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-   -   Transcribing solo paino recordings (http://www.notation.com/vb-forum/showthread.php?t=32745)

brookbend 04-26-2016 03:46 AM

Transcribing solo paino recordings
 
How do I download a solo guitar recording found on Youtube, send to software, make a new file, then print out the notation ?

Sherry C 04-26-2016 04:06 AM

Re: Transcribing solo paino recordings
 
Hi,

The short answer is "you don't" :)

The longer answer, and hopefully the one that helps folks understand the complexity of such an operation is:

Taking any audio file and trying to separate out the instruments or voices (different instruments/voices playing the same note pitch or even chordal notes from the same instrument such as a guitar), the notes themselves (determining what is a root note versus the harmonics), the root pitch (versus vibrato or reverb artifacts), the duration (whether the note is still playing or if that’s some ringing echo in the recording) and a host of other nuances is a very difficult technological task. Our ears and brains work in an incredibly complex way to discern all these aspects of music.



Getting a program to do the same thing, and then produce a MIDI file (the “directions” for playing the piece) so that we can get sheet music is still a goal yet to be fully realized. There are a number of programs that claim to do this, but in all the testing we’ve done, none of them do a good enough job to produce a MIDI that doesn’t still need a lot of work to give decent sheet music. Even the Melodyne Editor, which does an absolutely amazing job of separating audio tones, still doesn’t give a very good MIDI file for getting sheet music (though it can be used in sequencers to give a performance). It's not that smart folks aren't trying their best, it's just a very difficult task to do well.


You can bet that when we find a good one, we’ll let folks know!

ttfn,
Sherry

brookbend 04-26-2016 04:22 AM

Re: Transcribing solo paino recordings
 
So if I buy a trans from a guy he can only sell one, and that's to me? Must be legal. Too bad cause it could sell well so the price would be lower.

brookbend 04-26-2016 04:27 AM

Re: Transcribing solo paino recordings
 
Too bad. So a trans can only be sold once? Legal issue. But i see ppl bartering them. Anyway it's remarkable how someone can trans a complex jazz solo, chord lines included in so little time. Special gift.

Sherry C 04-26-2016 04:33 AM

Re: Transcribing solo paino recordings
 
Hi,

Actually any transcriptions that are sold are supposed to also send royalties for the sale to the copyright holder of the song in question, which often explains the price of such.

And yes, there are some folks who are quite gifted at listening and transcribing recordings. We have some of those here in the forum as a matter of fact :) However, they use their ears to hear the instruments/notes and then Notation Composer to put the notes in. One very fine example of this procedure is in this thread here.

One can definitely get better with practice, but like all good things, there is a learning curve involved and just plain old putting time into it to get good.

ttfn,
Sherry

brookbend 04-26-2016 04:47 AM

Re: Transcribing solo paino recordings
 
Nah sherry. Playing is tough enough. Leave notation and transcribing to everyone else. Bye and thanx for answering.

brookbend 04-26-2016 02:23 PM

Re: Transcribing solo paino recordings
 
Speech recognition is more complicated than a few notes.

Sherry C 04-26-2016 04:43 PM

Re: Transcribing solo piano recordings
 
Hi,

Speech recognition is tougher than a few notes, but that's not what we're talking about here :)

I used to work in hearing research (Kresge Hearing Research Institute at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, MI, USA), and research on speech recognition has been going on for decades, with a lot of funding from the government :) Given what I know of it as well as music, I would have to disagree as to a difference in complexity. Both are quite complex analyses - pretty much 4D. With both you have pitch (essential in some languages and definitely essential to music), duration, loudness, and timbre (formants in speech; timbre is essential to distinguishing between instruments and even different pitches from the same instrument).

Speech recognition is a much more universal application, and also more lucrative in terms of financial reward. Ergo a lot more time and effort have been spent there. Not so much (unfortunately) with musical analysis and transcription. You'll also notice that speech recognition technology typically requires some 'training' period for the software, as well as clearly spoken words by a single person. This is analogous to a single-note melody line for a clearly-played (eg. no vibrato, no reverb, etc.) instrument. Try singing to a speech recognition program some time and add vibrato and fermatas and other musical embellishments - the results will not be the same as with regular speech :)

As I mentioned previously, the Melodyne Editor actually does a phenomenal job of separating audio signals, but still does not put out a satisfactory (yet) MIDI for notation purposes unless it is a fairly uncomplicated piece (ie. a single-instrument with a "clean" recording.) It doesn't separate out the audio analysis on a per-instrument basis for multi-instrument pieces - that's a job that still requires a human to discern :) However, it is heartening that folks are still working on the problem.

I hope this helps explain part of the complexity and comparison of the technologies. Maybe it was more than you wanted to know :) (my kids tell me I do that often ;) ).

ttfn,
Sherry

brookbend 04-26-2016 05:07 PM

Re: Transcribing solo paino recordings
 
I was a supplier to the speech recognition industry back in the 80's. Yes a **** of a lot more $ was put into that, and for decades longer. It also has a contextual / meaning challenge. Another brutal problem to overcome - which they've done.

