How to identify a music song not by lyrics, but by sound

Posted on January 22, 2008 at 6:39 am

Ever heard of a song identifier or a music identification software? Well usually when I hear a song and want to know the singer or the name of the song, I end up going to relying on a music search engine where I can find a song by it’s lyrics. I had written a few months back about how to find the name or title of a song by lyrics, if you know them.

But there’s also another cool way you can identify a song and that’s by having a piece of software listen to it, identify it within a few seconds and then tell you what it is!

Tunatic is a freeware application for Windows and Mac OS X that will listen to a song and transmit the song’s features to the Tunatic servers to search for a matching song.

tunatic

To run Tunatic on your computer, you’ll need the following:

  • A PC running Windows 2000, XP or better
    or A macintosh running Mac OS X v10.2 or better
  • Internet access
  • A microphone plugged into your computer. Alternatively, you can plug your sound source directly to your computer.

If you don’t have a mic, you might still be able to get it to work by plugging in your sound source (i.e. radio, etc) directly into your computer’s microphone jack. You’ll have to get an inexpensive audio cable for this setup.

You can also identify songs that are being streamed to your computer (from an Internet radio station, etc) without using a microphone. Most PC sound cards allow you to select as input “What You Hear”, also named “Stereo Mix” or “Mixed Output”. You can configure this by right-clicking on Tunatic’s window, selecting Preferences, and then clicking on the Configure button. For Mac’s, you can use a software such as SoundFlower or Jack OS X to do the same thing.

So can Tunatic identify any type of music? It can identify music from any genre except for classical. Also, Tunatic can only identify songs that are in it’s database, which is kept-up-to-date by a community of Tunatic users using a program called Tunalyzer. If someone is not showing up, you can add it to the Tunalyzer database easily.

tunatic songs

Tunatic can only identify recorded songs, so you can’t record yourself singing a Britney Spears song and expect Tunatic to figure that out!

If you get an error message saying the server is unreachable, you need to make sure ports 5747 and 5748 are open on your firewall. Also, Tunatic will not work through a proxy server. If you get a message saying “Signal too weak” that means the music is not loud enough.

Tunatic seems like a pretty cool piece of software and if you listen to a lot of Internet radio stations, it may be worth trying so you can identify which song you are listening too. Enjoy!

[tags]song identifier, words to song, identify song, identify songs, identify music, identify a song, identifying songs, identifying music, identifying a song[/tags]

» Filed Under Free Software Downloads

Related Posts

Comments

61 Responses to “How to identify a music song not by lyrics, but by sound”

  1. ZaZu said on : February 12th, 2009 at 5:07 pm

    THANK YOU !!!THANK YOU !!!THANK YOU !!!THANK YOU !!!

    Errm, a bit over excited, thanks :)

    I wanted to know what is the name of this song for literary more than a year, I keep forgetting to ask people around.

    Safri Duo – PlaYed a Live (the Bong Song)

    Ahhhh

    Thanks, works like a charm

    Thank you very much !!!!

    —Who ever says that google searching is useless is IGNORANT :)

    wonderful article


  2. am said on : February 20th, 2009 at 8:50 pm

    Can it ID songs in diminished quality, ie songs on youtube or songs in the background of a TV show?


  3. jay said on : March 17th, 2009 at 10:18 am

    does this software identify non-english songs? i found a hindi song on youtube and i’d like to identify it.


  4. Someone said on : April 10th, 2009 at 2:52 pm

    Wow, it works great! I was trying to identify an instrumental song (no lyrics) and it only took a couple of seconds. The song was Cliffs of Dover by Eric Johnson. Thanks!!


  5. Juanita said on : May 24th, 2009 at 7:14 pm

    hi, i’m trying to identify an electro song in a mix, is there any way i can be able to do that? i tried TuneUp and Tunatic, both were only able to help me with main-stream music. Is there any music identification program that can be able to identify electro music?


  6. iugafuygyauhv said on : June 18th, 2009 at 4:16 pm

    Amazing!!!! Now I can identify any song! Thank You.


  7. Jesuo said on : July 8th, 2009 at 3:35 pm

    Unbelievably fast, great and easy !
    Fantastic software with truly amazing satisfying results !
    Thumbs up !!!


