[lucgommans]

I compared Shazam's, SoundHound's, and BeatFind's recognition library in August 2021. (And tried MusixMatch but it crashed on startup apparently.) Don't think I published it anywhere, these are my raw notes I found among saved chat messages. The format is starting to make more sense now that I'm putting it into a wider window than a chat screen, so I can recommend using a wide browser (94 characters per line should do it). Eyeing the song choices, it looks like I tried to find different genres and artist types (ccMixer/youtube celebrities, to indie, to established) but a larger sample size would obviously have been even better. Still, I hope it's one step up from adding another random opinion!

The conclusion appears to be that BeatFind and Shazam know the most songs, but are also somewhat complementary and all of the services had at least one song they uniquely recognised.

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    Fun facts:
     * Night Driver (W) said "1 Shazams". I think I was the first person to ever Shazam that. Some of the most obscure things had hundreds, often thousands of shazams!
     * You know where they are taking the hobbits but none of the services do!

    ========

    - ABC = found the song
    - # = number of attempts
    - f = exceptionally fast matching (when it did match, might not be first attempt)
    - ~ = knew one of the songs

    BeatFind:     2B  C     1E    2G 2H  1I  2Jf 2Lf 4M 2Nf 2Of 1Pf 1Rf ~S 2T  1Uf 1Vf 1W 1Xf Y Z
    SoundHound: A 1B        1E 2F 1G 2H  2If     1L         2O  3P  2R     1Tf 2U
    Shazam:       1Bf    1D 1E 1F 1G 1Hf 1I  2J  1L  1M 4N  1O  1Pf 1Rf    1Tf 1Uf 1V  2W 1X  Y Z
    MusixMatch: crashes on startup, presumably it realizes it won't be able to show me ads

    missingno
    Shazam:     A C K Q S
    SoundHound: C D F J K M/N Q S V W X Y Z
    BeatFind:   A D F K Q

    non-universal finds (repeated letter = unique = counts double; slash means same artist so should be counted as one)
    Shazam:     DD F J M/N V X Y Z
    SoundHound: AA F
    BeatFind:   CC J M/N S V X Y Z

    A: Levan Polkka Epic Orchestral Cover version
    B: Pokémon red/blue soundtrack
    C: Mayhem (various songs, it seems either they have all or they have none)
    D: Art Now ft. Snowflake
    E: Hero's Choice
    F: Three Days Grace - Scared
    G: Syrian - Supernova
    H: The Explosion - Here I Am
    I: The Von Bondies - C'mon C'mon
    J: Frank Klepacki - Scouting (C&C TibSun)
    K: Conspiracy - Chaos Theory (demoscene)
    L: Cheshyre - Madness6 (remix) (Newgrounds ID 77998)
    M: Dimrain47 - Twilight Techno
    N: Dimrain47 - Cloud Control
    O: DragonForce - My Spirit Will Go On
    P: Yuki Kajiura - The First Town (SAO)
    Q: THEY'RE TAKING THE HOBBITS TO ISENGARD! THE HOBBITS- THE HOBBITS- TO ISENGARD! TO ISENGARD!
    R: Faithless - Insomnia
    S: Age of Empires 1 soundtrack
    T: Moulin Rouge - El Tango De Roxanne
    U: Van Canto - Master of Puppets
    V: Slack Bird - Jouni
    W: Floppytronic - Night Driver
    X: EgoSalad / Kitboga - Breathe in
    Y: Floppy Drive music: top 4 hits on yt: sweet dreams, imperial march, ghostbusters, beat it. Only ghostbusters was known to any
    Z: Obsidian Shell - Orphanage

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Note that what I did not test/review introducing noise (like people talking through it) or filtering (like when you hear the music through a wall)