There’s nothing more annoying than a song stuck in your head. It is more annoying if you don’t remember the artist’s or the song’s name and neither the lyrics, so you are merely humming, and that isn’t going anywhere soon. Well, thanks to the sound recognizing algorithm, AI, ML, and other advanced techs, you can now find out the name of the song by simply giving in the instrumental or a small sample.
Song identifier apps come in very handy when you want to know what song is playing inside the restaurant or the movie you’re watching. These song identifier apps basically scan their catalog and try to find the closest match. It will give you various information such as title, artist, album, and other meta information as well. In fact, few companies have taken things up a notch by allowing users to simply hum the song to find out the match.
Well, in this listicle, we decided to feature the best apps and tools that you can use when you ask yourself “what song is this” and finally escape from the vicious circle to find out the answer!
10 Best Song Identifier Apps and Tools
There are a bunch of apps and tools available on the Internet that help us find the name of the songs within minutes. What makes things worse is the fact that most of them are mere gimmicks. To save you up from all these hassles, we decided to try out a few of them. This article features only the best of them!
1. Shazam
Shazam is undoubtedly the best music discovery or song identifier app available out there. All you have to do is simply launch the app and place it near the source of the music and bingo. It takes just a few seconds to recognize any song from any genre, year, or artists. The app finds the song’s name along with all other information like artist, album, lyrics, etc. It syncs with Spotify, Apple Music, and other services outright, allowing users to listen to their searched song. The app works on offline mode too, and has dark mode if you ever need it.
Shazam has made its name as one of the most advanced and efficient song identifier apps available out there with maximum accuracy. Once you get a hold of it, I doubt you would need any other app for sure. Just make sure that the music is played for a few seconds and let its under-the-hood algorithms take over recognizing and showing the matched results.
Key Features:
- Takes a second to recognize songs
- Shows complete information about songs
- Dark Mode
- Time-synced lyrics
- Links to Spotify, Apple Music, & YouTube
2. Musixmatch Lyrics
Another app that uses the ACRCloud database pretty extensively, Musixmatch Lyrics, is a robust app that offers a mind-boggling music playback experience. It doubles as an app to find music as you can identify any music by tapping its “Identify” button. The app synchronizes the song being identified and pairs it with the lyrics for a word-by-word singing experience.
The app has plenty of features including the ability to sync with many music streaming services such as Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Prime Music among others. Musixmatch works on your Apple Watch as well. Check out the list of favorite songs that you have identified and listened to. There are plenty of premium features, including no ads, offline lyrics, party mode, no commitment, and so on. In fact, Musixmatch has become so popular for its lyrics database that Spotify has ended up integrating it right inside its application.
You might have noticed a sync lyrics section right below the music player in the Spotify app. Well, that’s the Musixmatch Lyrics integration in play. With that said, if you’re looking for a song identifier app that can also give you synced lyrics, then Musixmatch Lyrics is what you need.
Key Features
- Offline lyrics
- Identify music on a single tap
- It doubles as a music player app as well
- Syncs lyrics with identified songs in real-time
3. SoundHound
What’s that song, you ask? If that’s the question that keeps your mind filled up, SoundHound is for you. The app can recognize any song from any era, genre, artist, album, and others being played in a movie, TV show, or somewhere on someone’s phone or computer, or even speaker. Simply launch the app and tap the button for it to record, and bingo, you have just identified a new song or an oldie you forgot the title of. SoundHound works efficiently like Shazam but gives it an edge as it has a voice-activated system where you can simply say, “OK SoundHound, what’s that song?” and let run the app.
There’s more to it. The app lets you recognize a song by merely humming it, although you need a thorough vocal interpretation for the app to identify it accurately. But it does gives you options resembling the humming sample you provided. It keeps track of your previous discoveries, can play your charts, and more.
Key Features:
- Recognizes songs instantly
- Voice-activated search
- Tracks history of discoveries
- Integrates with LiveLyrics for real-time lyrics
4. Google Assistant
If you are an Android user, you seriously don’t need a third-party app to identify any songs. Google Assistant has a Sound Search feature that users advanced music recognition, ML, and artificial intelligence to find the song they are searching for. It takes a few seconds, but you will get accurate results for sure. Google has trained the AI enough to recognize even if you are humming, although you would need to have an excellent vocal interpretation for recognition.
The sound search feature on Google Assistant uses advanced AI for both songs and humming and compares it with the database it has to find the results. Since it conducts all these operations in a server-side system, the process isn’t confined by processing capacity or storage. The feature finds the nearest match to the song or hum you provide as a sample. Plus, Google keeps updating it, and thus, it remains on top with the latest features, functionalities, higher accuracy rate, and so on.
Google has also natively implemented its algorithm to Pixel devices allowing users to find out the song by humming right from the lock screen.
Key Features:
- Recognizes both songs and hums
- Server-side system for faster processing
- It can be summoned with voice.
