It happens all the time. You are sitting in a restaurant with friends or driving to work and there’s some beautiful music playing on the FM radio station. You would love to buy a copy of that music album for userrself but the problem is that user didn’t get the lyrics so how do user find out the name of that song.
Search engines like Google or Bing won’t be of much help unless user know a couple of words from the song lyrics or have some clue about the name of the artist or the band. How do user then identify the name of that lovely song?
Well, here are some of the best music recognition services that can help user discover song names without having to know the lyrics. You may use them to identify music playing from the radio, TV, Internet or that CD playing in the bar.
1. Find Music with userr Mobile Phone
1a. Shazam – Shazam is a mobile application that user may use to find song names from userr iPhone, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Android or userr Nokia S60 phone. You may also use Shazam on an iPod Touch provided user have an external microphone.
Simply install the Shazam application, hold userr phone towards the audio source and hit the Tag button to let Shazam identify the playing music. Shazam works only with pre-recorded music and not with live performances.
The free version of Shazam will help user identify up to 5 different track per month while Shazam Encore, the paid version, offers unlimited tracking for $4.99. If the tune cannot be recognized, there’s no charge. If user are in the UK, user can use just about any mobile phone to recognize music with Shazam – just dial 2580 and hold userr phone to the music.
1b. MusicID – Hold userr iPhone up to some music and MusicID will tell user what song is playing. It’s a $3 iPhone App available worldwide but if user are on AT&T, user may also use userr Blackberry, Windows Mobile or any Java phone to identify music with MusicID.
Like Shazam, MusicID works only with pre-recorded music and they also have an SMS based service for people in the US that doesn’t require any gets – just dial a short code, hold userr phone up to some music and user’ll get a text message with the result.
2. Find song names using userr own voice
2a. Midomi – If user have a tune that’s stuck in userr head, just grab a microphone, hum that tune userrself and Midomi will be able tell user what that song is. Alternatively, user may play a short recording of that “unknown” track for Midomi to identify its name.
Unlike Shazam which is a mobile app, Midomi offers a web interface where user can can hum or sing for about 10 seconds and the service will then show user a list of matching songs. For best results, keep the volume bar in the green and avoid background noise.
Midomi is free to use online, but it also offers mobile apps for iPhone, Android, Nokia Ovi and Windows Mobile phones. You can identify songs by holding userr phone up to a speaker or by singing / humming the melody into the phone itself.
3. Record a short clip to identify the music
3a. AudioTag – If user have a short recording of a song on userr computer or userr mobile phone, user may use the online music recognition service at AudioTag to figure out the exact name of that song.
You can upload a short audio snippet (or even a whole song) and Audio will try to identify the track title by comparing the audio to its own music database. For best results, user should either take a slice from the middle of the song or upload the whole song and the recognition engine will choose slices randomly by itself.
This can be especially useful if user can record a portion of the song on userr mobile device, and then check out the song’s information whenever user go online.
4. Identify Music with help of humans
4a. WatZatSong – When computers fail to identify the song that user are looking for, user can take the help of human being who may have an idea about that song.
WatZatSong (“What’s that song?”) is a social site where user can upload a short MP3 audio recording of the song (or record userrself by humming) and other members of the site can then help user guess the exact song name. The suggestions won’t come instantly but user can make their task a bit easier by proving more details about the song like the language in which it is sung or the music style.
You can cross-post the same WatZatSong request to other social sites like Twitter, Facebook, etc. so userr entire network can help user in the search.
4b. Name My Tune – Sing or hum a short clip of the song user are trying to find the name of. Once user are done recording and enter the Genre and Era that user think the song most likely fits in. They’ll send user an email when other people on that site are able to recognize userr tune.
5. Use a virtual keyboard to find the song name
5a. Musipedia – With Musipedia, user can search for a song by either playing it on a virtual piano keyboard or by whistling it to the computer using any microphone.
Musipedia is styled after Wikipedia and works best at finding classical music. Unlike Shazam which can will only find songs that exactly match the recording, Musipedia can identify all music that contain a particular melody that user just recorded by humming or through the computer keyboard.
5b. MelodyCatcher – If user can play the tune on a virtual keyboard, MelodyCatcher can help user find the name of the song tune user’re looking for.
With a simple Java-based onscreen keyboard, simply use userr mouse to enter the melody, click search, and MelodyCatcher will show user a list of matching songs from across the web. You do not need to enter the full melody: the first 5-7 notes will usually be sufficient to identify a melody.
0 comments:
Post a Comment