music – Etiole

How to find a song name by lyrics, humming, beats or melody

Monik — Sun, 20 Jan 2013 22:31:14 +0000

I’m sure, all of you have run into this tricky situation : You don’t know the song title, you just remember some musical element and you are desperately trying to figure out the song. I’m listing a few tools that will help you narrow down your search.

If you remember the lyrics…

You can try out my custom music search tool which searches the 9 best lyric websites for an exact match of your typed lyric. To restrict the search, type in your query within quotes (“). If you have any other data like the genre/artists/release-date, make sure you type it at the end of the search to make the results more relevant.

If you know how to sing it…

You can hum it or sing it on Midomi (through its website) and let it identify your song. The results are quite accurate if your microphone works fine and if you aren’t an extremely pathetic singer. Unlike Midomi, which is completely automated, you can use NameMyTune. This service allows users to record themselves, singing or humming a part of the song and then letting other users figure out the details. You can also listen to recordings of other users and identify their songs. After a match is reported, the uploader is emailed the details. A similar service is WatZatSong.

If you remember the beats or can tap to the tune…

The next best option to tap out your song on the keyboard is SongTapper and let it figure out your song. Although initially, when I tested the service to identify the songs I already knew, the results were not that great. Only after watching the video example did I get the tapping technique and get better results.

If you remember the melody…

MelodyCatcher will use your melody to fetch the song title. You can use it’s onscreen Java Applet to play the melody using a virtual keyboard or upload one through a “midi” file. If you have a keyboard plugged in, you can select that as the input for the on-screen keyboard and use it to play the melody. Musipedia has all of the above features along with a contour based search. To use melodic contour search, “all you need to know is whether the tune goes up, down, or if the pitch stays the same.”

If you have a part of the song…

Two dedicated mobile apps that can help you in your music identification quest are SoundHound and Shazam. Both function similarly : record a clip of your song (10-15 seconds) and search for a match in their database. These apps are available on all mobile platforms and are free. Apart from identifying tracks from the original versions, SoundHound is capable of recognizing any live event recording or humming or whistling of tune which Shazam cannot do. For those curious people who are wondering how services like these are able to convert music to some computer-readable data and store it, this paper will help you uncover the mystery.

If you still cannot find the song…

Forget the song and move on. It’s better than being unsatisfied about not being able to find the song name.

Amazon unleashes Cloud Service before Google or Apple

Monik — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 10:50:27 +0000

We've continually heard that Apple (After acquisition of Lala) was looking forward to launch a Cloud based locker service which would align itself with iTunes.com or maybe MobileMe. Rumors were that Google was also planning for something like this. Suddenly, out of the blue we have Amazon which unleashes the Cloud Drive and a Cloud based Music player too.

So what is Cloud?

You've been hearing about this since few years. What is it exactly? "Cloud computing refers to the provision of computational resources on demand via a computer network." - From WikiPedia. Cloud Computing revolves around around data. It's not physically with you but on the "Cloud" servers and you do not mandatorily need your computer to access it but varied types of devices for example, Your smartphone or tablets can also access the data using appropriate applications. This makes it easier to access data quickly from different devices.

What is Amazon offering?

It's offering a cloud drive with 5GB worth of free space to upload and store your media (Music and Videos) and documents safely. All you need is a Amazon Account which is free and a browser to access the website and push content up or download it to other computers. They are offering tools to make your migration to cloud much easier. Once such tool scans you computer and auto-uploads all the music files to the cloud drive. You can upgrade your plans. Well, pricing is $1 per GB. Yes, that simple. It doesn't work on iOS but works on Android based devices. The service is surely better than the competitor DropBox which does not allow such flexibility as Amazon. There's some cool offer going on which lets you buy a MP3 album and upgrade to 20GB plan. Give it a try here, it's surely worth it.

We aren’t happy with Lala’s death. Neither is Apple

Monik — Sun, 02 May 2010 12:16:12 +0000

The message put up on Lala.com, popular music "locker" service, sparked lot of rumors. It sinks down when this month ends, and Apple which acquired it sometime back has no plans, or maybe it does? Why is Apple shutting it down? Rumors were floating that Apple was soon to reveal, iTunes.com which would take Lala's place. Sadly thats not happening, atleast not now though Apple is looking forward to it. For those who don't know this already, Lala.com allowed users to make shareable playlists which they could stream over multiple devices and the content could be anything they uploaded or purchased. Apple was looking to launch a web based version (cloud) for iTunes soon and Lala could possibly play a lead role in what Apple has to offer. The Cupertino based company was in talks with Music Labels but it seems most labels did not find this a profitable venture because, if we go by the business model it allows streaming of music via multiple methods and thereby giving a multiple plays for the same single price. Either prices will have to shoot up to make the labels happy or else Apple has to revise it's model. No matter how bright the future might be, it surely isn't happening soon, atleast not in June (Apple's WWDC).

iTunes to hit 10 Billion Song Downloads soon : Win $10,000 Gift Card from Apple!