  8. cyberdeath said on : August 3rd, 2009 at 6:48 pm

    damn!!! is there any other way to identify songs… or japanese version of tunatic!!! i want to identify one japanese track that i found on youtube and it tunatic gives me shit… also i tried one more track (this time english) and all the same “cant found anything” man… im tired!!! someone knows something about any other progs?


  9. robert said on : August 25th, 2009 at 4:39 pm

    WHAT A HEAP OF RUBBISH HONISTLY.. IVE TRIED FAMOUS SONGS WITCH I ALREADY KNOW AND SONGS I DONT KNOW.. AND EVERYTIME WITHOUT FAIL IT SAYS “SONG NOT FOUND” HEAP OF CRAP!!


  10. Tester said on : October 1st, 2009 at 12:51 am

    The program DOES work, but only for major songs that have a label and are popular, it identified MOST of the songs but not some of the newer electronic music


  11. jaivik said on : October 6th, 2009 at 4:34 am

    :-) i am so happy….it works…thanks..


  12. dickhead said on : October 24th, 2009 at 4:02 am

    Doesn’t work for House/Electro songs.


  13. J L van Os said on : November 11th, 2009 at 3:31 am

    You can play some ten of the first notes of a song you want to identify on the virtual keyboard of the MelodyCatcher http://www.melodycatcher.com/ and when availabe in the database you will find a MIDI audio file of that song, its title and its source on the Internet.


  14. lost patience said on : November 23rd, 2009 at 5:34 pm

    agreed, sadly it doesn’t ID house tracks. overall this program isn’t all that great. I’m a music connoisseur and when I turn to Tunatic to ID a much wanted/needed track for me: FAIL. It should only be used for majorly major, major, very famous tracks, not the awesome tracks that are rarely heard…


  15. Andrew said on : November 24th, 2009 at 9:23 pm

    For everyone who thinks the software doesn’t work for non mainstream music…

    READ the article again.

    The software compares your audio sample to a database that is compiled by Tunalyzer users. If it’s not finding lots of your tracks, it’s probably because they aren’t in the database, not that the software doesn’t work.

    Why don’t you help the one or two other people worldwide who are likely to listen to your music and upload your music library data with Tunalyzer. http://www.wildbits.com/tunatic/tunalyzer.html


  16. Mike said on : November 26th, 2009 at 8:13 am

    Wow, this worked great. There was an awesome pleasant instrumental song that used to be played in the background on the Weather Channel local forecasts 10 years ago. I recorded a whole nite of the broadcast on the VCR to get it on tape, but I couldn’t search for the title online because there were no lyrics. So I played it into Tunatic and it identified the track!! So happy!

    If it’s not working for you, perhaps your microphone isn’t set up right. I still can’t figure out how to get a mic working in Windows, but you don’t need it with Tunatic. I found it easier to just record a sample of the track with a digital camera and play the audio file on the computer while running Tunatic.


  17. BadNate said on : December 8th, 2009 at 12:00 pm

    It’s a piece of crap, and a waste of space on the computer. Don’t get this program, it will hardly work at all.


  18. Marlene said on : December 8th, 2009 at 12:02 pm

    Tunatic is the best freeware I’ve installed in a while. There was a Japanese song I downloaded under the wrong name a few years back, and I’ve been scouring the Internet to find the artist and title for months. Tunatic identified the song in less than a minute. I recommend this program for every music connoisseur out there.


  19. Ran said on : December 13th, 2009 at 2:21 pm

    I want to find out what is the music played on Bang Babes, Sky channel 912. 948 & 959. Tunatic doesn’t know (neither does Shazam on the mobile), grrr!


  20. Slay said on : December 13th, 2009 at 5:05 pm

    This software cannot identify any song by lyrics! I’ve tried many and nothing has worked. Useless!


  21. Andre said on : December 13th, 2009 at 9:35 pm

    This doesn’t work great at all, it can’t identify PSYTRANCE music tracks!


  22. J L van Os said on : December 14th, 2009 at 3:36 am

    Systems recognizing music, like Tunatic and Shazam are based upon a kind of “audio fingerprinting” They therefore recognize the official recording of a song if available in the database, but no other audio version of the same song. Other systems do not have this problem, like the Melodycatcher http://www.melodycatcher.com/
    Since this system is based, however, on MIDI files or ring tones, this type of files of the wanted melody has to be available, what for many older melodies is the case but for Psytrance often not. Fortunately one can expect all systems to grow in their potential


  23. tokne said on : December 18th, 2009 at 7:28 am

    Tunatic worked great for me! It identified “Les Fleurs” in a few seconds. Thanks!