- Quick and robust
5. Siri
Now that I mentioned that you could use Google Assistant to find music, Siri on iOS devices has a similar feature too. Simply ask Siri, “What’s playing?”, “What song is this?” by activating Siri and it should be able to name the song right away. Note that unlike Google Sound Search that is now capable of returning results even with humming songs, Siri cannot do it. Thus, you need to make sure that the source sound is audible for the voice assistant to return the results.
You can view the songs you identified earlier with their links to iTunes, where you can buy it. There are a few shortcomings with the preview section as it cannot list songs that aren’t available to buy.
Key Features:
- Recognizes songs
- Shows links to purchase on iTunes
- Voice-activated music recognition
- Built-in on iOS devices
6. AHA Music
AHA Music is an online website that allows music recognition on the web. It has a website that uses a powerful database of ACRCloud and often recognizes music in a few seconds, even if the website mentions 15 seconds of recordings is required. AHA Music also has Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge extensions that let you record any clipping and get the music recognized on the go.
AHA Music can also recognize songs using humming and singing recordings as well which is something Google sound search (via Google Assistant) can do as well. I found it quite intriguing as I played music on my phone, turned on the recording, and just 3-4 seconds when the song started; of course, with only instruments playing in the background, the website recognized the song. That is why I have listed AHA Music here, and you must try it too.
Key Features:
- Recognizes songs by music, singing, and humming as well
- Works on headphones as well
- Free to use and simple
- Chrome & Edge extensions available too
Visit: AHA Music
7. Genius
Search for any song lyrics on Google, and you would see Genius on top of the results. It is one of the largest song lyrics websites with more than 1.7 million songs available with their lyrics. Its Android and iOS apps have a feature that’s something we are pretty much interested in here. I am talking about its robust music identification feature as the app lets you recognize any music being played.
Simply hold your phone up close to the source, launch the app, tap on the soundwave button located on the top-right corner, and bingo. Genius will automatically take you to the lyrics in real-time. It also uses ACRCloud as AHA Music to recognize music from its massive database.
Key Features
- 1.7 million-plus song lyrics
- Recognize songs and annotates lyrics
- Free to use
- Knows latest stories related to the music world
8. MusicID
There are plenty of song recognition apps available on both the Apple App Store and Google Play Store, and MusicID is probably one of the best few. It is free and available on both the marketplaces intended to identify any song from any source you come across. If big names like Shazam or Siri don’t work for you, turn towards MusicID as the app identifies songs with optimum accuracy.
It gives you information related to the title, artist, information related to the movie and TV shows about the artist in question, the artists’ biography, links to play the song, and so on. MusicID is super easy to use. Simply launch the app, tap on the giant red-colored mic button at the bottom and let the app listen to the music for a few seconds. It will return you the results, links to buy, sharing options, and a place to mark notes. You can also check out the list of songs you identified earlier as well.
Key Features:
- Simply and easy to use
- Shows a large set of data related to songs and artists
- Tracks history of identified song
9. BeatFind Music Recognition
If your sole task is to find that piece of music or song played in the background or a movie or a TV show, BeatFind Music Recognition is there for you. It cuts down the frill of having a heavy UI, and instead, it has a simple, easy to use, and minimalistic UI that has a simple job, identifying your music.
BeatFind returns your results, including the title and album of the identified song, artist, and his/her biography, links to music streaming platforms like Spotify. You can also redirect to YouTube or search for it on Google right from the app itself. It barely takes a few seconds to identify any song as ACRCloud powers the app. Other features include hypnotic visualizer, Party Mode, tracking the history of searched/identified songs, and more.
Key Features:
- Minimalistic UI
- Powered by ACRCloud
- History tab that tracks searches
Download: Android
10. Midomi
Are you still trying to figure out that very song that is stuck in your head? Try Midomi, which is a great music recognition website powered by SoundHound. The website gives you a cleaner UI to interact with a giant microphone button that you press and let the service run to collect the sound sample. It then runs it on its database to find a match, and bingo, you have just identified a song that almost killed you (metaphorically), causing utmost irritation as you couldn’t get it out of your head.
It can also recognize music even if you hum, which is an excellent feature since not everyone knows the lyrics for all the songs. Midomi is robust, efficient, and works like a charm. It gives you the option to play the identified music on YouTube or any other platform, purchase links, and so on.
Key Features:
- Easy to use
- Powered by SoundHound
- Recognizes music even when humming
Website: Midomi
Which Are Your Favorite Song Identifier Apps?
That’s it! We have listed the best apps, tools and websites available right now that you can use to identify any type of music. Note that some apps/tools are genuinely efficient, accurate, and on-point, while some might show you similar results but aren’t strapped with many features. You can try out the popular song identifier apps when you have the question “what song is this” come to your mind, or check out the ones you never heard of to see how they work!
Also Read: Best Audible Alternatives in 2022
