5 ms·

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 r

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.

0xdeadb00f 6y ago
Shazam was decent too if you hum a song iirc
harpratap 6y ago
I think you are underestimating how popular Soundhound was (or overestimating how popular Google's version is). I bought my first smartphone just because I was blown away by Soundhound app. I was going to upgrade a year later but apps like SoundHound sealed the deal for me
- sircastor 6y ago
  My wife and I had a real wow moment with Shazam after we’d taken a trip to Germany and she’d heard some music played on a carousel at a park. She had a video of the carousel running and we played it to Shazam. In about 20 Seconds we were listen to a very similar recording of “Sie will nicht blumen und nicht schokolade” (She doesn’t want flowers or chocolate). It was a really awesome moment of technology working for us. Song: https://youtu.be/eHwCraFXx90 https://youtu.be/eHwCraFXx90
  - theobeers 6y ago
    Wow, nice find! I'm glad I scrolled through the YouTube comments a bit to see this note on the background of the recording in wartime Berlin: "Recorded in Berlin, June 17, 1941. This was based on an old Yiddish song 'Yossel, Yossel' (by Nellie Casman) which Sammy Cahn and Saul Chaplin later retitled 'Joseph, Joseph.' Wonder if the censors realized this."
jodrellblank 6y ago
Recently getting on a tirade about how utterly pointless the comment "Linux had this first!" "Android had this first!" "Lisp had this first!" is. It's just as bad when it's "iPhone had this first!". So what? > 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. Translation: "You're dumb for liking this thing I had years ago". What an empty comment. I don't have an Android and never heard of SoundHound, and I'm quick to go "ooo ahhh" because last weekend my mom was humming a song she didn't know the name or words of, and next time I talk to her I can tell her to try song humming on OK Google, and her phone now does this by default, and if it works I'm predicting she will tell some of her friends or sisters as well. perhaps I should make sure to remind her that she shouldn't be impressed if it works, because a thing she would never have paid that much for, didn't care about and never owned, could do it years ago, would that help?
- WoodenChair 6y ago
  > Translation: "You're dumb for liking this thing I had years ago". What an empty comment. That’s just your extremely uncharitable and incorrect insinuation of my comment. What I was saying was not about the user’s reaction to the feature but instead about the admiration of the company. It’s not impressive if Ford uses a wheel on their car because a wheel is old technology that others have already done well.
  - jodrellblank 6y ago
    When you say “we” are too quick to X, but you personally are not Xing, then it is saying “you are too quick to X”. Is it not impressive that Ford model T became the mass-market car recognisable a hundred years later, because “we’re too quick to ooh and ahh other companies have used wheels before”? Look at the people in this comments thread saying it made their morning and they found songs from childhood and they’ve been experimenting with foreign songs, and I ask again, what does “I’m not impressed it’s been done before” add? Why do you think that’s a good, useful, comment? so what if it’s been done before?
    - 6y ago
can16358p 6y ago
I remember that feature. Out of my, like 20 to 30 tries, it literally worked only once. I told about that feature to my friends too but they said that it wasn't working either. So it was really not working at an acceptable level, or both me and my friends are terrible hummers.
- robbomacrae 6y ago
  I worked there from 2012 for 5 years. The query by humming was pretty amazing to me which is why I joined. And I'm pretty terrible at humming... Unfortunately though the database wasn't as extensive as the direct music match database. Perhaps you were trying songs that weren't included? Fun anecdote: I witnessed one user sing a song into SH so pitch perfect that (from the results) it had made a direct music match! We often heard that Google were attempting to replicate this technology. They even hired key employees involved in this part of the app. Still we maintained that particular technical moat for 12 years!
  - can16358p 6y ago
    I'm pretty sure it's been a great experience for a system like that! Maybe I was humming something not included in the humming database then (I didn't know they were separate), or maybe, I'm just bad at humming :)
rorosaurus 6y ago
That was my first thought too. SoundHound worked 90% of the time for me, very impressive for the day IMO. Too bad it was fairly short-lived - I think they removed that functionality within a year or two. It's nice to have the ability to search like this again.
- feanaro 6y ago
  Huh? SoundHound still works, I have it installed on my phone.
hombre_fatal 6y ago
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.
- mrmonkeyman 6y ago
  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..
- FartyMcFarter 6y ago
  I don't know how it was back then, but I used SoundHound recently to hum Bizet's March of the Toreadors and it worked on the first try. SoundHound is definitely not a tech demo.
- WoodenChair 6y ago
  > This isn't just "big tech replicating a commonplace feature", it's big tech implementing it at all where little tech could not. Well I guess our experiences were quite different then. I was able to get SoundHound to recognize the vast majority of the tunes I hummed for it back in 2008/2009. And I used it a lot. I did only choose popular songs though. It's not surprising IMHO that a company 12 years later with much greater resources could extend recognition to a much larger variety of songs. So I wouldn't call it "little tech could not."
kieckerjan 6y ago
I seem to remember that they even had an option to play back recordings of other users who hummed the same song you were humming. Of course it was a privacy minefield, so that feature was discontinued pretty quickly. But it was hilarious while it lasted, hearing e.g. a Japanese granny croon Madonna.

