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As I sat devastated after watching my beloved Manchester United fall victim to an obnoxious refereeing decision, I stood up to switch off the television. But before I could do so, an enticing song started playing in the background with the highlights.
The lyrics were too fast to catch hold off.
In an effort to find out what that song was, I flicked on my Windows smartphone and clicked on 'Soundhound', a sound recognition application.
I simply tapped the 'Tap Here' button in the application and placed it near the TV's speaker. It recorded the song for 20 seconds and, that too, not from the beginning, and voila! it identified the song, 'Days Go By' by The Offspring.
Soundhound - which was earlier known as Midomi - uses the Sound2Sound technology, which is capable of identifying various sound inputs, including music and speech. You can even hum, sing or playback a recorded song, which the application will record and then look for a match in its central database. At 2 MB (Windows Marketplace), I found it much easier than Shazam and it is easy to download.
Album art, lyrics…
Another great feature about Soundhound is the provision of the songs album art, with an option of checking the Twitter and Facebook pages of the artiste as well. It also shows the song's release date. If the lyrics of the song are available, those are listed right next to it. Otherwise, you can click on the 'Look up lyrics' link, which takes you straight to Google search results for the lyrics.
The songs you have searched, stay under the My Stuff tab, in case you want to revisit. Soundhound also has a Charts section, which showcases the latest tracks. The app is available for all major smartphone platforms.
Getting that ringtone
So, now that you have the song, how do you make it your ringtone? Most smartphones have the simple option of making an mp3 file your ringtone. But sometimes you just want a particular section of the song to play when someone pings you.
Say hello to 'Audiko.net', a free, user-friendly website that allows you to make and download customised ringtones.
You can either upload your favourite song or enter any URL. Once it has been uploaded, you can choose the desired section or fragment, which can be then downloaded as a ringtone.
Audiko also has a huge database, be it a latest single or a golden oldie. You just need to enter the song or artiste's name. Once you have the results, you can listen to the ringtones available. The best thing about Audiko is that it provides you with the 'Variations' option. The moment you select it, you can view the different parts of the song. Each fragment has a different file size and can be heard, so that it becomes much easier for the user to decide.
You can download 3-4 ringtones at first, after which you will need to create an account, which is free. We found registration really easy, as you can log in with either your Facebook or Gmail id.
And once you are logged in, you have all the music and ringtones at your disposal. Just search, select and download your favourite ringtone. Smartphone symphony made easy!
