QUICK LOOK

• Easy to use
• iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, Nokia and iPad
• Minimal data use

I’m a radio presenter or what most people would call a “DJ”. I’m not comfortable with the term. For a start, these days we don’t actually work with any disks and secondly I am no jock(ey). But who am I to ruin the perception? 

So, given my line of work, I often get asked about songs. The typical question goes like this: “Who sings that one dance song that goes like: Oh baby, baby…” Now, as much as I know about music and the tracks that I play, we can all agree that it’s a bit tough trying to figure something like that out. This is where technology comes in.
Unbelievably there are apps available that can “hear” songs and give you the name and the title in a matter of seconds. It gets better. Some of them can even identify a song that you sing into a device. I use Shazam and more recently discovered Soundhound.

Shazam has come in handy in restaurants and clubs even with the ambient noise interfering. It’s very simple. Open the app and with one press you can “Shazam”. After a few seconds of listening to the track the app searches for a match against its vast catalogue of music.

Once it finds the match you are presented with the single’s album cover, artist, title and given options to share, get tour information and view the video on YouTube. Pretty awesome, right? Right!

Soundhound has identical features except it has a few extras that make it more useful. On top of being able to view the video and share the track you’ve just found you also get the lyrics, similar artists and a list of albums the track appears on. The trump card for me, however, has got to be the feature that allows you to hum or sing the track into your device in order to detect the song. Now that, my friends, makes my life a hell of a lot easier. (FYI you need to actually be able to hold a melody for this to work)

Best of all I haven’t spent a cent on either of them. Shazam allows you five monthly identifications while Soundhound has recently changed allowing unlimited IDs (yet another plus for Soundhound).

For all the music lovers that have some how managed to get a Spotify account, you’ll be pleased to hear that Spotify and Soundhound tied the knot in August and hopefully the rest of South Africa will be able to benefit from this union in the not too distant future. Speaking of local, I did a quick test by playing Tumi and the Volume’s Asinamali and waited for the identification using both apps. Not surprisingly only Soundhound detected the song and Shazam had zip.

Presently though, my social life and music cred have been restored when I can whip out my iPhone, pass it to the “Oh baby, baby” dance music fan and answer with a smile when I say  “Oh yes, that’s Edward Maya with Stereo Love that you’re looking for”.

Turn Ons

• Free music recognition software
• Seriously quick and easy to use
• Remixes and lesser know tracks identified

Turn Offs

• Free apps have lots of ads that clutter screen
• Only some SA music is recognised

PRICE: Free!

(I don’t find it necessary to upgrade. If you do, it’s $5.99 for Shazam Encore and $6.99 SoundHound Infinity.)

Shazam                                                         Soundhound