Hum to Search Song • Hacker News Board

Re: Hum to Search Song

#171

Post by marton78 » Fri, Oct 16, 2020, 6:38 AM UTC

jeff_redradish wrote: post #62

As a child I remember hearing a beautiful song, sung in Japanese (so not searchable by anglo me), and today I finally found it [1]. Thanks Google! [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbTsG9jrJsU

Amazing, this was a hit in Hungary when I was little, my mother used to love it.

https://youtu.be/-0mlFNmj-vU

Re: Hum to Search Song

#172

Post by hombre_fatal » Fri, Oct 16, 2020, 6:42 AM UTC

WoodenChair wrote: post #121

SoundHound came out with this feature in their iPhone app in 2008. It worked well in my experience. It’s amazing how quick we are to go ooo ahhh when big tech replicates what is already common place in little tech or academia.

I remember that, and I remember playing a game with my girlfriend at the time where we tried to get it to recognize any song we hummed. We had an in-joke where Smooth Operator was literally the only song we could get it to recognize.

This isn't just "big tech replicating a commonplace feature", it's big tech implementing it at all where little tech could not.

This is a common fetishization on HN, but HNers forget that execution is all that really matters. Little tech demos do not. Though we on HN act like tech demos are the hardest part.

Re: Hum to Search Song

#173

Post by StavrosK » Fri, Oct 16, 2020, 6:45 AM UTC

Uhhrrr wrote: post #119

StavrosK wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the melody? Vocaroo it!

https://voca.ro/7Cx7OD3Vqc2 I'm pretty sure it's an instrument line, not vocal.

Hmm, doesn't ring a bell :(

Re: Hum to Search Song

#174

Post by ciaranb4 » Fri, Oct 16, 2020, 6:46 AM UTC

Uhhrrr wrote: post #96

mmm_grayons wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder, does it know how to transpose? People may end up humming tunes in different keys that their voices can more easily reach. Also, why the hell do I need an app for this? Is it actually running a local model? Because my guess is that it's just hitting an API.

I wondered whether pitch might play a role. EDIT: singing in a higher key got me English results, so I guess so? There's no way it would do much locally, but maybe they just wanted to make sure the audio passed to the API has a certain sample rate and encoding?

Very unlikely that they are considering the actual sung or hummed pitch as very few people, including professional musicians, would start singing at the correct pitch without accompaniment.

Most likely they are mapping the interval between the sung notes and using that as part of the ‘melodic fingerprint’ for matching.

Re: Hum to Search Song

#175

Post by ManlyBread » Fri, Oct 16, 2020, 7:12 AM UTC

Kinda sucks. It's decent at recognising the popular songs from 80s and 90s but as soon as I strayed away from that I get no results. It didn't recognize stuff like the national anthem of my country or even Darude Sandstorm.

It also requires to hum for relatively long, sometimes I remember like 5 seconds of a song but the app wants me to keep going for 15.

Re: Hum to Search Song

#176

Post by why_only_15 » Fri, Oct 16, 2020, 7:12 AM UTC

yingw787 wrote: post #10

I'm reminded of the CollegeHumor "If Google was a Guy skit": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cxqca4RQd_M "song that goes meow meow meow meow meow meow", can't find it at the moment for a timestamp. Wonder how many real queries of that actually happen.

That one's at 0:37 (https://youtu.be/Cxqca4RQd_M?t=37)

Re: Hum to Search Song

#177

Post by ehsankia » Fri, Oct 16, 2020, 7:27 AM UTC

z3ugma wrote: post #148

These comments remind me of my favorite Reply All episode, in which Alex and PJ team up with the Barenaked Ladies and a studio band to bring one man's epic earworm to life and search to see if the elusive song actually exists. https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/o2h8bx/158-the-case-... .

Well someone needs to try to hum that now, or try either of the two replicated versions.

Re: Hum to Search Song

#178

Post by ehsankia » Fri, Oct 16, 2020, 7:28 AM UTC

unityByFreedom wrote: post #56

Two things I wish this had, 1) A "I'm finished humming" button 2) A way to tell Google what song I just hummed when it guessed wrong It failed for me on "Sofia" and "Peter and the Wolf" -- maybe this only works for recently popular songs?

I tried many times but couldn't get sandstorm to work :(

Re: Hum to Search Song

#179

Post by mrmonkeyman » Fri, Oct 16, 2020, 7:29 AM UTC

hombre_fatal wrote: post #172

WoodenChair wrote: post #121

SoundHound came out with this feature in their iPhone app in 2008. It worked well in my experience. It’s amazing how quick we are to go ooo ahhh when big tech replicates what is already common place in little tech or academia.

I remember that, and I remember playing a game with my girlfriend at the time where we tried to get it to recognize any song we hummed. We had an in-joke where Smooth Operator was literally the only song we could get it to recognize. This isn't just "big tech replicating a commonplace feature", it's big tech implementing it at all where little tech could not. This is a common fetishization on HN, but HNers forget tha…

This is common everywhere. Usually even worse: thinking ideas are worth a damn. Engineers only have to implement it, right? That's the easy part. Sigh..

Re: Hum to Search Song

#180

Post by muterad_murilax » Fri, Oct 16, 2020, 7:50 AM UTC

jeff_redradish wrote: post #62

As a child I remember hearing a beautiful song, sung in Japanese (so not searchable by anglo me), and today I finally found it [1]. Thanks Google! [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbTsG9jrJsU

From Wikipedia: "The song appears in episode 2 of The Man in the High Castle..."

Aha, so that's where I had heard it before!