Apple Music Sing debuted just before the end of 2022 with... well, relatively little fanfare. And that's weird, because for Apple Music subscribers who can answer a few key credentials, it's a fun and exciting new way to explore your inner diva, singer, or hype person.
And no specially designed karaoke tracks either! No, no, you can lower the vocals on the actual track, as well as the lyrics on screen in case you forget the bridge. (You won't, we know.)
Apple Music Sing is not a device-independent benefit in Apple Music. It's currently exclusive to newer iOS devices running the latest version of the Apple Music app: iPhone 11 or later, but we'll get to that.
If you're an Apple Music subscriber ($10.99 / £10.99 / AU$12.99 per month), there's plenty to go around. And potentially, there is a hidden voice within you that is desperate to be unleashed!
Keep the verse and chorus though, how good is Apple Music Sing? Before you drop a note, you should know if it's worth upgrading your old iPhone XR as it will only work with iPhone 11 and later. And why the hell did Apple make it so you can't completely remove pre-recorded vocals and add your own inimitable vocal styles to songs?
We've tried to answer all of these questions and more in this guide to Apple's unique Sing offering, a proposition that undoubtedly gives Apple Music an extra edge in its battle with Spotify and the top music streaming services. in this moment.
Apple Music Sing: release date and price
Apple Music Sing is now available in all countries where Apple Music is available. This includes the US, UK, and Australia, China, Japan, and South Korea. It was officially presented on December 13, 2023.
You need an Apple Music subscription to listen to Apple Music; there's no separate subscription available (note: Apple Music Sing is not to be confused with Apple's cheaper Apple Music Voice option).
Right now, Apple Music, where Apple Music Sing is located, is $10,99 / £10,99 / AU$12,99 per month.
Given that Apple Music has over 100 million songs (and the recently released Apple Musical Classical app is free for subscribers and adds an additional five million tracks), adding a little karaoke volume slider for vocals makes a great deal. value for money, especially if you have a hobby. for grabbing the microphone and songbook at your local karaoke place. But it's not available on all songs (more on that later).
Apple Music's lyrics offering isn't new, you know, just the cute microphone icon that expands into a bigger slider when you tap and hold it. The lyrics sync feature came with the release of iOS 13 on September 19, 2019.
Why do we mention this? Well, only Apple Music tracks with lyrics are part of Apple Music Sing. If nothing happens when you tap the letter icon in the bottom left (which reveals the words in real time, then the little microphone icon), you can't use Apple Music Sing with that track.
Apple Music Sing: how to get it and how to use it
There are a few steps you need to take before you can start using Apple Music Sing. First, you need an individual, student, or family subscription to Apple Music. Unfortunately, the cheapest Apple Voice plan ($4.99 / £4.99 / AU$5.99) doesn't include the otherwise free Sing features.
You may also need to update your iPhone software to iOS 16.2. The granular details are as follows...
Compatible devices: iPhone 11 (or later), iPhone SE (16.2rd generation) with iOS 11 or later, 4-inch iPad Pro 6rd generation. or later, iPad Air 9th generation. and later, iPad Mini (16.2th generation) or iPad 4th generation. and later with iPadOS 3 or later and Apple TV XNUMXK (XNUMXrd generation).
As a quick guide, iOS 16.2 was released on December 13, 2023, so if you haven't updated your iPhone software in a short time, you'll need to.
Have an Apple Music subscription and a relatively recent iPhone, iPad, or Apple TV 4K? You can download Apple Music from the App Store - opens in a new tab - right now, although let's be honest, it will come pre-loaded on your device, right? It is Apple after all. Just sign in with your Apple ID (you might even get a free trial!) and you're good to go.
Unfortunately, there's currently no Android support for Apple Music Sing, which is a shame, and we're not convinced it's something Apple is considering... of course, if that changes, you'll be the first to know.
But now that you're in Apple Music, on your relatively new Apple device, just start playing a song, then tap the song at the bottom left of the screen (which opens to cover the entire screen). Now tap on the letter icon, also at the bottom left, which looks like a set of quotes in a speech bubble. If the lyrics are available, they will appear in real time.
