If you have never worked out even a simple piece of music by ear then Transcribe! will probably not help you (see How to Transcribe), but if you do sometimes work out recorded music by ear then Transcribe! can make the job a lot quicker and easier.ĭepending on version, Transcribe! reads audio from many different types of audio file and audio CD. The spectrum analysis feature is very useful for working out those hard-to-hear chords, but you must still use your ear and brain to decide which of the peaks in the spectrum are notes being played, which are merely harmonics, and which are just the result of noise and broad-spectrum instruments such as drums.

It is important to understand that Transcribe! does not attempt to do the whole job, processing an audio file and outputting musical notation or midi - this would be nice, but is a currently unsolved research problem. Transcribe! also has a piano keyboard displayed on screen which you can click to play reference notes. Transcribe! offers many features aimed at making the transcription job smoother and easier, including the ability to slow down music without changing its pitch, to analyse chords and show you what notes are present, and the capability of adding markers and textual annotations so you can easily navigate around the track. If you copy the recording to your computer's hard disk as a sound file then you can use Transcribe! instead. They are very inconvenient for transcribing music as they are not designed for this purpose. There is some advice about speech transcription in Transcribe!'s help, under the heading 'Various Topics'.Ĭonventional music players (whether hardware such as a CD player or an iPod, or software such as Windows Media Player or iTunes) are really designed for people who want to listen to whole tracks. With its support for foot pedals and its superior slowed-down sound quality, it is an excellent choice for this purpose. There is some advice about play-along practice in Transcribe!'s help, under the heading 'Various Topics'.Īnd it is also used for speech transcription.

So you can practice in all keys, and you can speed up as well as slow down. It can change pitch and speed instantly, and you can store and recall any number of named loops. It is also used by many people for play-along practice.

Transcribe 9.30.2 instaling