  24. Daniel said on : December 25th, 2009 at 12:33 am

    It sucks. It doesn’t even recognise Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance, and it even recognised Rihanna’s Russian Roulette as The Poets of Rhythm’s Eulogize the Source which I never even heard of


  25. Andreas said on : January 5th, 2010 at 2:42 pm

    Did not work for me . Tried normal pop songs after the other failure, it could’nt recognize anything .


  26. Maz said on : January 8th, 2010 at 10:52 am

    Was watching some Formula 1 race edits on their website and your program managed to pick up the song I was looking for despite the noise of the cars. Simply brilliant


  27. XSB said on : January 8th, 2010 at 6:01 pm

    Is there a way to find out music while being played on youtube?


  28. J L van Os said on : January 18th, 2010 at 5:06 am

    When you are able to remember (in parts) what is played and to replay some ten notes from the start of that melody on the virtual piano key board of melody finders like the Melodycatcher http://www.melodycatcher.com/ or Musipedia http://www.musipedia.org/, you can see whether it is in their database. When replaying not from the start but just any (characteristic) part of the melody use the option “Match/seach anywhere”


  29. liviana said on : January 23rd, 2010 at 2:14 am

    I have been using Tunatic song identifier for such a long time, but all of a sudden I cant connect anymore. Why? I have tried so many times but no success. Please help so i can use it again to identify songs.


  30. J L van Os said on : January 23rd, 2010 at 3:00 pm

    Same for me some 2 hours later. I assume it’s a temporary server problem. I also like MelodyCatcher.com.


  31. Snowmeow said on : January 25th, 2010 at 10:34 am

    Does it not work with music recorded in HD audio?


  32. J L van Os said on : January 25th, 2010 at 2:46 pm

    Like I expected, probably just a temporal server problem. My Tunatic is working correctly again.


  33. skie said on : February 22nd, 2010 at 12:33 pm

    It just works like a charm! THX!


  34. Ddm said on : February 28th, 2010 at 6:38 am

    woww…Do u know how it works, cause its wonderful at identifying songs!


  35. J L van Os said on : March 1st, 2010 at 4:24 am

    Tunatic, like Shazam and a number of other systems are based upon the fact that audio signals of each record have an unique character. Such signals are recognized and compared with the audio signals of such official records in the systems database to search for a matching one. This technique is called “Audio Fingerprinting” The disadvantage is that only official records are recognized. All other than these original records, even of the same melodies, are not recognized.

    A totally different approach is used by systems, like the Melodycatcher and Musipedia. These systems are based upon the recognition of a melody, or a melodic contour. Such systems are disclosing tunes from different recordings and therefore more appropriate for music other than the main stream recordings, like for instance the numerous records of (the same) classical music and audio files of older folk music. These systems (unlike Tunatic) can also be used to search for musical themes.
    For more details see:
    http://www.wikihow.com/Identify-Songs-Using-Melody


  36. Carl said on : March 11th, 2010 at 5:09 am

    It couldn’t identify the song in this video, youtube.com/watch?v=ZuNGCm3DLd0. Please does anyone know the title of the song??


  37. J L van Os said on : March 11th, 2010 at 2:17 pm

    I tried the first 14 notes in the Melodycatcher:
    A#1 A#1 G1 G1 A#1 A#1 C2 C2 A1 A1 A#1 A#1 C2 C2

    The results, as can be reproduced with copy and past (Ctrl-C Ctrl-V) of these notes in the note display field of the melody finder was:
    Williams Orbit Barber’s Adagio For Strings
    It sounds more or less similar, but I am not quite sure if it is the same melody


  38. Bingles said on : March 13th, 2010 at 9:27 am

    DO NOT DOWNLOAD. I tried to use this program. It hardly recognized any songs. It only recognized “Let’s Get it Started” by Black Eye Peas. It couldn’t identify any other songs played. I tried super popular songs like “I got a feeling” by Black Eye Peas and it said that song couldn’t be identified. The program works on old songs (2006 or older). It does not have any newer or unpopular songs in it’s database.


  39. J L van Os said on : March 13th, 2010 at 2:08 pm

    If with “this program” you mean Tunatic I agree that this program is not meant for recognizing this type of music. As far as I have experienced it is mainly recognizing official records of main stream popular music, including songs newer than 2006.


