monthly) and iOS requirement (15.0 vs 17.0). On ads, in-app purchases and device support 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

Matcha is free to download; Ear Engineer Mobile costs $9.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Matcha ships an update monthly, Ear Engineer Mobile weekly. The most recent releases landed on October 14, 2026 and October 7, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard3 real differences · 6 level
Matcha versus Ear Engineer Mobile: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterMatchaEar Engineer Mobile
PriceFree — better$9.99
Rating5.0 (1 ratings) — better—
Number of ratings1 — better—
Update frequencyMonthlyWeekly — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFree with in-app purchases—
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad, iPod — better
Requires iOS17.015.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size23 MB43 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperChih Han Linsebastian rivas

In-app purchases

None

Matcha

No in-app purchases

None

Ear Engineer Mobile

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Matcha free?
Matcha is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Ear Engineer Mobile free?
Ear Engineer Mobile costs $9.99, with no in-app purchases.
Do Matcha or Ear Engineer Mobile have ads?
Neither Matcha nor Ear Engineer Mobile shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Matcha or Ear Engineer Mobile?
Matcha ships an update monthly, and Ear Engineer Mobile weekly. Most recently, Matcha was updated on October 14, 2026 and Ear Engineer Mobile on October 7, 2026.

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