Shazam vs SoundHound iOS Comparison and Review

• Both SoundHound and Shazam are simple to use, effective, and overall great music discovery tools. I preferred SoundHound’s layout to Shazam’s for the simple fact that SoundHound’s interface seemed less cluttered and had a smoother flow. SoundHound does seem to come with more ads, however.
• The two newest and powerful contenders in the apps market are― SoundHound by SoundHound, Inc., Shazam by Shazam Entertainment Ltd. Buzzle’s comparison highlights the best buy between the two, especially for crazy music lovers. For more information on these apps, click the links given below.

SoundHound is instant music and discovery. NEW to 2.0 for WP8: ♪ Improved search performance ♪ Fast app resume and switching ♪ Integration with music app and player controls for song previews ♪ Live tiles and multiple tile size support ♪ Multiple screen size support ♪ Voice command integration - launch SoundHound with your voice! It develops speech recognition, natural language understanding, sound recognition and search technologies. Its featured products include Houndify, a Voice AI developer platform, Hound, a voice-enabled digital assistant, and music recognition mobile app SoundHound. The company’s headquarters are in Santa Clara, California. Sebelum bergabung dengan SoundHound, Katie adalah Wakil Presiden Pengembangan Bisnis di Shazam di mana ia memainkan peran penting dalam skala perusahaan dan membangun brand Shazam ini. Sebelum Shazam, Katie adalah pendiri dan managing director dari Westport Communications Inc, data layanan mobile perusahaan yang berbasis di Tokyo.

Shazam and SoundHound are both very similar applications for listening to music and telling you what it is – known as tagging. This is done by recording a short snippet of the song, sending it to their servers and scanning to see any matches in the songs. Shazam is more popular as it has been around longer, but now many people have been flocking to use SoundHound due to the user being able to sing to or hum to it and it recognises the song. I decied to test them to see how good they both were against each other. Both apps offer free versions as well as paid for versions (with no ads etc)

The first part of my comparison is down to the core features – how well it can it can recognise the songs.

The testing

Note before reading. The tests were done by leaving the app whilst scanning, but sometimes you can get faster results by ending it manually by tapping which often gets it right after around five seconds, but is not as reliable as leaving it on until it automatically stops.

The first thing I tested was playing music on my computer quite loudly with no other noises to see how quick the recognition is using a popular song

Shazam took seven seconds and got the answer right.

SoundHound took thirteen seconds, and got the correct answer.

The next test was seeing how they did with background noise – I played some white noise quietly to see if it affected the results.

Shazam took a few seconds longer and SoundHound took the same amount of time.

The third test I did was seeing how they worked with humming or singing. SoundHound is advertised as being able to do this, but Shazam is not.

Shazam completely failed, and did not recognise a single tune I hummed and sang whereas SoundHound was correct when I hummed and I sang which was quite impressive.

After that I tested a non common song with no background sound – Allegro Non Molto by Antonio Vivaldi.

Shazam took three tries to get it right, the first two only saying ‘We couldn’t find a match’ and then giving a correct answer.

SoundHound failed it’s first test, but then after a few seconds, it found it on the second test.

When retrying using the same app I continued playing the piece to make sure that it was taking in a different part, but I started from the beginning when trying each app.

The user interface and features

Both apps offer a quite simple interface. As soon as you open the app, there is a large button to press to start listening and on SoundHound, you have the option in the settings to begin listening as soon as the app as launched.

On Shazam, you have five bottom menu items – My Tags – for looking through all the things you have let the device listen to – Discover – where you can view the charts and search for tracks – The large Shazam icon – for tagging the music – Friends – for connecting to Facebook and seeing what they have tagged – Settings – for about, managing notifications, signing into Facebook.

After tagging a song, you can play a preview, go to an iTunes download link, share using Facebook, Twitter and Shazam, YouTube videos, lyrics, artist info, concert and tour info, album review, delete tag, and at the bottom, there is text saying the album, label and when it was tagged.

On Sound Hound, you have a more integrated menu bar ( not the app standard gray with icons) with history where you view songs you have tagged, what’s hot, with categories songs like ‘Hottest’ and Underplayed’,’upgrade’ to buy the full app and a final one which controls the music on your phone and sees your library.You can select one, and it will give you the same details as if tagged. On the main screen there is also a back and forward arrow buttons on the top left to view your history, and a help and settings icons in the top right. There is also a search bar to search for a song with text or your voice.

Once tagging the song, you can view the album art, song name, artist, share options, play it (if its on your device), preview, bookmark, lyrics, relevant YouTube video links, tweets about the song, recommended songs and song’s album appearances.

Pricing

There are free versions for both and paid which include slightly more features and no ads.The SoundHound pricing is slightly more simple than the Shazam, you just pay a one off fee of £4.99 (although it goes down in sale sometimes) whereas and with Shazam you can buy it as an app for £3.99 or use the free Shazam app to pay for a yearly subscription of £2.49.

Overall

On the testing side, they both do quite well – Shazam is faster but makes more mistakes and can’t do singing or humming by the user but SoundHound is rarely wrong, can deal with singing and humming but the recognition speeds are slower.

On the user interface side, SoundHound seems a bit more cluttered, but graphically more fun. Because of its design, its not as easy to use as Shazam until you get used to it. Shazam is nicely laid out, but seems slightly boring as it has a regular menu buttons but it is easier for a first time user.

The features – they both have nearly identical features – sharing using social networking, buying in iTunes, viewing lyrics etc.

My opinion

Apps Like Soundhound

I chose SoundHound as it does do singing and humming I which is a very useful feature, but Shazam is still a great app if you want faster speeds.

Should you buy them? In my opinion, no, the free versions are fine. Who cares if you have to endure having to watch tiny banner ads while you scan a track for ten seconds. Also, the features they add are so minimal. If you do want to get rid of the ads or want the additional features, wait until either are on sale, or there are cheaper competitors.

Although they both are very good at what they could do, they could be faster and more accurate (and maybe cheaper). Shazam claims ‘lightning fast tagging’ and SoundHound ‘the world’s fastest music recognition’ but neither live up to those claims – lightning travelling at 3,700 miles per second does not match up to Shazam’s five second wait and SoundHound is slower than Shazam! Both statements proved incorrect!

So finally, I would rate them both a 4/5, they could both be improved by speeding up their recognition speeds.

What do you think? Agree or disagree? Post in the comments what you think.

Shazam Soundhound

* I didn’t write earlier that internet connection speed is a big part in determining which one is faster as they need to contact the server. I have reasonable broadband speeds, but it depends on what type of connection you have (3G, 4G, wi-fi etc). Also, their severs need to fast as well so the recognition is quicker.

Shazam Soundhound Online