Michal Ždanský In the App Store we can find a total of three different applications that can recognize the song you are currently hearing on the radio or in a bar. But how to choose the best of them? We therefore made a practical test for you and let these applications recognize a total of 13 lesser-known songs.
Application
SoundHound
SoundHound (formerly Midomi) is a stalwart in the field of music recognition. It has undergone many improvements during its existence and currently offers the most features among its competitors. After launch, the application can record itself without your assistance, in addition to playing music, it can also recognize your singing or humming, for which SoundHound deserves a lot of praise.
In addition to sound, it can also work with text, just type or say (yes, it can recognize words too) the name of a song, band or snippets of song lyrics, and the application will find relevant results for you. In addition, you can listen to a short sample of each song to make sure it is the song you wanted.
Other features include automatic song lyrics search, both for found lyrics and songs played in the Music app. You can also easily move from the app to iTunes where you can purchase the recognized song. The recognition history is also a matter of course. You can also share your finds on social networks and all search results are saved to iCloud
The application is beautifully designed graphically and the control is also very intuitive, after all, how many times can you get by with one big search button and even without it thanks to automatic recognition. There is a paid version and a free version, previously with a limited number of searches per month, now the search is unlimited, there is a permanent advertising banner in the application, and not all features are available.
Soundhound infinite – €5,49 Soundhound - Free
Shazam
Shazam is also in the App Store some Friday and has gained popularity among users mainly due to its simple processing and price, since the application was initially free. There is now a paid version without ads and a free version with ads.
One big button starts the recognition and, like SoundHound, it can be started automatically. In the tab MyTags you will find all the songs you have recognized. From here you can listen to a short sample of the song, go to iTunes to purchase the song, share your discovery on Facebook and Twitter, or delete the song from the list.
Shazam also has two interesting features. The first, social, lets you view recognized tracks discovered by your Facebook friends. To make this function available, the application must be connected to this network. The second function is called Discover and eager to discover new songs and artists. It contains song charts from the American and European charts as well as the ability to search, but the ability to search by text is unfortunately missing.
The paid version will also offer the option of displaying the lyrics of the searched songs. In the case of music, the application can also display the lyrics exactly according to playback, so the text moves by itself according to the song. If you like to sing along to your music, you will definitely appreciate this feature.
Graphically, Shazam neither excites nor offends. The interface is minimalistic and could perhaps deserve a little more care, after all, it still has a lot to catch up against its competition in terms of graphics. You can also buy the RED version in the App Store, where the proceeds will go to help Africa.
Shazam Encore - €4,99 Shazam - Free
MusicID
This app is the freshest of the three. It impresses above all with its beautiful graphics and low price. At the time the application appeared, it had a significantly larger database (which also uses Winamp) than the competition, thus becoming a hit in the American App Store, but today the cards are pretty even.
Unlike competitors, it does not offer automatic start of recognition, but at least it pleases with a beautiful animation during the process. The recognized songs are then saved in the My Songs tab. The application will offer you the option to buy a song on iTunes, watch a video clip on YouTube, read a short biography of the artist in English, the location where you identified the song, the lyrics of the song (only in the version from the US App Store due to the license) and finally display similar songs. The last option is great for discovering new songs.
MusicID can work with songs played in the Music application. If you don't know their name or artist, it can recognize them, again giving you information like a biography or song lyrics. If you're interested in what other people like, you can dig into the Popular tab. If you want to search for a song by artist or a snippet of a song, use the bookmark Search.
In terms of graphics, the application is nothing to read, it looks beautiful and elegant. The control is also very intuitive, what freezes is the absence of some important functions that you will find in the competition, such as identification after starting the application or playing samples of recognized songs for review.
