How does the popular application Shazam work [closed]

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Just out of curiosity because I've always wondered this. How does the application Shazam work? I know how to use it, I'm speaking in terms of programming. How does the application listen to any part of a song and then give you the results? Obviously it receives it's song information from a database, but there is NO way someone could enter every single song known to man in that database. Also, how does Shazam not constantly update all the time? New songs are constantly being released yet it was like Shazam already had the future songs programmed into it. This is just mind boggling to me, and I would just like to know how exactly this all works. I know this is not a help question, but could someone please clarify? Thanks!

Answer 1

They don't say much on the link diciu posted.
The algorithm is based on Fourier's waves, which allows expressing a mathematical function as a linear sum of harmonic functions. This transform allows mapping between time to frequency which is exactly what you need in order to create voice recognition.

I find it hard to believe that Shazaam has a patent over Fourier's transformation. But if you try to build a "2nd Shazaam" you'll probably fail since they already took over all the market...

Answer 2

Shazam only starts with Fourier transforms (which isn't surprising since pretty much all audio processing works this way).

You can read Avery Wang's original paper, if you like. He is the inventor of the Shazam algorithm. I happen to think that it is best explained as a nearest neighbor technique, which is why we included it as an example in Chapter 9 of "Data Mining Techniques, 3rd Edition".

You might be interested in what we have to say there (http://www.amazon.com/Data-Mining-Techniques-Relationship-Management/dp/0470650931/ref=pd_sim_b_5).