YouTube has announced a new experiment on Android devices that identifies a song by the way we hum it – a significant improvement over Apple's music recognition app Shazam.
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As reported on YouTube's support page, the video sharing platform is testing a song-based search feature on the Android version of the app, which allows users to find a song on YouTube by singing or humming a song.
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Users who have access to the experiment can switch from YouTube voice search to the new song search feature and hum, sing, or record a song for three or more seconds. The platform then recognizes the track and directs the user to relevant YouTube videos that include the searched song, whether that's the official music video, user- , or Shorts.
The ability to search by song is only available to a small portion of Android users. If the feature is rolled out more widely, we could see it being useful for many, as YouTube is a popular destination for searching for songs.
YouTube's latest experiment may sound familiar to some users. In 2020, YouTube's parent company Google first rolled out the feature to the Google app, Google Search widget, and Google Assistant , allowing users to find a song by singing it into the microphone icon . However, the main difference seems to be that Google's feature requires users to hum along for 10-15 seconds in order for the song to be recognized .
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As Google previously explained, its feature is based on machine learning models that can match a person ’s personality with a song ’s “fingerprint , ” or signature melody . The new YouTube test uses the same technology as Google’s feature, the company confirmed to TechCrunch.
Other music recognition apps, like SoundHound and MusixMatch, can also identify songs by lyrics or beat, but they aren't as popular as YouTube and Google.
Information source: techcrunch.com
