November 25th, 2009
I know this is old but may be of interesting to those, like me, on the trailing edge of everything.
If you’ve ever wondered how Shazam, the iPhone app that identifies songs after being given a short sample, works, then check out “That Tune, Named” over at Slate. Very interesting.
First, a short explanation of how Shazam works. The company has a library of more than 8 million songs, and it has devised a technique to break down each track into a simple numeric signature—a code that is unique to each track. “The main thing here is creating a ‘fingerprint’ of each performance,” says Andrew Fisher, Shazam’s CEO. When you hold your phone up to a song you’d like to ID, Shazam turns your clip into a signature using the same method. Then it’s just a matter of pattern-matching—Shazam searches its library for the code it created from your clip; when it finds that bit, it knows it’s found your song.
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