Follow Along Line By Line With LiveLyrics, Available In The New SoundHound 4
July 21, 2011
One of the top music tagging and information apps just got a bit sweeter a little earlier today. Available to United States and Canada users, the LiveLyrics feature of SoundHound v4.0 makes singing along to a song as easy as karaoke.
You may be thinking; SoundHound already offers lyrics for my favorite songs. Indeed, however, LiveLyrics takes that up a notch or tow. Supporting over 500,000 songs at launch, LiveLyrics identifies what verse and line is currently being sung. Once again, there are already iOS apps that offer this type of feature, right? Correct, but LiveLyrics has capabilities only apps like SoundHound can successfully pull off.
While this new feature allows you to follow along to many of the songs you already have stored on your iDevice, it isn't where LiveLyrics truly shines. Because of SoundHound's incredible ability to quickly recognize even just beats to a song, the LiveLyrics system is capable of following along to songs it IDs that aren't in your iPod library.
To follow along, ID the song as normal by tapping the big "What's that song?" button. After it has been identified, tap on the lyrics preview to view the full lyrics sheet. Even before you reach the full lyrics sheet, the app will inform you if the song is supported by the LiveLyrics feature with the words LiveLyrics and a rectangular box surrounding the verse.
To previous users, almost all of this should look as it did before. However, LiveLyrics lyrics sheets have a hollow rectangular box to help guide you. The current line being sung is at the very top-inside of this guide box. Now, take a look in the bottom-left of the lyrics sheet. You should see one of three small indicator icons: a hollow rectangle, a refresh arrow, or a refresh arrow with a red circle.
These icons are indicators and controls for the LiveLyrics system. If you decide to scroll through the lyrics manually using swipes, you can tap on the hollow rectangle to re-enable the current verse guide. Tap on the refresh arrow to tell SoundHound to start listening again. A refresh arrow with a red dot within it, which pulses and spins occasionally, informs you that SoundHound is actively listening and working to keep along.
If for some reason the track is scrubbed to an earlier or later point, LiveLyrics will keep up, after a momentary delay while it listens. Meaning, if you start the song over, for example, SoundHound will automatically move the guide box right back tot he beginning.
LiveLyrics is available in both the premium SoundHound ∞ app and the ad-supported SoundHound app. As a reminder, this feature is currently only available in the U.S. and Canada, requires SoundHound or SoundHound ∞ v4.0 or later, and is only supported with certain audio tracks.
SoundHound is a universal app compatible with iPad, iPhone and iPod touch running iOS 3.0 or later, and available in the App Store as a free download. SoundHound ∞ is a universal app compatible with iPad, iPhone and iPod touch running iOS 3.0 or later, and available in the App Store for $6.99.