Finally (and this is the good part), tap anywhere on the screen and a little microphone icon should appear, on the right. Tap that and it becomes a slider to lower the vocals in the mix. So start singing!
Apple Music Sing: what is it?
Apple Music Sing sounds simple enough: an added feature, free with your Apple Music subscription, that lets you stream any lyric-enhanced track with virtually no additional vocals. But that's where our two little problems lie. First, not all tracks in the Apple Music library are enabled (and it's almost impossible to tell which part of the Apple Music library is or isn't available with beat-by-bar lyrics to sing along to), and second, you can: Don't turn off the voice completely; it is still very barely noticeable.
Of course, it's hard to do something free and fun, and we certainly don't. The number of tracks available is staggering; some tracks will surprise you when you're on board (Bruce Springsteen's For You is there, which is a lyrical challenge you just have to accept with a clear head), but others will be harder to find: the power ballad classic Show Me Heaven by Mary McKee. it's there through her album Cherish, but not through some compilation albums.
Apple has done the right thing and provided over 50 diverse and multilingual playlists across genres and decades of Apple Music Sing, if you scroll down to the Apple Music Sing section, under the browse tab. I counted 33 playlists organized by genre and seven playlists organized by decade, but that's after the 13 "Made For Singing" offerings, including the more generic "Classic Love Songs," "Iconic Duets," and others.
Naturally, all of these particular cures contain only Sing-compatible tracks. My personal favorites here include Deutschrap (I used to live in Germany), Classic Rock (hello Black Velvet A5 belt, it's been a while) and of course Sing '60s where you'll find Elvis, Aretha, Frankie Valli, The Beatles and many more... It's probably best to go over a few vocal ranges first if you're trying to impress here.
Apple Music Sing: features and design
As you'd expect from a free built-in feature, Apple Music Sing integrates seamlessly with Apple Music, so much so that you might have a hard time finding it at first, given Apple Music's various and colorful home pages.
If you go to the Explore tab, the icon that looks like four squares, second from the left at the bottom of the home screen, and scroll down, you'll see a red bar that will take you to Apple Music Sing (although it tends to take second billing for Apple Music Classical, so keep scrolling!)
The app itself offers lossless audio quality up to 24-bit/192kHz across its entire catalogue, which is a godsend considering there are still no equivalent signals like Spotify HiFi (it offers lossless CD quality). The thing is, like with Apple Music's Dolby Atmos support, you have to look for it at the bottom of the tracks to see if it's there.
And that brings me to a key point for lovers of spatial audio: If you're listening to a song with Dolby Atmos and you turn on Apple Music Sing, Dolby Atmos is turned off and the song plays without surround sound. If you turn off Apple Music Sing, the song plays with Dolby Atmos.
There's still no official microphone support or the ability to record your efforts, though wouldn't that be nice?
It's a bit your luck. Essentially, lead vocals (which are usually mixed into the center channel so they're easy to remove with most audio software) can be significantly reduced with Apple Music Sing, and you can hear them anywhere you see the words.
One particularly fun element of Apple Music Sing when it launched was Apple's claim that you could sing duets and choruses, with separate animated lyrics. Only in our testing did we find that we could only tweak the lead voice, and Apple has yet to release any further information on when (or even if) these additional features will arrive.
Apple Music Sing: The Disadvantages
Apple Music Sing is certainly not perfect. For starters, my iPhone XR is too old to get it and there is no Android support at the time of writing. When you implement it, you also lose Dolby Atmos.
One problem early adopters noticed is that the slider cannot go to zero; yes, you will still hear some vocals on the track. Because? It's not immediately obvious, but because the software is probably using an AI/voice suppressor to remove the center channel voice (although there's some extra intelligence there as well; some left and right channel voices are also suppressed from the main channel). same way) will never sound as clean as an official instrumental version, and you'll hear artificial effects from the reverb effects, so no vocals will sound too strange. It's okay, but if you plan to sign up for Apple Music and expect high-quality backing tracks, you...