Guidelines & Resources

Introduction

Ways To Identify Songs Before Posting

• Check out the FAQ for music from memes/TikToks/YouTube Shorts and general background music
• When possible, use music recognition services/apps like the ones mentioned here
  • Note that in cases of background music with talking over it you can use services like VocalRemover.org or TuneBat to remove the vocals and make it easier for music recognition services/bots to process and identify.
  • Shazam
  • SoundHound (Midomi)
  • AHA Music (ACRCloud) (also see this guide)
  • MusiXmatch
  • Musipedia
  • BeatFind
  • AudioTag
  • Deezer
  • AudD
  • Assistants in mobile devices, such as Siri/Google/Cortana/etc.
  • You can also try using YouTube's Copyright system
• If you have a recording of the actual song then you can use music recognition bots in the Weekly Thread on Reddit
• If the song appears in a YouTube video make sure to check the video's description, and try to use sites like YT Comment or Hadzy to search through all of the comments for keywords like song/music or for the specific timestamp that the song starts at, to check if someone answered it there.
• Many YouTube videos feature royalty-free music which can sometimes be identified with one of the mentioned services, but if not you can try checking databases like:
  • YouTube
  • Epidemic Sound (+their YT channels)
  • NoCopyrightSounds
  • Universal Production Music
  • Audio Library
  • AudioMicro
  • See also: Twitch
  • Also note that music in ads is almost always royalty free and recorded specifically for the ad or taken from a stock music library
• If relevant, try searching the lyrics in sites like:
  • SongSearch
  • FindMusicByLyrics
  • Lyrics.com
• Samples/covers:
  • Use WhoSampled to find the origin of a sample and where it's been used, including cover versions
  • Use SecondHandSongs to search for covers/original versions
  • Use Genius to search for both samples and covers. Go to the song's lyrics pages, scroll down to the "Credits" section and click "Expand", then you can click on the titles of the relevant lists to go to see them in a page, like "Songs That Sample..." and "Songs That Interpolate..."
• Songs from TV shows and films:
  • TuneFind (search by the artist and not the song)
  • What-Song (same\^)
  • The film/show's soundtrack page on IMDb
• For classical music you can check this great list that allows you to listen to previews of popular classical pieces (and sort them by composer, theme and more. Notice that sometimes there are 2 different previews for the same piece) (there's also a 101-200 list, with mostly lesser known pieces)
• For identifying genres you can check out CHOSIC

Other Communities

• If you don't get an answer here about identifying music you can also ask on:
  • These other communities
  • If you have a recording or a recreation of the song you can also post it on WatZatSong
• If you're looking for suggestions you should post on r/ifyoulikeblank and r/musicsuggestions
• Also check out the other related communities

Post Title for identifying songs/artists/albums

We require post titles to be descriptive enough to make it easier for the helpers to figure out if they might be able to help or not, and to act as a TL;DR.

• Note: If you're looking to identify a genre then please skip ahead to the section Post Title and Content for identifying genres

The title of your post must include at least one of these details:

Era/Year | Genre | Style | Artist type (or name if you know) | Music video information | Source name
Language/Country | Lyrics/Content | Cover art | Description | Possible (or known) song name

• Note that the safest way to make sure your post is accepted is to include at least one of the relevant keywords with a colon (Lyrics:, Source name:, Music video:, etc.).
• If you know many of the details don't overload the title - only include the most important/unique details, and put the rest inside the post.

Examples of descriptive titles:

• 90's song by an alternative rock band (male singer/s)
• Ballad by a female singer, sounds like it's from the 80's
• Music video where a guy is walking in the street towards the camera {=Bittersweet Symphony btw}
• Upbeat Latin song
• Meme video of a cat bobbing its head to a fast beat
• Calm piano instrumental
• Source name: [the name of a film/show/YouTuber/etc. Please don't put a url as the detail here]
• Lyrics: [the lyrics you remember]
• Content: Song was about people on a road trip

When relevant you can also use:

• I only remember the melody that I recreated here
• I only have this recording, I don't know any details

Examples of titles that aren't descriptive enough:

• What's the background music in this video?
• I forgot the name of this popular song

Post Content for identifying songs/artists/albums

• If you're linking to a YouTube video please use a timestamped link if relevant (you can also use YoutubeTrimmer)
  • Please note that sometimes when you copy a YouTube link (especially on mobile) it copies it with the timestamp of when you paused the video, so please fix that before submitting.
• Please link to public sources that don't require an account to access them (for example, link to YouTube instead of Spotify when possible) and ones that are available worldwide (not geo-blocked like the BBC).
  • If needed, record/upload the relevant part to Vocaroo (only upload a snippet of up to a minute since we can't have full recordings/copies of songs on the sub)
• If you have a video file you can upload it to a site like Streamable/Veed.io (you can also use Google Drive / Dropbox, but make sure to make the file public)
• If you have an audio file you can upload it to a site like Vocaroo/SndUp that allows people to stream the file without downloading it
• Add an NSFW tag/warning when posting such content. (posting NSFW content is allowed)
  • Note: If your post is a text post with an NSFW link somewhere in it, you can also just add an NSFW warning before the link instead of tagging the post.
• Don't post content that's disturbing/NSFL, hateful/mean-spirited, insensitive, etc. This includes but not limited to: gore, death, people getting hurt/catching on fire, car accidents, shootings, bombings, public fights, animal abuse/cruelty, racism/xenophobia, sexism, homophobia, etc. Instead if possible, convert/record a clean audio (without disturbing/hateful/etc. parts in it) and upload it to a site like Vocaroo, or record it with your phone next to the speaker without filming the video and upload that to a new post.

Give all the relevant details you can:

• Lyrics you remember, artists/songs that it sounded like (if you mention a song then add a link to it), details from the music video, etc. (you can put the most relevant information, like lyrics, in bold to make them stand out)
  • But also keep your post as short and to the point as possible, since it's energy/time-consuming for helpers to go through long text posts to try and get to the relevant details.
  • Use bulletpoints/line-breaks to prevent an endless stream of text which can be hard to go through.
• When describing a melody with notes/chords or words ("la la"/"dun dun"/etc.), also try to record yourself or recreate the melody:
  • For singing/humming: Vocaroo or SpeakPipe
  • For recreating the melody with digital instruments: OnlineSequencer (at the end click the light blue cloud icon to save) / MusicLab (click "Save") / BeepBox (File > "Copy Song URL")
• If the source of the song/music is a TV show/film/commercial/etc. please link to a (legal) publicly available recording of it, or if you can, record the audio and upload to a site like Vocaroo/SndUp (only upload a snippet of up to a minute since we can't have full recordings/copies of songs on the sub)

Post Title and Content for identifying genres

Use a title in a format like:

• What's the genre of the song ... by ...? [add the actual details]
• What's the sub-genre of this electronic background music?

When you mention a specific song/artist then please link to them, and use a public source (for example, link to YouTube instead of Spotify when possible)

Other Rules

• Be kind and helpful. Don't be rude, don't use hate-speech of any kind, and don't troll/meme (when giving answers for example). Let's keep this community friendly.
• When answering with a link, add the artist/title of the song
• When needed please warn about loud volume, flashing lights/imagery, etc.
• Don't post the same question/request more than once every 10 days.
• No requests for locating/downloading music, we don't want the platform/server owner(s) to get in trouble if someone shares a link to a pirated copy of music.
• Once solved, please mark your post as "Solved" and thank the person/s who helped you
• Don't delete your post after someone answers it