  40. jeff said on : March 19th, 2010 at 2:09 am

    I am not able to identify a song off YouTube. Any other sites?


  41. J L van Os said on : March 19th, 2010 at 10:24 am

    Wat do you mean?
    As long as you can (re)play on a piano keyboard what you hear, you can try to indentify a song form any site. But I agree that in some cases this can be difficult.


  42. Iku-chan said on : March 22nd, 2010 at 10:05 am

    okay, so i was impressed when it identified a background song from an anime called “bleach”, but unfortunately it didn’t work on the song i needed it..


  43. Erik said on : April 6th, 2010 at 4:02 pm

    Had to enable stereo mix, but all was good after that. Very nice piece of software. Would have liked to see a more typical GUI, but this is fine.


  44. nick said on : April 9th, 2010 at 5:00 pm

    i tried this program and i cant find any of the song that im looking for, the reason people need this is because there looking for music that is not main stream. i tried finding electro and trance music and there is no help with that. im looking for the song that i dont know what they are, not the songs that everybody knows what they are, thanks for helping me know something that i already know……………..


  45. Russ said on : April 19th, 2010 at 9:29 pm

    I’m trying to find a song with lyrics that says I don’t want to die of over population


  46. Golem said on : April 21st, 2010 at 8:31 am

    Well that was neat … and very effective – that’s to the developers etc.


  47. Peter said on : May 6th, 2010 at 1:11 pm

    How would I update the database?
    Using Tunalyzer?

    For Windows, this thing is promised to be released in (early) 2007. Well, it’s 2010 now …

    P.


  48. CrOuCh said on : May 12th, 2010 at 8:23 am

    Yo,

    I tried identifying a song in a youtube video and it didn’t find it :P Then i tried identifying Right Now by Akon and it didn’t find it too :P

    Am i doing something wrong cuz when i click on search it says “Song Not Found” Try again.

    Can anyone help me out please ?

    Thank You!


  49. MANISH said on : May 15th, 2010 at 8:50 am

    Thanks man, it’s really great software for finding songs that are of low sound quality. Thanks again.


  50. Adrian said on : May 21st, 2010 at 5:15 pm

    Cant find the download button!!!


  51. Albert said on : May 25th, 2010 at 3:14 am

    I dont know why they arent using the whole internet as a database. It would be perfect. :)


  52. Vali2 said on : June 3rd, 2010 at 11:16 am

    Really nice, it was able to identify a number of songs for me!


  53. Uch said on : June 6th, 2010 at 1:51 am

    It couldn’t identify Halo of Beyonce and Beautiful of Akon! Crap.


  54. Steg said on : June 30th, 2010 at 10:08 am

    Really bad! Didn’t identify the tracks I wanted, so tried it out with known popular songs – couldn’t identify them either! Removed this waste of time program from my system. AVOID!


  55. Marco Polo said on : July 4th, 2010 at 4:30 am

    This is greatttt!!!! It really works very easy! SURPRISED!

    THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU


  56. SupMA5TER said on : July 19th, 2010 at 2:17 pm

    Great article.

    But, if more methods and tips are needed to identify songs, check handysofts.blogspot.com/2010/07/song-identification-methods-tools-tips.html.

    It is a good article on methods for song identification.


  57. Oggy said on : August 3rd, 2010 at 11:15 am

    Unbelievable!!! Thanks for this amazing article!!! This program works on Windows Vista also (on my computer at least)!

    For those without success: make sure that you have chosen the correct sound source from the Settings menu (right mouse click).

    Thanks, again!


  58. ye ye said on : September 1st, 2010 at 1:12 am

    Nope dont work tried popular artists like akon, jaysean and didnt find the tracks, shit program sorry.


  59. Carlos said on : September 9th, 2010 at 11:15 am

    Im trying to identify songs but it keeps saying signal too weak. i have it on the loudest and it still says that. stupid question here but do you need a mic connected?

    thanks


  60. Marjan said on : November 8th, 2010 at 5:11 am

    Best program, i have been looking for the name of a song for more than 2 years, and i finally found it with TUNATIC. TNX :D DDDD


  61. Djerba said on : September 3rd, 2011 at 6:44 pm

    Is there any Shazam version for PC ?


Please post your comments/suggestions!