{"id":12095,"date":"2010-08-05T14:54:24","date_gmt":"2010-08-05T13:54:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/onsoftware.en.softonic.com\/head-to-head-shazam-vs-soundhound\/"},"modified":"2025-07-02T02:11:48","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T09:11:48","slug":"head-to-head-shazam-vs-soundhound","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/head-to-head-shazam-vs-soundhound\/","title":{"rendered":"Head-to-head: Shazam vs SoundHound"},"content":{"rendered":"

Want to know what’s that song on the radio, in the club or on TV? Thanks to the wonders of modern acoustic fingerprint<\/a> technology, all you need to do is point your phone at the speakers and press a button. In order to do this, of course, you need an app installed on your device. But which one?<\/p>\n

I’ve taken a look at the two principal candidates for iPhone, Shazam<\/strong> and SoundHound<\/strong> and put them through their paces to find out which one really knows the most about music.<\/p>\n

The contenders<\/h2>\n

\"Shazam\"Shazam<\/strong><\/a> has been the king of music identification services for more than ten years. Initially launched in the UK as a premium SMS service, Shazam has since been released as an app on numerous mobile platforms. It continues to top the Music<\/a> section of the iTunes App Store charts, and its free version was listed as the fifth most popular free iPhone app<\/a> of all time.<\/p>\n

\"SoundHound\"SoundHound<\/strong><\/a> is a social music search service, powered by a community-created database. Originally known as Midomi<\/strong>, the iPhone app isn’t as popular as Shazam – but that’s not to say it isn’t more effective. In contrast to Shazam, SoundHound claims to be able to recognize tunes that are hummed or sung.<\/p>\n

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The study<\/h2>\n

In order to find out which is the best out of Shazam and SoundHound I would throw the same ten songs at each of them and see how they performed. My aim was to find out how many<\/strong> they matched, how quickly<\/strong> they returned results, and what additional content<\/strong> related to the song or artist they would offer me. I would also assess the search functionality<\/strong>, purchasing options<\/strong> and usability<\/strong> of each app.<\/p>\n

The apps aren’t really designed to work with strummed chords or harmonized vocals, so I went with more traditional pop songs. the tracks I chose were the current number one billboard hit (Love the Way you Lie<\/em> by Eminem), the number one hits from twenty, thirty, forty and fifty years ago, a track<\/a> from an unsigned British electronic artist, a Spanish hip-hop track<\/a> and a classical piano piece<\/a> by Chopin.<\/p>\n

I would also attempt to test SoundHound’s crowd-sourced audio database by singing The Village People’s YMCA<\/em>, and humming along to Celine Dion’s My Heart Will Go On<\/em>. I should note at this point that I am tone deaf.<\/p>\n

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Matching<\/h2>\n

In terms of recognizing the audio tracks, both Shazam and SoundHound performed pretty well. Both apps managed to find matches for six out the eight songs played at them. Shazam failed to find Chopin’s Nocturne, while SoundHound returned no matches for the Macaco track after three attempts. Both missed out on Zoon Van Snook’s Bibliophone<\/em> (a track, which is commercially available and appears on iTunes).<\/p>\n

\"Matching\"<\/p>\n

As far as the sing-a-longs went, SoundHound amazingly managed to interpret both my screeched version of YMCA<\/em> and terrible, mumbled rendition of My Heart Will Go On<\/em> (some might say it still kicked the the original’s ass). Shazam failed to recognize either of these songs. In fairness though, the app specifically states that it won’t match music that is hummed or sung.<\/p>\n

Winner: SoundHound<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Time taken<\/h2>\n

When it came to the speed of returning music search results, SoundHound was the very clear winner. It returned every result in under 20 seconds (even those that were hummed or sung), with the quickest being a mere 9 seconds. Shazam took at least<\/strong> 20 seconds to find all of the songs, and labored for 30 seconds when looking for Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polkadot Bikini<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"Time<\/p>\n

\u00a0Winner: SoundHound<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Additional content<\/h2>\n

Both Shazam and SoundHound provide plenty of additional content related to a particular song. Where available, Shazam<\/strong> shows:<\/p>\n