SoundGym Alternatives in 2026: Real Prices and What Each One Actually Trains

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SoundGym is the ear training site most producers land on first. It works. It also costs $142 a year now, and the free account gives you the same three games every day, forever.

So this is a list of what else is out there. Real prices, checked in August 2026, because most of the “SoundGym alternatives” posts still quote numbers from 2019 and half of them recommend a tool whose website no longer exists.

One thing up front: we make one of the tools on this list. It’s free and it stays free, and I’ve put it in the same table as everything else with the same details. You can skip straight past it if that bothers you — the rest of the list stands on its own.

What SoundGym actually costs in 2026

Straight from their shop page:

Worth knowing: when Sound On Sound reviewed SoundGym in July 2021, the annual plan was $119. It’s $142 today. The monthly price hasn’t moved since then.

ToneGym, the sister site for musicianship training, is billed separately — $13.95 a month, $74.95 a year, $255 lifetime. There’s no bundle. Their own help page says the two subscriptions are sold separately, so if you want both, you pay both.

What the free tier gives you, and where it stops

This is the part that trips people up. A free SoundGym account isn’t a smaller version of the paid one that slowly opens up. According to their own help pages, free members “get the same 3 games on each workout.” Pro members get all the games, five per workout. On the beat side it’s the same shape: free gets one beat game, Pro gets three.

So the free tier isn’t a trial that expands as you improve. It’s three games on repeat. That’s a perfectly fair business model, but it’s not what most people assume when they sign up, and it’s why “I got bored of it” shows up so often.

They also run a free Audio School — five programs covering recording, electronic production, mixing and mastering, synthesis and live sound. Be clear on what that is, though. Their own description calls it programs “curated from the best free online content.” It’s a playlist of other people’s videos, organised well. Useful, but it isn’t original teaching.

The criticism worth reading is on SoundGym’s own forum

You don’t need to go hunting through review sites for this. The sharpest critique of SoundGym sits in the feedback thread on soundgym.co itself, and it’s been there for years.

“SoundGym games are about measurement not training.”

That’s a user in the feedback thread, and another one in the same thread put it as the site being “more of a reference game than a teacher” with “no explanation of what to listen for.” A paying member in 2023 wrote that he’d expected “a little more guidance and original content” and found the courses were curated video playlists.

SoundGym’s team replied and defended the design — the gamified, non-linear approach is deliberate. Fair enough. But it tells you what you’re buying: a scoreboard that shows whether you heard it, not a coach that tells you what you missed.

Sound On Sound’s review made a related point. The games can get repetitive without the competitive side to pull you along, and because settings are randomly generated, difficulty jumps around — an EQ move is much easier to spot on a busy synth than on a sparse drum loop. Reverb results in particular swing depending on whether you’re on headphones or speakers.

The alternatives, in one table

Prices checked August 2026. “Browser” means no install.

Free browser tools, no install

Monosounds Ear Training

This is ours, so read it with that in mind. It’s a listening game with 500 levels across ten chapters, built on audio from our own sample packs. Fifty-odd different exercise types: name the boosted band, spot which take is compressed, match a pan position by ear, set the reverb to match a reference, identify the waveform, ABX two versions until you can actually tell them apart, rank three clips by how hard they’re squashed.

It runs in a browser on a phone or a laptop, it’s in English and Japanese, and the first ten levels don’t ask for an account. The whole thing is free and stays free — no card, no subscription, no tier that unlocks the good exercises.

What it isn’t: a course. Nobody talks you through mixing theory. You get a hint when you miss, and the hints tell you what that frequency range sounds like and what to listen for next time, but it’s a training tool, not a class.

Try it here — level one starts immediately.

Bedroom Producer

Browser-based, no signup needed to start. The Mix Trainer works on real multitrack audio and covers EQ, compression, volume and panning, with difficulty that adapts as you go. There’s also a vocal pitch drill.

It runs on a lives system — guests get two a day, a free account gets four. Patron tier is $2.50 a month, and there’s a $7.99 early adopter tier that locks that price. Cheap, honest, and the multitrack material is a real advantage over tools that only test you on loops.