Monik — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 14:39:14 +0000

Apple has revolutionized the Music industry with iPod but if we say, it was just the iPod then we're quite mistaken. It's iTunes which went hand in hand with the iPod to create history.

History will be created again soon when iTunes crosses 10 Billion music downloads after the App store for iPhone and iPod touch crossed 3 Billion downloads. From 2001, it has been an amazing journey. 9 years back no one ever know it would ever reach here. This was one of the greatest inventions which changed the way we manage our massive playlists. Apple fought against huge titles and smart campaigns were launched and records were broken. Individual purchase of songs for $0.99 was made possible. All this with iTunes. Now by the time i refresh my page, over 700 songs are sold. It's that quick! Apple is celebrating it too and if your the lucky one to buy the 10th Billion Song then you get a $10,000 iTunes gift card.

Windows Phone 7 Series : Back with Vengeance

Monik — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 18:59:41 +0000

Windows 7 lived upto expectations and proved the Microsoft has learn form its mistakes (in this case, the biggest ofcourse - WIndows Vista) and this time it's true once again. Microsoft's Windows Mobile 6.5 was just a big mess and they knew it that something better was surely needed, especially after a great outcry of developers and consumers. Growing competition from competitors like Apple could have also been a force driving them to innovation. Whatever the reason maybe, Microsoft has proved it that they are the winners with Windows Phone 7 Series. They have redesigned the whole concept of a Phone OS which is a new concept to your phones which is 100% original and you wouldn't have experienced it (unless you own a Zune). Layouts, Motion, Transitions, Text Fonts, Hardware integrations and nearly everything your OS has, is re-engineered with Phone 7.

In a crowded market filled with phones that look the same and do the same things, I challenged the team to deliver a different kind of mobile experience. Windows Phone 7 Series marks a turning point toward phones that truly reflect the speed of people’s lives and their need to connect to other people and all kinds of seamless experiences.

Steve Ballmer boasted highly of the new OS and why shouldn't he? It's really worth all our wait! One thing most people hate about iPhone OS is the Start Screen, it just shows you icons and icons. Phone 7 revolutionizes it with Live Tiles. This new feature grabs real time content from the web, for example all you friends photos and shows it up on your home screen on a tile and you can have any number of tiles (as long as they fit in the screen).

Window's introduces Hubs. These bring together bring all the data from the internet, application and services together into one and most useful mashup.

People - This hub is like contacts on your Phone. This time, it snatches all their activity on Social Networks and Photos together and puts them here. It also provides a centralized location to post updates to Facebook.
Pictures - Social Networks and your Videos and Pictures now go hand in hand! Easily sync them.

Music + Video - If you've used a Zune you would be used to this. If not this is seriously fun man! This draws content from your computer and you can use Zune Desktop Software too, use online services or listen to Radio.
Games - As we had smelled it earlier, it's here. Windows Live comes to Windows phone. Now you can play Xbox live games on your phone, use Spotlight feed and see a gamer’s avatar, Achievements and gamer profile.
Marketplace - The Store for Applications and Games.
Office - This feature makes the phone ideal to be held by every business man. Office, Outlook Mobile, OneNote and SharePoint Workspace are all here making it easier than ever to read, edit and share documents!

Now there's something which is going to hurt Google. It's Bing which has got tight integration with Phone 7. Search anything, anywhere amidst anything without the need of copy pasting, just Bing! Email and browsing support multi touch capabilities. Microsoft says that work with partners is currently on and phones with Phone 7 support are being developed and will hit the stores by holiday season later this year! Overall, the interface is a huge victory for Microsoft. All hail Microsoft! Check out their official blog post here.

iPad spotted at 52nd Annual Grammy’s with….. Stephen Colbert!

Monik — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 10:56:42 +0000

iPad, iPad everywhere so how could it not be present at the 52nd annual grammy awards? Guess who got it? Stephen Colbert!

