Transcribe

[Ritchie_Kay]

Just thought I would post an advert for Transcribe from seventh string software which I have been trying out recently.

I have tried some music transcription tools before which attempt to produce musical notation from a recorded source but they didn't work very well (they were OK at recognising single notes but I can do that anyway - they were less good if there was more than one instrument or chords were being played).

Transcribe is a bit different. It shows you the waveform, you can select a bit from it and it shows the frequencies within that selection super-imposed on a piano keyboard. If you click on a peak it highlights which of the other peaks are potentially just harmonics - obviously they may not be. You have to do a bit of thinking about it but it is very useful for working out chords etc.

It also allows you to slow the music down (without changing pitch) and modify the pitch (not just semitones but cents as well). This is very useful I was trying to reproduce a tune played on what I assumed was an Eb/Ab concertina - I had tried tuning it up a few semi-tones using Audacity but was never satisfied. With transcribe I worked out that it was am Eb/Ab but was not in concert pitch (or just out of tune) which I then managed to adjust for using Transcribe.

It costs a nominal amount but is well worth it (well I haven't bought it yet - 31 day trial).

[Guest]

It's definitely worth buying a copy. I've been using Transcribe for a couple of years and it's great to be able to slow down those devilish fast tunes and work out what the notes are

[Michael Reid]

Another very satisfied user of Transcribe! here.

 

A couple of other features that I find really useful:

 

- The ability to save a slowed-down and/or changed-pitch version to a new audio file. I've used this, for example, to save re-pitched (C/G-friendly) versions of some of Micheal O'Raghallaigh's tunes, which I've then burned onto a CD.

 

- The ability to cut up a long live recording into separate tracks, using just a few mouse click on a visual image of the sound file.

 

In terms of features, documentation, and support, this is the best piece of shareware I've ever purchased. From Seventh String Software.