Tracklist
- Cannabis (Ska-P) – A more well-known song by a popular band of the ska genre. The lyrics are sung in Spanish. Link to YouTube
- Biaxident (Liquid Tension Experiment) – Side project of the members of the progressive metal band Dream Theater. Instrumental composition. Link to YouTube
- Hit the Road Jack (Buster Pointdexter) – A swing song made famous by Ray Charles, however many versions of this song can be found. Link to YouTube
- Dante's Prayer (Loreena McKennit) – Ethno composition by a Canadian singer and multi-instrumentalist whose songs are based on Celtic and Middle Eastern music. Link to YouTube
- Windows (Jan Hammer) – An instrumental piece by a world-renowned Czech jazz keyboardist and pianist. You may also know this song from Televní noviny. Link to YouTube
- L`aura (Lucia) – A well-known song by probably the most famous Czech band. Domestic compositions are generally difficult for music identifiers. Link to YouTube
- Wanna Know You (Manafest) – A rock song by a lesser-known Canadian rapper. This song appeared in the game FlatOut 3, which was also released for Mac. Link to YouTube
- Principe (Salsa Kids) – Latin American song from Cuban production, this is a genre typical for Cuba: Cha Cha Cha.
- Sedation (Sun Caged) – a song by a lesser-known Dutch progressive rock band. Link to YouTube
- Cameleon (Sergio Dalma) – Another Cha Cha Cha, this time produced by a pop Spanish singer. Link to YouTube
- Song of the Nile (Dead Can Dance) – This Australian group is very well known especially in the ethno genre, based mainly on Celtic, African and Gaelic music. Link to YouTube
- The Coffee Song (Frank Sinatra) – One of the most famous singers of the 50s. The selected composition is strongly inspired by Brazilian samba. Link to YouTube
- Night Owls (Vaya Con Dios) – A swing song by a relatively unknown Belgian group that became famous especially in the 80s and 90s. Link to YouTube
Comparison result and verdict
As we can see from the table, none of the applications fared significantly well or badly against the others. All three performed relatively well, SoundHound was the best with 10/13 songs recognized, and MusicID was the worst with 8/13. There is no clear winner in this comparison, if we were to use other tracks the results might be similar but in favor of another of the trio.
Interestingly, there were songs that were recognized by only one application. With the biggest nut, a composition from home production (L`aura) only Shazam could figure out. And only one song could not be handled by any application (Night Owls). SoundHound boasts the most solo hits.
From the results, it can be said that all of the tested track identifiers are very reliable and usually recognize 90-95% of what you hear on the radio or in a club. For the lesser-known ones, the results may vary significantly. Since two of these apps also offer a free version, we recommend purchasing one of the apps as your primary app and using one of the free versions of SoundHound or Shazam as a backup.
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So I have a different experience with Shazam. I listen to Radio Wave all day, so alternative music and unlike SoundHound, Shazam is 100% successful for me. True, he didn't recognize it once, but that was because the song was ending and I didn't make it. Otherwise, really 20 successful tags from the last 20 recordings. On the other hand, I lacked patience with SoundHound, because I deleted it after the first three unrecognized tracks :)
Definitely SoundHound for me. From my own experience, I had the fewest unidentified songs with him.
When listening to Radio 1 in the car, it usually hits, which, given the alternative feel of the radio, indicates a quality database.
SoundHound for me. Since I often show a lot of shops with rags for young people, I often play selections or remixes there that people don't normally hear on the radio, when I like something, I just turn on the app and voila, mostly it's straight away with a link to YouTube or iTunes =), for after two years of use, he couldn't handle only two songs.
By the way, the free versions of both SoundHound and Shazam are already unlimited in number of searches, they differ from the paid ones in the display of advertisements and a couple of additional functions.
As for the graphics processing, MusicID offends me the least, but SoundHound is terrible, it looks like it's from Windows.
The author could read the very first sentence in the description of the app on SoundHound's App Store before claiming that he has a limited number of searches per month :)
That used to be the case with SoundHound and Shazam. I noticed the transition to ads with Shazam, but not with SoundHound, as I have the full version. I will fill in
And what to use to search for classical music? I tried Shazam a while ago with no success. Does anyone know of anything that would work?
MusicID works for classics, it has found 99% of my songs so far. But it is true that it is not exotic - Dvorak, Holst, Rachmaninov...
Soundtracking is missing.