Ear Training
Two ear training games. In the first, a band is boosted and you name it from four candidates. In the second, a test tone plays at one of the ISO band frequencies and you find it by moving the correct fader on a 1/3-octave graphic EQ. On iPhone, make sure the silent switch is off (ringer on) or the test tone will be silent.
Name the Boosted Band
Audio plays with one 1/3-octave band boosted. Pick the band you hear lifted.
A smaller boost is harder to identify, and the answer options sit closer together as difficulty rises.
Defaults to 200 Hz – 12.5 kHz, the range most laptop and phone speakers reproduce. Expand the range on systems that can handle lower bass or higher treble.
Choose a source and difficulty, then start a round.
Round Complete
Find the Feedback
A test tone rings at one 1/3-octave band. Pull the matching fader down to kill it.
← scroll →
Round Complete
Ear Training: TheAudioToolkit
Three games on iPhone: Boost and Feedback, as on this page, plus Cut, where a band is pulled down rather than lifted. Boost and Cut have four difficulty levels, with bypass on every one but Expert. All three keep a score history.
Free, with three rounds per game each day. Every game and difficulty is included; the Pro Unlock (£2.99 in the UK) removes that daily limit and nothing else.
View on the App StoreHow It Works
Name the Boosted Band
Pink noise plays with one 1/3-octave band boosted. Four cards name candidate bands and you pick the band you hear lifted. The window above the cards is a level display driven from the overall amplitude, so it confirms the audio is running without showing which band was lifted.
Difficulty sets the boost depth and how close the decoys sit. Easy lifts a band by +12 dB with widely spaced options, Medium by +9 dB, Hard by +6 dB with adjacent bands as decoys. Filter width stays between roughly 1.5 and 3 critical bands throughout: widening the lift as the depth drops adds back the loudness the smaller boost removed, because hearing sums energy across critical bands, which can leave a shallow wide boost sounding more obvious than a deep narrow one. Selecting Your Audio replaces the pink noise with a WAV, MP3 or OGG file dropped onto the panel.
The Active Frequency Range slider sets which bands the game can pick from. The default 200 Hz–12.5 kHz range covers what most laptop and phone speakers reproduce. Expand the range on systems that can handle lower bass or higher treble.
Find the Feedback Frequency
A sine-wave test tone plays at one of the ISO 1/3-octave bands between 50 Hz and 16 kHz. Your task: find the frequency on the graphic EQ by moving the correct fader. The Active Frequency Range slider sets which bands are in play. The default 200 Hz–12.5 kHz range covers what most laptop and phone speakers reproduce. Expand the range on systems that can reproduce the outer bands.
- Move the correct fader: it glows green and controls the test tone level.
- Move a wrong fader: it glows red. Try again.
- Room: the test tone always plays through a reverberant decay, because feedback on stage arrives coloured by the room rather than as a clean sine wave.
The test tone frequency always matches one of the active fader bands. This trains you to map what you hear to the exact EQ band. This is the same skill used ringing out monitors on stage.
Why 1/3-Octave Bands
The 26 fader frequencies follow the ISO 266 preferred series, the same centre frequencies found on hardware 1/3-octave graphic EQs (which typically have 31 faders spanning 20 Hz – 20 kHz; this tool covers the 50 Hz – 16 kHz subset). Training on this grid means the answer maps directly onto a fader you can reach for, rather than a number you then have to locate.
A 1/3-octave graphic EQ fader is wider than one auditory filter across most of the range, so hearing a tone as "in this band" is a coarser judgement than resolving its exact frequency. Naming the band is the skill this trains; it is what a graphic EQ can act on.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does this work on headphones or do I need monitors?
Headphones are fine and are usually better for the low bands, since most laptop and phone speakers roll off below roughly 200 Hz and will not reproduce the lowest faders at all. Any playback system with a known response is more useful than one with an unknown one.
Why does the test tone sound reverberant?
Feedback on stage is never a clean sine wave: it arrives coloured by the room and by the response of the microphone and loudspeaker in the loop. Training only on clean tones leaves out that colouration, so the tone here always plays through a reverberant decay.
Why 1/3-octave bands rather than exact frequencies?
A 1/3-octave graphic EQ has one fader per band, so identifying the band is the action the EQ can act on. The ISO 266 preferred series used here is the same set of centre frequencies found on hardware graphic EQs.
What do the frequency range sliders do?
Both games have an Active Frequency Range slider. The default 200 Hz–12.5 kHz range covers what most laptop and phone speakers reproduce. Expand the range on systems that can reproduce lower bass or higher treble. The training is more effective when every band in the active range is audible.