Where’s my Nominee list? Oh, it’s on my iPad. (He’s flaunting it a lot)

I am so sure, Apple’s paid a huge amount of money, to get iPad out there and if that’s not true, then Stephen just got lucky. Seems like Apple has kickstarted their marketing campaigns for iPad’s public appearances.

Thanks Engadget.

iPod Touch Vs iPhone : Makes no sense, really?

Monik — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 18:27:23 +0000

In this iPhone powered world (or atleast iPhone buzzed world), we won't make a mistake of under-estimating the iPod touch which is also a major player in the market. Recently, when the survey was made about the most sold gaming consoles iPod Touches were high on the charts and this Christmas iPod Touch has topped a lot of things. [caption id="attachment_3458" align="aligncenter" width="491" caption="App Store download stats"][/caption] First and foremost being the app store downloads. According to Flurry, which provides statistics about Application downloads on handheld devices, stated that Apple's app store saw a 51% growth during Christmas and that there was about 1000% growth in downloads from iPod Touches! This is why people around the web are telling that iPod Touch's were the most gifted devices this Christmas (surely when compared to iPhone). It's raining apps for Apple! [MobileCrunch] There's something else we had stated, referring to this. When Apple did add a video camera to iPod Nano and not to iPod Touch we said why they were doing this, so that they could sell a hell lot of iPod Touches this Christmas and then later add a camera and those who bought iPods would probably upgrade to the newer iPods soon. I am really looking forward to their January event!

Online Version of iTunes : Now that’s streaming music

Monik — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 14:09:20 +0000

iTunes was about a 89 Mb download and eons ago, when i had a 56 KbpS internet speed all i wished was a online version of iTunes because i had to keep my computer switch on overnight and i was sure that it won't survive (i had Windows Xp with a P4 processor and 512 Mb Ram). After acquisition of Lala, a paid online music streaming service which charges 10 cents for unlimited streaming of music on all devices, by Apple brings the idea a bit more towards the side of reality. What is soon going to follow would kill off the need of downloading a iTunes software and going online completely. Why, you say? Apple is looking for ways to capture a larger share of the Music distribution market. Also, cloud computing seems to be the future of computing where all your data is stored on clouds (not on actual clouds, i mean cloud servers) so that it can be easily accessed from most devices easily. 10 Cents to stream music from any device is a inexpensive deal and could revolutionize the way we share music, though Lala was present for quite sometime but was restricted to few countries. After joining Apple's army new developments are likely to follow. Just think of possibilities. Streaming music on your iPods, iPhones, etc would make it damn easy to do it. Thanks Mashable.

Get Notified When your Favorite Music Artist Releases a New CD

Srivathsan — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 18:28:03 +0000

Keeping track of all your artist releases on a regular basis is almost impossible and tracking their newest work is a matter of chance. Ultimately you could be missing out on some great music. So, What is the solution ? Here comes the Blyper - Never miss releases by your favourite artists again. Blyper will notify you when your favorite music artist releases a new CD or single.This site has been titled as “The Music Notifier“. All you need to do is - 1. Just simply mention your favorite artist and hit enter 2. You'll be listed with their recent albums. 3. You can also download the albums at Itunes Store / Amazon Store. 4. Finally click the Get Notified Option. When you need to be notified about your favorite artist, You first need to register at Blyper Simple registration with email id and password. Then you'll be asked how often you want to be notified? and What kind of updates like Albums, Singles, Compilations, Live releases etc, etc .. Blyper - Homepage Complete all the steps and You're done!! Never worry about missing releases anymore and Always sure your music collection is complete. Conveniently buy the albums from a shop near you :-)

Stream Music Wirelessly to your Yamaha Radio Alarm Clock with iPod AirWired Cradle

Monik — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 16:34:36 +0000

Yamaha's TSX-W80, is a Simple alarm clock and a AM/FM radio Player. Surprisingly, another feature is that you can play music wirelessly to you TSX-W80 through it's built in technology, called "AirWired". Just plug in your iPod/iPhone into the Cradle and start playing the music through TSX-W8o's 2.1 speaker setting (2x4W + 8W). You can connect your Subwoofers wirelessly to it, from any part of the room, giving you the freedom to experience true sound anywhere you like! It also Supports Application, Games and Movie sounds too, so whenever your playing a game or watching a movie on your iPod Touch you can listen to the audio, retro style and move anywhere in the house without those annoying wires. It has also got a dock, where you can charge your iPod and play music. This device will be released soon, by next week. Price details have not been out yet. Check out the companies official page for more info (It's in Japanese language, so translated version here)