0xdeadb00f 6y ago

Shazam was decent too if you hum a song iirc

harpratap 6y ago

I think you are underestimating how popular Soundhound was (or overestimating how popular Google's version is). I bought my first smartphone just because I was blown away by Soundhound app. I was going to upgrade a year later but apps like SoundHound sealed the deal for me

sircastor 6y ago
My wife and I had a real wow moment with Shazam after we’d taken a trip to Germany and she’d heard some music played on a carousel at a park. She had a video of the carousel running and we played it to Shazam. In about 20 Seconds we were listen to a very similar recording of “Sie will nicht blumen und nicht schokolade” (She doesn’t want flowers or chocolate). It was a really awesome moment of technology working for us. Song: https://youtu.be/eHwCraFXx90 https://youtu.be/eHwCraFXx90
- theobeers 6y ago
  Wow, nice find! I'm glad I scrolled through the YouTube comments a bit to see this note on the background of the recording in wartime Berlin: "Recorded in Berlin, June 17, 1941. This was based on an old Yiddish song 'Yossel, Yossel' (by Nellie Casman) which Sammy Cahn and Saul Chaplin later retitled 'Joseph, Joseph.' Wonder if the censors realized this."

jodrellblank 6y ago

Recently getting on a tirade about how utterly pointless the comment "Linux had this first!" "Android had this first!" "Lisp had this first!" is. It's just as bad when it's "iPhone had this first!". So what? > 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. Translation: "You're dumb for liking this thing I had years ago". What an empty comment. I don't have an Android and never heard of SoundHound, and I'm quick to go "ooo ahhh" because last weekend my mom was humming a song she didn't know the name or words of, and next time I talk to her I can tell her to try song humming on OK Google, and her phone now does this by default, and if it works I'm predicting she will tell some of her friends or sisters as well. perhaps I should make sure to remind her that she shouldn't be impressed if it works, because a thing she would never have paid that much for, didn't care about and never owned, could do it years ago, would that help?

WoodenChair 6y ago
> Translation: "You're dumb for liking this thing I had years ago". What an empty comment. That’s just your extremely uncharitable and incorrect insinuation of my comment. What I was saying was not about the user’s reaction to the feature but instead about the admiration of the company. It’s not impressive if Ford uses a wheel on their car because a wheel is old technology that others have already done well.
- jodrellblank 6y ago
  When you say “we” are too quick to X, but you personally are not Xing, then it is saying “you are too quick to X”. Is it not impressive that Ford model T became the mass-market car recognisable a hundred years later, because “we’re too quick to ooh and ahh other companies have used wheels before”? Look at the people in this comments thread saying it made their morning and they found songs from childhood and they’ve been experimenting with foreign songs, and I ask again, what does “I’m not impressed it’s been done before” add? Why do you think that’s a good, useful, comment? so what if it’s been done before?
  - 6y ago

can16358p 6y ago

I remember that feature. Out of my, like 20 to 30 tries, it literally worked only once. I told about that feature to my friends too but they said that it wasn't working either. So it was really not working at an acceptable level, or both me and my friends are terrible hummers.

robbomacrae 6y ago
I worked there from 2012 for 5 years. The query by humming was pretty amazing to me which is why I joined. And I'm pretty terrible at humming... Unfortunately though the database wasn't as extensive as the direct music match database. Perhaps you were trying songs that weren't included? Fun anecdote: I witnessed one user sing a song into SH so pitch perfect that (from the results) it had made a direct music match! We often heard that Google were attempting to replicate this technology. They even hired key employees involved in this part of the app. Still we maintained that particular technical moat for 12 years!
- can16358p 6y ago
  I'm pretty sure it's been a great experience for a system like that! Maybe I was humming something not included in the humming database then (I didn't know they were separate), or maybe, I'm just bad at humming :)

rorosaurus 6y ago

That was my first thought too. SoundHound worked 90% of the time for me, very impressive for the day IMO. Too bad it was fairly short-lived - I think they removed that functionality within a year or two. It's nice to have the ability to search like this again.

feanaro 6y ago
Huh? SoundHound still works, I have it installed on my phone.

hombre_fatal 6y ago

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.

mrmonkeyman 6y ago
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..
FartyMcFarter 6y ago
I don't know how it was back then, but I used SoundHound recently to hum Bizet's March of the Toreadors and it worked on the first try. SoundHound is definitely not a tech demo.
WoodenChair 6y ago
> This isn't just "big tech replicating a commonplace feature", it's big tech implementing it at all where little tech could not. Well I guess our experiences were quite different then. I was able to get SoundHound to recognize the vast majority of the tunes I hummed for it back in 2008/2009. And I used it a lot. I did only choose popular songs though. It's not surprising IMHO that a company 12 years later with much greater resources could extend recognition to a much larger variety of songs. So I wouldn't call it "little tech could not."

kieckerjan 6y ago

I seem to remember that they even had an option to play back recordings of other users who hummed the same song you were humming. Of course it was a privacy minefield, so that feature was discontinued pretty quickly. But it was hilarious while it lasted, hearing e.g. a Japanese granny croon Madonna.