EQ Trainer and Neon Audio Ear Trainer

Two small free browser tools that do one job. EQ Trainer plays you a boost and you name the frequency, with a bypass button for A/B and difficulty tiers that go up to a genuinely nasty “God mode”. You can run it on pink noise or on a music track.

Neon’s trainer covers frequency identification and feedback identification, and lets you upload your own WAV or MP3. A few rounds are open with no signup; full access wants an email address.

Reverie Mix

Launched in May 2026, so it’s the newest thing here. Deliberately mix-focused rather than musical — boost identification, compressor attack and release, stereo width, phase and comb filtering, high-pass cutoff matching, loudness matching. Free tier plus a Pro upgrade that adds stem isolation and harder difficulty. I couldn’t get the Pro price to load, so check it yourself before you commit.

Free desktop apps

EQ Academy

Made by Mastering The Mix and released in July 2025, and it’s the strongest free option if you’re on a computer. A hundred levels across ten sections covering frequency, gain, Q width and mid/side. Levels are randomly generated so you can’t memorise them, there are monthly leaderboards, and past level 30 you can import your own songs to train on.

macOS 13.3 or later (Apple Silicon native) and Windows 10/11. Some coverage says you need to join their mailing list to get it; the product page didn’t ask me. Either way, it costs nothing.

EarQuiz Frequencies

Free and open source under GPL-3.0, for Windows, macOS and Linux. Golden Ears–style technical ear training with a pink noise generator, and it will load your own WAV, AIFF, FLAC, MP3 or OGG files. The last release is v0.1.8 and there hasn’t been a new one recently, so treat it as finished rather than actively developed. It still works.

Pay once, keep it forever

TrainYourEars EQ Edition 2

€49, one payment, lifetime licence, macOS and Windows standalone. This is the tool people bring up when they’re annoyed about subscriptions, and the reason is simple arithmetic: it’s less than four months of SoundGym.

What makes it good is that you train on your music. Load a track you’re working on, and it applies random EQ moves that you either name (Guess mode) or undo (Correct mode). Correct mode in particular is closer to what you actually do at a mixing desk than any multiple-choice quiz.

Two caveats. It’s standalone only — no VST, AU or AAX, so you can’t run it on a channel inside your DAW. And the site’s footer still reads 2020, so don’t expect updates.

Quiztones

$19.99 once on macOS. On iOS the app is free with a Pro tier at $4.99 a month or $19.99 a year. 450-plus quizzes, 95 premium loops, and a practice mode where you sweep an EQ yourself. It’s now published by The Pro Audio Files and was updated in April 2026, so unlike some things on this list it’s alive.

The catch is platform: Apple only. No Windows, no Android.

If you want musicianship, not mixing

Worth being clear that these are a different skill. SoundGym trains engineering ears — frequency, dynamics, space. Intervals and chords are a separate discipline.

EarMaster Pro 7 is $59.95 as a perpetual licence covering two computers, with 4,000-plus exercises and exam prep for ABRSM and RCM syllabuses. There’s a free tier on mobile and desktop with intervals, chords and a few beginner courses. ToneGym is the same company as SoundGym and covers the same ground in the same gamified style, at the prices listed above.

The free tool nobody puts on these lists

The ABX Comparator for foobar2000. It’s free, it was updated in September 2025, and it now runs on Windows and macOS.

It doesn’t teach you anything. It does something more useful: it tells you the truth about whether you can hear a difference at all. Load two files, run a blind ABX trial, and get a statistical result. Run it on your 320kbps versus lossless, on a subtle saturation setting, on a compressor you’re sure is doing something. It’s the fastest cure there is for hearing what you expect to hear rather than what’s there.

How to pick one

Short version:

• You want to train on your phone, in gaps. Browser tools only. Ours, MixSense or Bedroom Producer.
• You’re at a computer and want the most serious free option. EQ Academy.
• You hate subscriptions. TrainYourEars at €49, or Quiztones at $19.99 if you’re on a Mac.
• You want to train on your own tracks. TrainYourEars, EQ Academy past level 30, or EarQuiz.
• You want the biggest catalogue and don’t mind paying. Stay with SoundGym. Twenty-odd games and an established leaderboard is a real product, and nothing free matches its breadth.
• You want to know if you can hear something at all. foobar2000 ABX.

