The 8 Best Appts To Find THAT Song

Having a tune stuck inside my head is one of the most excruciating experiences, I can have. It often comes down to distract me from my work and annoy me to death until the buzz muffles.

But, of course, there is something even worse - to have tune stuck inside my head and have no idea who the artist is, or what the title of the song is. It makes me waste hours, roaming the search engines with what little clues I have about the song and the end, more often than not come out empty handed with my frustration meter going off the chart.

People know how daunting the experience is, so now we have tens of different apps to assist us in out song hunting quest.

Naturally, with everything else, there is quite the competition between the different apps, and things have gotten a little confusing about what to use and who's the best. I found that the hard way.

Being not particularly skilful in using a smartphone, I only started to use such services recently. From the car of the move out cleaning crew, I hired in London, I heard this particularly amazing song.

Naturally, wanting to have it in my library, I went down on an thorough search for apps and tools to help me get the job down. All listed below, are the cherry in the cake for their particular use and functionality.

You're probably using at least one of them already, but since no one of them is perfect, I imagine this list will get the job done eventually and discover you that long awaited tune

1. Shazam

The original song hunter, still hasn't lost it's value. Shazam allows you to identify an on going song within the reach of your year. You pull up the app and tap the "tag" button. The app then needs around ten seconds to compare the song with it's database and pull out a result page with the title, artist, biography and useful links like the Amazon or iTunes link to purchase. e

It's song recognition capabilities are on definite par and sometimes overtaking the ones of it's most common competitor - SoundHound, while the interface, with it's most recent update is elegant, slick and easy to use.

The downside of the app is you're only allowed to snag five songs a month, using the free version. The paid one - five dollars per month - offers unlimited searches.

The app is available for any large mobile operating system (iOS, Android, Blackberry and Windows Phone). As extra to it's main purpose, Shazam also allows you to identify TV shows, something that is easy to overlook, because the channel provider, often runs a list in the menu, but non-the-less, it's there for you to use, if you with to.

2. SoundHound

Compared to the all-father - Shazam, SoundHound is similar in effectiveness, better at functionality and worse in user experience. The same principles apply in both apps - you fire the app and tap the button.

What makes this app unique and more functional is it's ability to understand and recognise more inputs of information. While Shazam exclusively works with pre-recorded versions of the song - meaning it need the original song to be able to output an accurate result, SoundHound does more. It allows you to sing, or hum the song into the microphone, while providing a definite answer.

It also features an incredibly detailed results page, adding more to the results of Shazam with links to Radio, Spotify and Youtube as a source of free use, along with tour dates, albums and similar artists. The most surprising function of the app, which earns it it's rightful place in this article is it's ability to synch live lyrics of the song in question with the external playing source - something that's downright gnarly.

The downsize of the app, is, although it provides more information, does it less joyful to the user way. The UI is less visually appealing and cluttered due to the multiple functions the app offers. Sometimes it may be even a bit confusing to new users to tackle in those split seconds before the song ends and is lost forever.

The tool comes in a free and paid version. The difference between them is that the latter is ad-free.

3. Hound

The little brother of our previous entry is a hefty music search tool. The app resembles a specialised version of Siri, as it substitutes typing fields for accurate voice recognition. Just speak out loud the name of the song, album, artist or band and it will proc you with a detailed screen on everything there is to know for your search queries. Beyond the music the app goes out and gathers recent tweets and status updates from the artist or band social profiles.

The downside to the tools is that you can't simple search for something you heard somewhere that sounded like some other thing. Hound requires you to know at least some part of the song. Regardless, if you know what you're looking for, this app is one of the best tools out there to help you find it.

Available for iOS and Android, the app is completely free and as easy to use as anything ever was. Clearly, that's quite hard to beat.

4. musiXmatch

This application is targeted towards finding lyrics mainly, rather than finding the songs themselves, but that is also an equally part of the song of everyone out there, me included, who likes to sing along and become part of the experience.

MusiXmatch is the best mobile lyrics search engine, with a staggering 5.5 million officially confirmed and licensed songs in 18 languages. That is quite the database and I have not yet found something it didn't have. Of course highly localised and niche songs might prove difficult for it, but so they will with any listed application in this article.

The cool thing about the tool is it's integration with Apple products. It can analyse you entire iPod or iPhone music library and synch it with lyrics from it's database.

Of course, the tool allows you to search for songs and artists, and just like any other search engine provides with biographies, albums, links and the likes.

5. WhatZatSong

Analysis algorithms and databases are not perfect. As I said earlier above, a highly localised and niche song (e.g. A garage band in your neighbourhood, that has no official records.) will prove difficult to find via any automated application. Fear not! Where machine fails there are always other people ready to kick in and do work. WhatZatSong is one example. This is a community site, or maybe even a social network around the purpose of enriching our own biological music libraries.

The website functions pretty straightforward, you upload a sample file with audio on it. It can be anything from the original song, to a hand-made recording of your neighbour singing it under the shower. Other members will listen through and give their suggestions on what might the song, artist or your neighbour be called.

Of course, being user-generated, the answers will not come down raining in ten seconds, but eventually, you will get the song you want. Helping out with whatever information you have available will definitely narrow down the search for other and help increase the speed and accuracy of the results. The site also allows you to cross-share the search in social media to expand the number of people that get to hear out the sample.

I find it a well-proven "last attempt" on finding the music stuck into your brain.

6. NameMyTune

Similar to the previous entry, but much more automated, this application allows you to use live people to identify your song. You must sing part of it, or even hum it into a recording. Afterwards, enter additional information like Genre and wait.

Once the people on the website have managed to hunt down your song, you will receive an e-mail with all the details about it. Similarly, you can payback in both websites by going through other people's search queries and help out yourself. Honestly, to keep the flow going and no abuse the system, I often track down a song or two, every time I use the site for myself.

I'd even add a suggestion to the developers. Why not gain promotional rank and receive faster service, if you also help out a bit yourself. But, that's not something I should pitch to you, at all.

7. Musipedia

Now, this tools is something different altogether. It's targeted to musicians and especially pianists. It offers a variety of apps for a music-savvy person to make use of.

Generally, the core of it is the same as with most other application - you input an audio source and wait for the analysing algorithm to do it's work. The unique in the tools, is it allows you to actually play the song on a virtual piano keyboard. After you finish your masterpiece cover it will playback the song for you to confirm and then proceeds to find out the original recording.

Alternatively, you can do a rhythm and contour search, again outlining different attributes to the song. Also, but probably least surprising is the option to record something via microphone and let it be the analysed piece.

All in all, the tool leaves you with a strong variety of options to find out the missing song and artist. Yes, it's not for everyone as it requires certain skill-sets not everybody has (e.g. Me), but for those that do, it allows for much more freedom to express the song you want to snag.

8. MelodyCatcher

This is a similar service to Musipedia, but focused onto less musical oriented people. It's a steady and simple to use Java virtual keyboard, with the ability to edit and interchange the tunes as you're figuring out how to map the melody to the keys.

These options allows for someone like me that has zero piano skills to quickly map out a short melody (5-10 notes). Using this short musical snippet, the application is usually able to find the entire piece, provided you are at least close to accurate.