My app Tunepal has made it onto the App store. You can now search a database of over 12,000 tunes by playing 10 seconds of the tune into your iPhone. Ive been testing it over the past month or so in various environments including noisy sessions and it’s almost 100% accurate in identifying the tune.
Tunepal also geotags all queries, so you can use the built in Map to plot the tunes you have tagged. Its actually very cool as now you can use Tunepal to answer questions like “what was that tune I heard in O’Donohue’s last week?” and all you have to do is look at the tunes on the map in Tunepal.
It costs 3.99 on the App store. Please let me know what you think of it and if it works ok for you. You can leave feedback here, or on my blog:
Wow, sounds terrific. Once you get the tune name do you get a download of the ABC, or dots (yes I know we are supposed to have learned all 1,000 of the local session tunes by heart, but for those memory challanged folks like myself that would be invaluable) I’m almost tempted to purchase an i-phone just to be able to use the app. Of course then I’d have to switch to ATT…
Any chance you will port it over to a blackberry? I’d purchase it if so.
A lot of the I-phone apps also work on I-touch, does yours? Will it work without an internet connection (unlikely I guess), so if the I-touch is not connected on WiFi I guess I’ve answered my own question.
I used your Tunepal on my WM phone and it worked great. It was an entirely different beast though. I jumped ship to an android phone and have missed tunepal. I have my abc database, but it is hard to search without a good program to do so.
Your new version would be very useful. Just yesterday a friend and I were trying to remember the name of a tune that came into my head. It would have been very handy to have this program to help.
I don’t know anything about programming, but designing this app for the android system would be a nice thing for the future. Google has a similar app store and I think they are a lot less restrictive toward programmers than apple.
A lot of the I-phone apps also work on I-touch, does yours? Will it work without an internet connection (unlikely I guess), so if the I-touch is not connected on WiFi I guess I’ve answered my own question.
It should work on an iTouch with a microphone (2G upwards I believe*). I have a 1G iTouch and am going to try it with a microphone addon if I can. My sister has a 3G iTouch. I’ll let you know if it works on that.
I downloaded this to my iPod Touch (2G) with external microphone and it seems to work well. It’s $4.99 on the Canadian iTunes store. Really a very cool app. I was able to quickly identify several tunes that I’ve been playing for months without having any idea as to the names of them. Thanks for the work that went into this.
Is there a way in the app to search tunes by name to bring up the ABC notation, or is the search limited to sound input only? I already have the “TradTunes” app installed which can do this, but a single app which can do both jobs would be cool.
Im working on a new release which I hope to have out next week. I’ll fix the constant prompting about your location and a little bug I just discovered on the map (its meant to centre on the most recently tagged tune, but it actually centers on the first tagged tune). Also I should be able to improve the transcription and general accuracy and speed of tagging. Please feel free to send me suggestions here or on the blog or facebook page
I am using it on an Ipod Touch and it works very nicely. The only drawback I can see is the need for a wifi connection to submit the tune for identification. Would it be possible to download the tune database along with the app, or are there proprietary or other issues with that? A less desirable work-around might be adding the ability to store the recorded tune and submit it later. Or am I just missing something really obvious?
I submitted a new build of Tunepal to the app store this evening with the following changes:
Improved validation of the transcription, so you are more likely to get a correct match, (or a notification that the transcription has not worked instead of a completely spurious tune like “Sadegurer Khosid” or The Tornado Two Step
Added a user configurable delay before recording (default is 2 seconds).
Fixed map centering on your last tagged tune.
If the ABC notation has an alternative title, then this is also displayed.
You will be given 3 opportunities to allow geotagging of queries. After that the application wont prompt you any more.
Increased the record time to 12 seconds from 10.
This should go live over the next few days and all users should update with this version
Coming soon:
Search the entire catalogue by name
I’ll have to think about the offline annotation. It would be a lot of work. I think I’d rather spend the time improving the transcrition and matching, which is kind of primitive at the moment especially compared to the transcriotion on tunepal.org.
Purchased tunepal yesterday and tried it out at the Sunday session. Everyone was very impressed. Tunepal named tunes that we, and the person playing, didn’t know the names of. Sometimes though after recording the tune, a dialogue box appeared saying that the melody was unclear and tunepal couldn’t identify the tune. This could happen a couple of times even when there were only a couple of instruments playing. After a couple of tries starting a recording and getting the dialogue box about the melody being unclear, tunepal would be able to make an identification on the third try.
We’re very pleased with this app as it seems to be able to identify the names, or alternate names of tunes nearly every time. After identification of a tune, an ABC of the tune can be shown and played, and it’s also possible to link to thesession.org’s tune section and check out the musical notation, or read comments about the tune. This is a really useful app for Irish trad musicians with access to an iPhone or iPod Touch with microphone.
“It won’t be long before Tunepal starts playing along!” m31.
There are those concertina, box, and uilleann drone & reg apps that can be played, prehaps they can be used to play along, um don’t really see the point of them, but no harm done, whereas tunepal is a practical app at a session where the question always arises “Whats the name of that last tune?” or What’s the name of the first tune you played?"
Indeed I was thinking of M. Eskin’s apps. One could conceivably combine the two and add playing capability (e.g., ABCMus). Personally I have no need for this, but someone might, if only for the novelty factor. Player piano of sorts.
“Indeed I was thinking of M. Eskin’s apps. One could conceivably combine the two and add playing capability (e.g., ABCMus). Personally I have no need for this, but someone might, if only for the novelty factor. Player piano of sorts.” m31
Yes, but this function exists already in tunepal as when the tune has been identified the tune can then be played via the ABC through the iPhone/iPod touch speaker or through connected third party speakers placed on the session table. No need to take an instrument to the session, just the iphone and some small powerful JBL type speakers This is the future
Well obviously I would know geographically where I heard it. I must be the one missing something because I can’t fingure out why I would care where I heard it. Don’t get me wrong its cool and all but I just don’t get it. If it somehow tagged WHO taught it to me… Anyway it probably has to do with being out here in the middle of the Pacific Ocean there aren’t exactly a bunch of places (like almost none) to learn/hear tunes.
Clark
You can use TunePal to identify tunes being played by other people. If you forget the name of a tune you heard last week in Dublin you just need to go to the maps tab and it should tell you.
I’m going to try this app soon, I’ll never be the one who’s always asking for the last tune’s name.
But what happend after the tune’s identification?
may I add the tune to “my tunebook” or\and to my “I will study this-TuneBook” ?
and may I send those tunebook to my email in abc format??
This is the future 
