Webware

New music search tool Mix Turtle is a very simple and elegant way to search for hosted music tracks. It provides search-as-you-type suggestions and a playlist creation tool that lets you add any search result to your mix just by clicking the big plus button next to it.

Like other music search engines, Mix Turtle provides variations on results if there are multiple sources. You can shuffle between each of these in succession and it will automatically jump to whichever one is still online since being indexed. It's not as elegant as mix tape creator MixWit's track surfer (which blends Seeqpod and Skreemr), but you can very quickly scour results and find what you're looking for.

Unfortunately, there are no real player controls that let you tweak things like a volume level or advance to a different part of the track, but you can simply pause it or jump to another track on your list with just a single click. Your playlist also stays with you from search to search, but remains out of sight. It can be summoned with a right click on your mouse.

Mix Turtle's database houses more than 2 million tracks. I was able to find some basic tracks from big bands with ease, including live tracks and remixes. For indie stuff you might be better off perusing eMusic's catalog.

See also: Songza, SeeqPod, Deezer, TinySong, and SkreemR.

Got a song stuck in your head? Get a quick fix with Songerize, a super simple Google-esque search engine for popular audio tracks. Just type in the song name and artist, and within seconds it'll start playing right under the results. It's powered by SeeqPod, which offers a more robust feature set, but without as much simplicity. Songerize doesn't tell you where the tracks are from or where to get them, but in testing it managed to pick up nearly every mainstream artist and popular hit I stuck in.

Another service that has been doing this with a little more finesse (and a business plan) is Songza, which we took a look at back in November. It'll tell you where to buy the music, and where they got it from--which can be pretty helpful if you're trying to make it a part of your permanent collection.

In December, I covered Nayio's Humming Search, which is supposed to identify songs when you hum into your computer's microphone. It was a colossal letdown. But a few days ago I tried a new song identifier, Midomi [see News.com story], and it worked great. I tried several songs (including the acid test, "Yellow Submarine," that Nayio flunked), and Midomi named most of them just fine. It didn't hit 100 percent accuracy--during my video shoot, it misidentified Oasis's "Wonderwall" on one try out of about seven--but it's accurate enough to be usable. As long as your voice isn't completely shot, as Michael Arrington's must be.

Also cool: Users can sing their own renditions of songs into the system, and it can play them for you when it identifies songs. It's surprisingly entertaining to hear good amateurs covering a tune you've just hummed. And you can buy tracks off the site.

Technical bonus: Midomi uses Flash, which makes it simple. Nayio requires an ActiveX download and didn't work for me in Firefox.

The wow factor is high on this one. It's really cool and potentially useful.

This morning, the music software and remixing company Nayio is launching its Humming Search feature in the U.S. This tool is supposed to be able to identify songs by listening to you hum a few bars. (It works on Internet Explorer only, as far as I can tell.)

(Credit: Nayio)

I think it's a great idea. If you hear a catchy tune on the radio and it gets stuck in your head, and you don't know the artist, Humming Search could save your sanity. Plus, it's cool.

Or it would be if it worked. I tried humming several tunes into my computer and got only one hit ("Come As You Are," by Nirvana). My wife, a Juilliard-trained musician who swore at the machine when it couldn't pick up "Yellow Submarine," after we both hummed it ("And you were even on key!" she said), had slightly better luck--Nayio ID'd about 30 percent of the songs she hummed and sang.

Once--or rather, if--Nayio identifies a song you've hummed, it redirects you to Napster, where you can listen to the real version and buy a download.

While I think the idea is cool, my wife was unimpressed, both by the implementation and the concept. She says friends are better at identifying music than computers are: "Hum into a computer or phone a friend? I know what I'd rather do."

See also Shazam and 411Song, mobile phone services that will identify recorded songs when you hold you phone up to the speaker.