Midomi review

Richard Goodwin

We review Midomi, the app that allows you to use your own vocal stylings to search for the names of songs that escape you

Published on Sep 22, 2009

Music is an essential part of modern life, and for many, finding out about new artists and bands is just as important too.

Unfortunately, no one is ever one hundred per cent up-to-date all the time, and occasionally you will hear a song you don’t recognise, missed the name of, or simply forgot the next day - either way, if you liked it, you’ll want to know the name of it, and usually right away.

Cue Midomi, the music search application for Symbian, which is available - at present for free - from Nokia’s Ovi Store.

As apps go, this is a very simple piece of kit, much like ShazamID and MusicBrainz. Once the app is open there is a single orange interface, with three options - grab, record, or text - simply select which one you want with the D pad and you're off.

The installation process is relatively quick and hassle free. Once installed, the app opens quickly and you can be checking the names of unknown songs within minutes.

However, Midomi has one unique selling point that separates it from the competition - you can hum, sing, or 'mouth riff' parts of songs to find out the name of the track, as well as the more traditional grab method. This feature adds an element of fun, as well as user interaction, to the app itself, which some may find entertaining.

Out of 10 attempts, Midomi secured a rather alarming 80 per cent accuracy!

Once the track had been located, following our near perfect rendition, Midomi provided links to YouTube, and previews of the song so you can check the accuracy.

During testing we found that Midomi provided an adequate grab and text service, in terms of success rates, when compared to the aforementioned competition. However, some of the more underground bands we tested failed to show up, which didn’t really surprise us as we expected this app to be more geared towards popular culture anyway.

The science behind the Midomi hum/sing function is clever, it doesn’t match your vocal stylings to professional recordings - it’s quite the opposite in fact. The service uses its database of user uploaded renditions of songs and then compares your recording to them. Once the app has found a match, or fingerprint, it compiles the results within less than a minute.

While this is a fun little app, which certainly comes in useful from time to time, it still has a few chinks in its armour, and is far from perfect - particularly if your musical tastes are a little less conventional.

However, at present it’s free, and we would strongly advise everyone to give it a whirl, even if its just for a laugh!