The truth is that being able to play what you hear is the single most important skill for improvisers. All the great improvisers can play what they imagine, pre-hear what they're thinking of, and recognize what the band is doing, no matter what genre of music they play. It's the difference between running scales and licks and spontaneously composing great music. Between good solos and great.
The good news is... this is a learnable skill. It might take you a long time and a lot of work, but you can do it. And the fastest way to master it is to work on training exercises that specifically target your weaknesses, in addition to playing songs by ear and transcribing. The Serious Music Training tools are designed entirely around doing this in the most time-effective way possible. Trust us, they work.
Effective ear training is about specifically targeting what you need to work on and cranking out the repetitions. A host of options enables custom exercises for complete beginners through to seasoned pros.
Work fast with no need to click buttons or even read the screen. Key announce, pedal control, auto-advance timers, MIDI input answering, and much more. Apps are 100% web-based (Chrome & Firefox), with nothing more to install.
Almost everything in the SMT apps can be configured and saved to make custom exercises that work the way you want, with fine-grained key, interval, and pitch probability settings and weightings.