Bandle

Bandle is a daily music guessing game that rebuilds one song out of its separate instrument layers and asks you to name it. You start with a single isolated part, and every wrong guess or skip adds another instrument until the full arrangement is playing. The goal is to recognize the track on as few layers as possible.

What is Bandle?

Bandle is a daily music guessing game built around a single idea: you should be able to recognize a song from as little of its arrangement as possible. Each day presents one track that has been rebuilt instrument by instrument, so the puzzle starts with a single isolated layer, often a drum part or a lead riff, and asks you to name the song from that alone. You get up to six audio clues in total, and every wrong guess or skip unlocks the next instrument and stacks it onto what you have already heard, so the mix grows fuller and the song becomes easier to place with each attempt.

The game was created by Johann Levy, a French programmer based in Marseille, who launched it quietly in August 2022 during the wave of daily browser puzzles that followed Wordle. Levy curates the songs himself rather than pulling from an automated catalog, while the instrumental layers are produced as MIDI re-creations in Logic Pro rather than ripped directly from the original masters, with a collaborator Levy met online helping to build those arrangements. That hand-built approach is part of what makes Bandle distinct: instead of fading in a clip of the real recording the way Heardle did, it reconstructs the arrangement so each clue is a clean, separated instrument you can actually study. The game grew into a daily habit for a large audience, with the creator citing more than 100,000 daily players.

What separates Bandle from text-based daily games is that it rewards musical memory and arrangement literacy rather than vocabulary. The early clues hand you only structural information: a beat, a bassline, a chord voicing, which point to era and genre before you ever hear a melody or words. The lead vocal does not arrive until late in the run, around the fifth clue, and the sixth clue gives a direct nudge toward the title, so the challenge is front-loaded toward people who can identify a track from its instrumentation alone. Alongside the audio, Bandle shows supporting context such as the song's release year, its genre, its YouTube view count, and a difficulty rating, and you can turn those hints off for a harder game.

Your score depends on how few clues you needed, so solving on layer one is the prize and reaching clue six without it is the worst case. Because everyone hears the same song each day, results are easy to compare, and the game leans on that shared-puzzle, once-a-day rhythm rather than endless replay. It resets to a new track at midnight, which keeps it a short daily ritual. The vibe is relaxed but genuinely competitive among friends, and it suits music fans across genres who enjoy testing how quickly their ear can lock onto a familiar tune. Past songs are not freely browsable as a standard archive, though the creator has offered a paid bundle covering previous and future daily songs along with themed packs.

How to play Bandle

1. Open the daily puzzle and press play to hear the first isolated instrument layer, often a drum or rhythm part.
2. Type the song title into the search box and pick the matching track from the suggestions.
3. Submit your guess, or skip if nothing comes to mind, to keep your attempt count in view.
4. After a wrong guess or skip, the next instrument is added on top of what you have already heard, building the mix.
5. Keep guessing as bass, keys, guitar, and eventually the lead vocal stack up across your six clues.
6. Lock in the correct song as early as you can, since your result is better the fewer layers you needed.

Tips and strategy

• Treat clue one as free information, not a guessing moment, unless a hook is unmistakable, because the next layer usually clarifies far more than it costs.
• Use the early drum and bass layers to fix the era and genre first, then let the melody narrow it down once it arrives.
• Read the supporting hints when you are stuck: the release year, genre, and YouTube view count quickly rule out whole decades and obscure picks.
• Remember the vocal does not appear until late, so do not wait for words; commit once the instrumental arrangement feels familiar.
• When two candidates fit, type partial titles to scan the search list, then let the next instrument confirm which arrangement matches.
• If you want a tougher run, turn off the year, genre, and difficulty hints so you are working from sound alone.

Good to know

Resets

Daily, at midnight

Cost

Free to play in a browser

Clues/attempts

Up to 6 audio clues per song

Creator

Johann Levy, based in Marseille, France

Launched

August 2022

Archive

No free archive; a paid bundle of past and future songs has been offered

Bandle FAQ

Is Bandle free?

Yes. The daily Bandle puzzle is free to play in a web browser. The creator has separately offered a paid bundle that unlocks past and future daily songs plus themed packs, but you do not need it for the daily game.

How many guesses do you get in Bandle?

You get up to six audio clues for each daily song. Each wrong guess or skip adds the next instrument layer, and the lead vocal arrives around the fifth clue, with the sixth offering a direct hint toward the title.

When does Bandle reset?

Bandle posts a new song every day and resets at midnight, so everyone is working on the same daily track.

Who made Bandle?

Bandle was created by Johann Levy, a French programmer based in Marseille. He launched it in August 2022 and curates the songs himself, while the instrument layers are produced as MIDI re-creations rather than ripped from original recordings, with help from a collaborator he met online.

Is Bandle the same as Heardle?

No. Both are daily music guessing games, but Heardle played a clip of the real recording and was shut down after Spotify acquired it. Bandle instead reconstructs a song from separate instrument layers that stack with each guess, so you identify the track by its arrangement.