So you're saying for clean, solo instrument solo's Melodyne is very good and reproduces notation accurately? These kind of solos are exactly what I need.

Usually CHORDS IN THE RIGHT HAND ARE NOT PRESENT in these solos. Does this help the output accuracy? [I use the solos to find the right notes and lines so I can improvise better, esp in keys I struggle with. I could learn some solos on my own. But I'm not 25 yrs old anymore. Time has much greater value today].

Melodyne is $99. Small change for me, if it works. Can't think of any accessory features needed. So the upper end packages not needed.

Sherry C 04-26-2016 07:06 PM

Re: Transcribing solo paino recordings
 
Hi,

Quote:

Originally Posted by brookbend (Post 66785)

So you're saying for clean, solo instrument solo's Melodyne is very good and reproduces notation accurately? These kind of solos are exactly what I need.

Melodyne is an audio editor that will give you a MIDI output but does not give sheet music notation. It is not our product, but is developed by Celemony. Melodyne plus one of our products - which will take that .mid file and transcribe it to sheet music - may get you where you want to go :)

Quote:

Usually CHORDS IN THE RIGHT HAND ARE NOT PRESENT in these solos. Does this help the output accuracy?
Chord notes won't make any difference to the transcription accuracy, but they do help when improvising over changes :) (I play bass in a big band, and ergo have to read sheets AND know the changes if I only get chord names).

Quote:

Melodyne is $99. Small change for me, if it works. Can't think of any accessory features needed. So the upper end packages not needed.
I don't know if the "Melodyne Essential" contains the MIDI export - which is what you would need for sheet music - or not. I have an older version of the Melodyne Editor (they've only with the latest release offered smaller subsets of features.) I guess the best thing to do is give it a trial run and see if it does what you want.

Do let us know if it works for you. We get a lot of queries about getting sheet music from audio recordings, so we're always interested in the results that others get from various resources.

ttfn,
Sherry

brookbend 04-26-2016 07:24 PM

Re: Transcribing solo paino recordings
 
How do you get a Youtube video file into Melodyne? How do I download the video? I guess after downloading I import into Melodyne?

brookbend 04-26-2016 08:08 PM

Re: Transcribing solo paino recordings
 
How do you get a YouTube video into Melodyne?

Do you import a downloaded video file into Melodyne.... or play the video, and get its audio into Melodyne vis a vis the recorder's microphones... I own a Zoom H5 recorder.

Sherry C 04-26-2016 08:43 PM

Re: Transcribing solo paino recordings
 
Hi,

My version of Melodyne only opens .wav files - so you'd need to get a .wav audio file of whatever you're wanting to work with, unless the newer version accepts other formats.

I was going to suggest asking some questions on their User Forum, but I see that they have closed the user forum with the advent of their latest v4 release. You can check the website (they have a number of video tutorials) as well as just contact them to ask questions.

ttfn,
Sherry

vmuller 06-21-2018 09:01 PM

Re: Transcribing solo paino recordings
 
Did you hear about AnthemScore?

Sherry C 06-25-2018 03:40 PM

Re: Transcribing solo paino recordings
 
Hi,



Quote:

Originally Posted by vmuller (Post 68956)
Did you hear about AnthemScore?


Yes, but it seems (from posts to other forums that I've read) to have the same shortcomings as most "audio to sheet music" software - the task is just too complex for anything more than a fairly simple single-instrument recording.

Taking any audio file and trying to separate out the instruments or voices (different instruments/voices playing the same note pitch or chordal notes), the notes themselves (determining what is a root note versus the harmonics), the root pitch (versus vibrato or reverb), the duration (whether the note is still playing or if that’s some ringing echo in the recording) and a host of other nuances is a very difficult technological task. Our ears and brains work in an incredibly complex way to discern all these aspects of music. Getting a program to do the same thing, and then produce a MIDI file (the “directions” for playing the piece) so that we can get sheet music is still a goal yet to be fully realized. He does a good job of explaining this on the "how it works" page of his site, but even getting a "clean" two-dimensional picture of the audio doesn't give you the dimension of "timbre to differentiate one instrument from another." Our brains are absolutely amazing when it comes to this task.

There are a number of programs that claim to do this, but in all the testing we’ve done, none of them do a good enough job to produce a MIDI that doesn’t still need a lot of work to give decent sheet music. Even the Melodyne Editor, which does an absolutely amazing job of separating audio tones, still doesn’t give a very good MIDI file for getting sheet music (though it can be used in sequencers to give a performance).

It's not that smart folks aren't trying their best, it's just a very difficult task to do well.

That said, I have not directly tested AnthemScore myself as I have run into a problem that also seems to be fairly prevalent from comments I've read about it - the software won't install properly on my machine, and I've been unable to get any kind of support or find a solution. Any suggestions?


ttfn,
Sherry


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