# Preferences

Better Ears lets you customize your experience through preferences.

You can reach the preferences either by clicking on "Preferences …" in the Better Ears menu or by using the keyboard shortcut `"cmd-,"`.

## Exercises

You can tailor each exercise specifically to your needs and abilities. Depending on the exercise, the following options are available:

- Set the upper and lower limit of the note range in Root note. Exercises will be chosen at random from this range. If you want to set only one note, you will need to enter the same note in both popup menus.
- Choose a Level from the four presets and/or your own custom levels.*
- Use Play mode to tell Better Ears whether it should play the exercises staccato, legato, arpeggio oder polyphonically.
- Activate the Play descending option to play the notes in reverse order during exercises.
- If Show first note is activated, the first note will be shown on the keyboard or fretboard.
- Choose Show note names to display the note names on the staff.
- Set the Number of tries at how many attempts you get on each question.
- Tempo sets the Tempo of the exercise in BPM (Beats Per Minute).
- Should Better Ears also play Chord inversions?
- Set how much Time to answer you are given. If you enter a time limit here, a Timer with the remaining time will be shown next to the Play Button.
- In exercises with Chord progressions and Pitches, you can also set the Note length.
- Enter the Number of beats a Tempo exercise should have.
- If Root note in same octave is checked, the root note stays in chord progression exercises always in the same octave.
- With Play answers from sidebar you can specify whether you want to hear your answer, if you click an item on the sidebar.

## General

The preferences in the "General" tab apply to all exercises:

- If you choose the Auto Play option, Better Ears will automatically progress to the next question after the set number of seconds. You can also choose to automatically progress only if you have selected the correct answer. If you have selected this option, a timer with the remaining time is shown next to the play button.
- Choose whether Note names are displayed in the system's current language, in an international format (C, D, E, F, G, A, B) or as Solfège (do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, si).
- Octave numbers:
  - None: All notes will be displayed without octave number.
  - Scientific: C0, the lowest audible note, is 16Hz. Middle C (261.63Hz) is written as C4, A (444Hz) above Middle C as A4.
  - MIDI: This notation is based on a plethora of different MIDI devices and software. Middle C (261.63 Hz) is written as C3.
  - French: This notation is simular to MIDI octave numbering. The difference is that octave 0 is omitted and instead written as -1. C0 will be written as C-1 and C-1 will be written as C-2.
  - Helmholtz: This uses a combination of upper and lower case letters, as well as low and high prime marks ( ͵  ′ ) to describe a note.
- If the option Ignore octave when entering notes is activated, the tones can also be entered with the keyboard or microphone in a different octave.
- Should Better Ears play a sound when the correct answer is chosen? If so, choose which alert tone you would like to hear.
- Would you prefer to hear an sound when an incorrect answer is selected? If so, you can choose the alert tone here.

## Audio / MIDI

Here you can modify your Audio and MIDI preferences:

- MIDI-IN: If a MIDI-In device is connected to a MIDI interface, you will be able to select the device here. Normally this is a MIDI master keyboard.
  Choose via "Channel", on which MIDI channel Better Ears should listen for MIDI events. If only one MIDI device is connected, you can set this to "All". If MIDI-THRU is activated, all incoming MIDI events are automatically forwarded to MIDI-OUT.
- MIDI-OUT: This is where you can select your MIDI sound module, which will take over playing sound from your system. Here you can also set your MIDI channel and the velocity for normal and rhythmical exercises (e.g. BPM).
  If you don't own an external MIDI sound module, then you can use the build in "Better Ears SoftSyth" or the system's "Apple DLS SoftSynth", a.k.a. "Quicktime Music Sythensizer".
  Tip: If you choose the "Apple DLS SoftSynth", the operating system will ask whether you want to accept to lower your security settings. This is necessary as Better Ears cannot access audio sample files on your system without permission. Rest assured, your Mac is as safe as it ever was.
- MIDI Remote Control: Pick two keys on a MIDI keyboard as your start and repeat exercise keys. You can set these keys really easily on your MIDI keyboard, by clicking the Capture button and then pressing the appropriate key on your device.
- Microphone / Pitch detection: Here you can setup the microphone threshold. The lower the threshold value, the more sensitive the microphone is. At a high threshold, you have to sing/play louder so the note can be detected.

## Custom Levels*

You can easily create your own custom levels.

To create a new level, simply click "+" in the bottom left corner of the window and choose the desired exercise. By default, the name "New Level" is used, but you can change this directly within the window. Simply double-click on a name at any time in order to change it. You can then choose which elements you want to include in your level using the list on the right hand side.
In order to delete a level, select it from the list on the left hand side and then click "-".

## Synchronisation

This feature allows you to keep your Macs and iOS devices in sync at all times. Currently only synchronization via Dropbox is supported. Therefore, you need an Dropbox account to use this feature.

Click on the checkbox "Dropbox sync" to connect to Dropbox and activate the function. Then your browser will open to authenticate yourself with Dropbox and to grant Better Ears access.
After successful authentication, you can select the areas you want to synchronize:

- Statistics
- Custom Levels
- Preferences

Note: The individual databases (such as statistics) are not merged, but transferred as a whole. This means that if you are working on 2 devices (eg iPhone and Mac) at the same time, conflicts can occur. In this case, Better Ears will show a dialog, which gives you the ability to solve them:

In this dialog all areas are listed in which conflicts have occurred during the last synchronization. Select the corresponding area in the upper list and then choose from the buttons below if you prefer to use the data from your Mac or Dropbox. Once all conflicts are resolved, the dialog closes by itself.

*Only available in the full version of Better Ears