Honest advice regardless of what you pick: ten minutes a day beats an hour on Sunday, and use the same headphones every time. Swapping between speakers and headphones mid-week will make your scores bounce around and teach you nothing.

And the ears are only half of it. If you’re still working out why your tracks sound thin, the mistakes most people make early on are worth reading, and if you’re properly at the start, here’s where to begin.

FAQ

Is there a completely free alternative to SoundGym?

Yes, several. EQ Academy from Mastering The Mix is free with 100 levels on macOS and Windows. EarQuiz Frequencies is free and open source. Our own trainer at monosounds.studio/train is free with 500 levels in the browser. EQ Trainer and Neon Audio’s trainer are free browser tools. None of them cost anything, and none of them are trials.

How much does SoundGym cost in 2026?

$24.95 a month, $142 a year, or $495 for lifetime access, as listed on their shop page in August 2026. Many articles still quote $119 a year — that was the price back in 2021.

Is SoundGym free version enough?

It depends what you want from it. A free account gets the same three games in every workout rather than a rotating selection, so you’ll cover a narrow slice of skills. If you want variety without paying, a free tool with an open catalogue will get you further.

Does SoundGym have a mobile app?

No. Their help page states there are no native iOS or Android applications. It runs in a mobile browser and can be saved to your homescreen, but there’s no app to download.

What’s the best ear training tool for mixing specifically?

For frequency work on your own material, TrainYourEars. For a free structured climb, EQ Academy. For short sessions on a phone, a browser trainer. For settling arguments about whether a difference is real, foobar2000’s ABX Comparator. Most people end up using two: one for drilling, one for blind checking.

How long until ear training actually helps?

Ten focused minutes a day for a couple of weeks is usually enough to notice a change, and the first thing people report is that muddiness around 200–400 Hz stops being a vague feeling and starts having a number attached. Progress on the harder skills — compression release, reverb tails, small stereo moves — takes months.

More on this

We went deeper on most of the above in their own articles.

On SoundGym itself

• Is SoundGym Worth It in 2026? An Honest Answer — whether the $142 a year is worth paying, with the arithmetic done out loud.
• SoundGym Free vs Pro: What You Actually Get Without Paying — exactly what the free account gives you, and why it never grows.
• SoundGym vs ToneGym: Which One Do You Actually Need? — the sister site, and why wanting both means paying twice.
• SoundGym vs TrainYourEars: Subscription or Pay Once? — subscription against a one-time €49, and the difference in method.

Picking a tool

• Free Ear Training for Music Producers: Every Tool That Costs Nothing in 2026 — every tool that genuinely costs nothing, checked this month.
• Ear Training on Your Phone: What Actually Works on iOS and Android — what actually runs on a phone, which is thinner than you’d hope.

Actually training

• Ear Training for Mixing: What to Train, and in What Order — which skills to train, and the order that stops you stalling.
• How to Identify Frequencies by Ear (Without Guessing) — eight landmarks instead of two hundred numbers.
• How to Hear Compression: What Actually Gives It Away — the side effects that give it away, and what attack and release sound like.
• How Long Does Ear Training Take to Work? — a realistic timeline from week one to month six.

One last thing

If ear training is on your list because your tracks aren’t sitting right, the fastest wins usually come from better source sounds, not sharper ears alone. Grab our free Serum 2 preset pack and hear what a clean starting point does, or look at the full bundles if you want the whole library. Then go train your ears anyway — the two compound.

Maxim HetmanFounder, Monosounds.studio

I run Monosounds.studio and make the packs myself. Ten-plus years of producing, 97+ releases, 16,000+ downloads. Every Serum 2 preset we ship passes a CPU check on a mid-range laptop and gets used in a real track before release. If it does not survive a mix, it does not go in the pack.

More about Maxim & the studio →

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