Surely on more than one occasion, you have heard a song in the background, on the radio in a store, in the music of a shopping center, in a movie or series, in an advertisement ... At that moment you have put your brain maxed out to try recognize what song it is or look for a reference that allows you to search for it later on the internet.
The solution is much simpler than it seems since, thanks to music recognition systems, we can make use of applications to recognize music completely free. These applications are available mainly on mobile platforms, iOS and Android, although we can also find some available for computers, although they do not work as well.
The applications available in both the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store, allow us, with a simple click, to recognize any song that is heard decently, since, depending on the performance of the device, it may have more or less quality in the microphone, element used to capture the elements of the song, convert them to 0 and 1 and compare it against a gigantic database to thus find with the song we are looking for.
Shazam
Obviously, I could not fail to mention the most used application in the world to recognize any song that sounds in our environment. Shazam is an English company that was compared by Apple in 2018, although continues to operate independently.
To be under the Apple umbrella, Shazam is integrated into Siri, Apple's virtual assistant, so it is not necessary to install the application for iOS, since we can use the Apple assistant to recognize songs, although the process is much slower than with the Shazam application.
Shazam stores a record all songs that we recognize through the application and it allows us to listen to the full version through different streaming music services that we have contracted, be it Apple Music, Spotify, Amazon Music ...
When the app became part of Apple, the Cupertino-based company removed the paid version and got rid of monetization in the form of ads offered by the application, so that today, it is together with the Google assistant, one of the best options to recognize music.
Google search engine
Google is much more than a search engine. We can use the Google application, available for both iOS and Android to bsearch the songs that sound in our environment. We just have to click on the microphone, which allows us to search using voice commands, and wait until it recognizes the song.
In just a few seconds, the Google search engine it will show us the name of the song, along with the artist and the album where we can find them. Depending on the song, you can optionally show us a link to the full version of the song available through YouTube.
SoundHound
An interesting and very important alternative to both the Google search engine and Shazam, we find it in the SoundHound application, the greatest rival that Shazam has always had. This application, with more than 300 million downloads on both mobile platforms, allows us to quickly identify songs that surround us in addition to showing us the lyrics of the songs.
In addition, it also allows us hum the songs that have come to mind so that the application takes care of the rest. It includes a record of all the searches we have carried out, it allows us to access biographies of groups and artists as well as meeting new singers.
If we have contracted a streaming music service, either Spotify or Apple Music, we can link our accounts with SoundHound to listen to the songs that we recognize through the application, the same function that is also available through Shazam.
SoundHound is available for your download completely free and it includes ads but not in-app purchases, as its only monetization system is ads. If we want to avoid ads, we can buy the application for 5,49 euros in the Android version. If we want to buy the version without ads on iOS, we will have to pay 7,99 euros.
Musixmatch
In addition to allowing us to recognize the music in our environment, with Musixmatch we can also enjoy our favorite lyrics as if it were karaoke linking our streaming music platforms such as Spotify, Apple Music, SoundCloud, Google Music, Amazon Music ...
In the Android version, we find a widget that will activate the microphone of our device so that we can quickly know the song that is playing, along with the lyrics of the song. In addition, it offers us the possibility of show lyrics translated into spanish, so it is also a great option to practice other languages.
Musixmatch integrates with YouTubeTherefore, if we do not have a contracted music streaming platform, we can use the Google video platform to enjoy the songs that we recognize through the application. The application stores a record with all the songs it recognizes and allows us to create a playlist on Spotify.
Musicxmatch is available for download for free, contains ads and in-app purchases that remove them and offer a series of exclusive functions that are not available in the free version, although if you only want to recognize the songs that are playing around you, the free version is more than enough.
Deezer
The streaming music service of French origin, with more than 70 million songs, also allows us to recognize the songs that sound in our environment through the function songcatcher, a function that in addition to showing us the name of the song, album and author, also allows us to access the lyrics of the song.
Application stores a record of all songs that we play, songs that we can quickly convert a production playlist. Other functionalities that Deezer also offers us and that, like its song recognition system, is very little known, is the possibility of listening to radio stations from all over the world.
The Deezer app is available for your download for free, but to get the most out of it, we must make use of a subscription, a subscription that is not necessary to use SongCatcher and recognize the songs that sound in our environment.
Snapchat
Yes, you are reading well. This platform of ephemeral photographs also allows us to recognize the songs that sound around us since Shazam is integrated in it, so it is not necessary to use the Shazam application, or an account on this platform to be able to recognize songs.
To identify a song through Snapchat, we must open the camera application and hold down the button so that the application automatically returns the name of the song. This application stores a record of all the songs you have identified, registration found within the Additional Services section.
