Search by sound is the retrieval of information based on audio input. There are a handful of applications, specifically for mobile devices that utilize search by sound.

Shazam (service) Shazam is an application that can identify music, movies, advertising, and television shows, based on a short sample played and using the microphone on the device. It was created by London-based Shazam Entertainment, and has been owned by Ap ...

Soundhound SoundHound Inc. is an audio and speech recognition company founded in 2005. It develops speech recognition, natural language understanding, sound recognition and search technologies. Its featured products include Houndify, a Voice AI developer ...

(previously Midomi),

Axwave Axwave, Inc. (acquired by Samba TV, announced in August 2019) was an international software development company that developed a proprietary fingerprinting-based automatic content recognition (ACR) technology. Axwave was founded by Damián Scavo ...

, ACRCloud and others have seen considerable success by using a simple algorithm to match an

acoustic fingerprint An acoustic fingerprint is a condensed digital summary, a fingerprint, deterministically generated from an audio signal, that can be used to identify an audio sample or quickly locate similar items in an audio database. Practical uses of aco ...

to a song in a library. These applications take a sample clip of a song, or a user-generated melody and check a

music library A music library contains music-related materials for patron use. Collections may also include non-print materials, such as digitized music scores or audio recordings. Use of such materials may be limited to specific patron groups, especially in ...

music database Below is a table of online music databases that are largely free of charge. Note that many of the sites provide a specialized service or focus on a particular music genre. Some of these operate as an online music store or purchase referral serv ...

to see where the clip matches with the song. From there, song information will queried and displayed to the user. These kind of applications are mainly used for finding a song that the user does not already know. Searching by sound is not limited to just identifying

songs A song is a musical composition intended to be performed by the human voice. This is often done at distinct and fixed pitches (melodies) using patterns of sound and silence. Songs contain various forms, such as those including the repetition ...

, but also for identifying

melodies A melody (from Greek language, Greek μελῳδία, ''melōidía'', "singing, chanting"), also tune, voice or line, is a Linearity#Music, linear succession of musical tones that the listener perceives as a single entity. In its most liter ...

, tunes or

advertisements Advertising is the practice and techniques employed to bring attention to a product or service. Advertising aims to put a product or service in the spotlight in hopes of drawing it attention from consumers. It is typically used to promote a ...

sound library management In physics, sound is a vibration that propagates as an acoustic wave, through a transmission medium such as a gas, liquid or solid. In human physiology and psychology, sound is the ''reception'' of such waves and their ''perception'' by the ...

and

video files A video file format is a type of file format for storing digital video data on a computer system. Video is almost always stored using lossy compression to reduce the file size. A video file normally consists of a container (e.g. in the Matrosk ...

Acoustic fingerprinting

The way these apps search by sound is through generating an

; a digital summary of the sound. A microphone is used to pick up an audio sample, which is then broken down into a simple numeric signature, a code unique to each track. Using the same method of fingerprinting sounds, when Shazam picks up a sound clip, it will generate a signature for that clip. Then it’s simple pattern matching from there using an extensive audio music database. The practice of using acoustic fingerprints is not limited to just music, however, but other areas of the entertainment business as well. Shazam also can identify television shows with the same technique of acoustic fingerprinting. Of course, this method of breaking down a sound sample into a unique signature is useless unless there is an extensive database of music with keys to match with the samples. Shazam has over 11 million songs in its database. Other services such as Midomi and Soundhound allow users to add to that library of music in order to expand the chances to match a sound sample with its corresponding sound.

Query by humming

Midomi and Soundhound both offer

query by humming Query by humming (QbH) is a music retrieval system that branches off the original classification systems of title, artist, composer, and genre. It normally applies to songs or other music with a distinct single theme or melody. The system involves ...

. This is a branch off of acoustic fingerprints but is still a musical retrieval system. After receiving a user-generated hummed melody, which is the input query, the system returns a ranked list of songs that are closest to the user query.

References

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Acoustic fingerprinting

Query by humming

See also

References