Ear Training Made for Drummers
Strengthen your ability to hear kick and snare patterns and groove structures. Train your ear to pick out rhythmic shapes, syncopation, ghost notes and accents in your favorite songs.
What Is EarDrum?
EarDrum is a drum practice studio for iPhone, iPad, and Mac that helps drummers — and any musician who cares about rhythm — train the skills that truly matter: accurate timing, a strong internal pulse, and the ability to learn beats and songs entirely by ear. With intelligent feedback, well-designed exercises, and custom practice tools, you'll build the kind of timing, feel, and confidence that shows up in every groove you play.
Core Features
Internal Clock & Timing Practice Tool
Improve your timing with well-crafted exercises that focus on subdivisions, permutations, and different accent placements.
Interactive Play-Along for Any Song
Have a MIDI file of your favorite track? Import it into EarDrum and instantly get a playable, interactive drum part. Loop sections, slow them down, isolate layers, get feedback on every hit, and perfect every bar.
Why EarDrum?
Learn Songs by Ear
Stop depending on YouTube tutorials or sheet music. EarDrum trains the listening skills professional drummers use to figure out grooves instantly.
Practice Anytime, Anywhere
Whether you're on your electronic kit, on a practice pad, or using just your fingers in Tap Mode, EarDrum gives you instant feedback so you can keep improving at home, in the studio, or on the go.
Build Your Own Practice
For drummers who want to build their own practice routines, EarDrum lets you create custom exercises and patterns for both timing and ear-training.
Stay Motivated
EarDrum gives you listening and timing scores and keeps a log of your practice, so you can see your progress, stay consistent, and keep growing with an ultimate drumming practice tool.
Share Your Exercises
You can share your exercises with others. If you're a drum teacher, you can create custom exercises for your students to practice at home.
FAQ
What's the difference between timing and ear training exercises?
Timing exercises
Timing exercises are designed to strengthen your internal clock. The goal is to help you place notes accurately in time, stay steady through the bar, and feel subdivisions clearly.
They also help improve speed, endurance, coordination, and sticking control, and can include classical rudiments, groove-based patterns, and limb-independence exercises.
Ear training exercises
Ear training exercises are designed to improve your ability to hear, recognize, and reproduce rhythms, and are especially useful for learning songs by ear.
Instead of only repeating one known pattern, ear training uses a call-and-response approach. You hear a rhythm first, then respond by playing it back. The exercises usually contain multiple pattern variations for each beat, so the app can choose between several possible versions, introducing an element of randomness and making the exercise less predictable.
This structure helps you move beyond memorization. Rather than relying on a fixed pattern, you learn to listen carefully, identify what you heard, and react musically in real time.
In short
- Timing exercises help you build a stronger internal pulse.
- Ear training exercises help you recognize and reproduce rhythms you hear.
How do I create an exercise?
Creating an exercise starts with choosing the basic structure of the pattern, then filling in each beat.
- Choose the time signature
The time signature sets how many beats there are in each bar. For example, in 4/4 you get four beats per bar, and each beat can be edited separately.
- Set the length
Use the Length control to choose how many bars your exercise should have. You can create anything from a short one-bar idea to a longer multi-bar phrase.
- Add patterns beat by beat
Under Beats, tap any beat to open the editor for that position in the bar. This is where you choose instruments and build the rhythm for that beat.
- Pick an instrument
Inside the beat editor, select the instrument you want to edit, such as kick, snare, or another drum sound. Each instrument can have its own rhythm on the same beat.
- Choose a subdivision
For the selected instrument, add a subdivision pattern such as 3, 4, 6, or 8. This determines how that beat is divided internally and gives you the grid you will place notes on.
- Fill in the pattern
Tap the subdivision cells to place or remove hits.
- For timing exercises, each instrument keeps one active pattern per beat, so you are building a clear fixed rhythm to practice.
- For ear training exercises, you can add multiple subdivision variations for the same instrument on the same beat. These variations are the core of ear training exercises: instead of repeating one fixed pattern, the app can present different rhythms so you actively listen, recognize what you hear, and respond by ear.
- Use the Backing track option when needed
The Backing track checkbox marks the selected instrument as accompaniment rather than the part you are expected to reproduce. This is useful when you want part of the groove to keep playing underneath while you focus on hearing or performing the main rhythm.
- Refine and repeat across the bar
You can move from beat to beat, copy and paste beats, or clear them as needed. Keep building until every beat in every bar has at least one rhythm pattern.
- 9. Save or start
Once the exercise is complete, save it or start the session directly.
A simple way to think about it
- For timing, create the exact groove you want to lock in.
- For ear training, create the rhythm you want to hear and respond to, then add variation when you want the exercise to challenge your listening more actively.
Where do I get MIDI files?
The app supports any standard MIDI file that contains drum or rhythm information on channel 10.
You can download MIDI files from free or paid websites, including sites like Songsterr. You can also export MIDI from your DAW or convert a Guitar Pro file.
What if my MIDI is not loaded correctly?
The app works well with standard-compliant MIDI files from websites like Songsterr, or files exported from a DAW with the drum track on channel 10.
If something isn't loading right, feel free to send me the file by email and I'll help you out.
What do I get with a lifetime unlock?
The paid version unlocks MIDI song import, the exercise builder, and the full exercise library.
It's designed for learners who want to practice with their own songs, build focused exercises, and get deeper feedback on their progress.
What do I get with a Pro subscription?
Pro includes everything in the lifetime unlock — MIDI song import, the exercise builder, and the full exercise library — plus features that require cloud infrastructure, like exercise sharing and the upcoming cloud sync.
It also directly supports continued development of the app, including new features, more exercises, and better practice tools. EarDrum is built independently, and Pro helps make ongoing improvements possible.
How can I see what's planned for EarDrum?
You can view the public roadmap to see what is planned, what is being considered, and what is already in progress.
The roadmap is open to your feedback too: you can suggest ideas, vote on feature requests, and help shape what gets built next.
Ready to take your drumming to the next level?
