Songr – A Desktop MP3 Search Engine That Also Downloads Songs for You
Perhaps there are very few things in this world that give so much joy packed in a bundle of a few megabytes. That’s an MP3 song for you. But where do you go to get your music? Google Music Search is still out of reach for many of us. And it’s not whistling a free tune right now. All you will get are audio previews from Google’s music partners. Ever since the era of Napster, ‘free’ has been a birthright isn’t it…every search result should open the door to the free-way.
Copyright and DRM issues notwithstanding, downloading music off the net is one of the most popular web trend. As Google says, two of the top 10 queries in the U.S. are music-related. That’s probably the same around the world. So where do you go in search of your music?
Do you carry out a generic search using one of the search engines? Do you use a specific MP3 search engine? Maybe you picked out one from our Free MP3 Downloads: 7 Websites That Make It Really Easy post. Or you just like to stream it over the waves using the online music players. Thank God, there are options galore for the music lover.
Songr is a desktop search software that will not only search out the right song for you but also downloads it for you.
But why a desktop alternative to download songs, I ask?
Music can be downloaded via P2P software too and you can also use MP3 search engines on the web. P2P software to download a single off the cuff track is bit of overkill and MP3 search engines are great but they might have a bad server day. Also, Songr offers some features that bump up its appeal in my ears. Songr has three noteworthy features which make downloading a single click affair.
1. Meta-search with 10 online MP3 search engines
Give Songr a song title in its search box placed on the top right and the software taps into 10 MP3 search engines to get the song. It gathers the results, removes duplicates and displays it all on its frugal interface.
Take your fine-tooth comb and go through the results which can be bracketed according to Duration, Bitrate, Size and Relevance (just click the column heads to arrange). The low bitrate results are grayed out and usually, you will find the songs with a higher relevance on top of the heap. If you choose to buy the tracks, you can check them out at Amazon and Rhapsody using the shortcut from the menu.
The search engines used by Songr are displayed in the screenshot below taken from the Songr features page.
2. YouTube audio extraction
Songr plucks out audio tracks as MP3 from YouTube videos using some sort of a FFmpeg converter. Songr uses JusthearIt.com’s engine to tap into YouTube’s resources. You can see it in the results as a little video icon. You get two options with a right click – Play it as a video directly on YouTube or download it as an MP3 audio track, an AVI video or a MPEG video to your computer.
You also get to choose between the HQ version and the slower but better HD version (if available).
3. Search by lyrics
Songr uses Bing as a search service to get you the songs when you type in a few words from the songs. According to the software’s FAQ – Songr searches the words you typed in Bing plus adding “lyrics” to the query, reads the titles of the results, filters those using heuristic techniques and tries to restore the original case.
Well as long as I get the results! I got some hits and misses with this one. I guess it boils down to Bing’s penetration and the lyrics with the song’s search engine indexed existence.
If I could add a number four, it would be its simple ad-free interface. That’s what I liked – no glitz, no glamour but just focused on the job. There isn’t anything by way of settings. It uses the system’s default music player to play the track. Such basic software should be light on resources, which it is – consuming about 3.5MB of memory at its peak YouTube conversion job.
We had covered a desktop app for searching MP3 ditties before too. You might like to try out Clickster and look at it against Songr’s performance.
Does this simple software deserve an encore?
Songr (v1.2) is a measly 452KB download and it plays along with Windows XP, Vista and 7. It only asks for the Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5.
(By) Saikat is a techno-adventurer in a writer's garb. When he is not scouring the net for tech news, you can catch him on his personal blog ruminating about the positves in our world.
Another very cool app. I find myself saying this alot lately, but thanks again.
A ground-breaking tool you can use to convert video to video,cell phones and imported to QuickTime, iTunes, iMovie and YouTubeVideo Converter for MacAll the DVD and video can be played on iPod, iPhone, PSP, Apple TV,DVD Ripper for Macflash video editing tool that allows you to crop, trim and rotate, plus the video/audio effect selection.FLV Converter for MacMusic could be the our best friend understanding what mood we are in at the moment.MP3 Converter for Mac
no bells, no whistles, i love it
sounds like a great program, but link doesn’t work. Any suggestions on how to download?
Seems to be working now. Could you check again. It’s a MediaFire link on the site itself.
thank Saikat
(Comments wont nest below this level)It didn’t seem to like Firefox. Tried with IE and got the same error message at first, but then asked me to register, and it finally downloaded. Strange
That’s strange Patty. It seems they changed the link just a day after my post got posted, because I didn’t have any problems downloading it. There were no registration requirements. And I am still running it smoothly. Just finished dnld some songs of Aqua:).
I had the same problem as Patty in both firefox and IE. It finally downloaded after the 3rd try on firefox but after installation it doesn’t seem to work and gives me only error messages.
Are you sure your .NET Framework is updated. That could be one possible reason for the error.
Worked a charm, what a great program.
I’ve been playing with this program a little. I’d rather just listen to the music rather than download everything.
I wish I could just run a search for a specific group or album and then press play. It would be like popping in CD or turning on the radio.
Nathan
Have you tried Blip.FM? My favorite site for searching and listening. Also like Last.FM. Did manage to finally download Songr, but haven’t had time to fiddle with it yet.
Patty:
The thing I liked about Songr is that it mostly finds exactly what you are looking for. The problem with Last.FM (and I’m assuming also with Blip.FM)is that they aren’t able to just play the specific artists and tracks I wanted to listen to because of their licensing deals.
Songr would be perfect if I could run a search and then press a play button.
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