Quickly Identify Songs on Linux Using Mousai
The you next hear a song in a TV show, movie, or video you’re watching and want to find out who it’s by give open source app Mousai a try.
Mousai is a song recognition app for Linux built in GTK4/libadwaita and Rust. It uses the AudD song recognition API to match the music you ask it to listen to with songs to established work.
Basically, Mousai is Shazam for Linux.
The latest version of this song identifying app has a new look, supports fuzzy search when you look for previously identified songs, and integrates with MPRIS applets across different Linux desktop environments.
You can also now copy the title and artist of any song match to the clipboard, which is ideal for pasting in a search engine to learn more.
Let’s take a look at how it works.
Mousai: Fast Song Recognition
Open Mousai and click the “listen” button. Then, play the song want to identify near your computer’s microphone or, if the mystery melody is in a video or game on your computer, Mousai can listen to your system audio instead.
After listening for a few seconds Mousai will (all being well) locate a match and tell you what the song is called, who it’s by, what album it’s on, and when it was released. You also get links to open the song on popular music streaming services, which is handy.
Mousai also keeps a list of previously matched songs that you can search or browse. Where available, the app provides links to play matching songs (in full) on popular music streaming services, like Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube.
Mousai does not ‘listen’ in the background, as similar apps for Windows and macOS do.
Because the Audd.io API backend Mousai uses to identify songs is rate limited you can only use the app to make a handful of song searches a day. If you need to match more you can sign up for an AudD API key and enter it in the app.
So how good is it at identifying tracks?
I grabbed the latest version from Flathub to tes it on Fedora 38. I got a 100% match rate when testing songs from established artists. From Spice Girls to New Found Glory it got each and every track I tried exactly right, first time, within seconds.
Obscure artists, and songs that don’t really “do much” in the short period the app listens, were a bit more hit-and-miss (NFG pun for those in the know). Instrumental pieces (e.g., soaring orchestral movements from movies) were rarely identified.
However, but that’s to be expected as the app can only identify songs it already knows – something super new, or super niche, is less likely to be in its catalog.
But in all, the app is great. When you need to identify a song on Linux there’s no better tool than this one — so give it a go!
Mousai is free, open source software available from Flathub.
• Get Mousai on Flathub
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Source: OMG! Linux