Transcribe! by Seventh String Software is a specialized software for transcribing recorded music, video or notes. Maybe you often find yourself:
- Transcribing entire pieces of music from audio or video sources
- Trying to figure out chords & harmonies in some songs
- Trying to figure out instrumental solos to improve your skills
- Picking up lyrics from a song
- Transcribing recorded spoken lectures, courses, interviews, etc
If transcription is anywhere in your life
Transcription is an ancient & very rewarding skill. Transcription as used here is the act of taking notes about the structure and/or meaning of any audio file (musical or other). A transcription is a complete or partial map that opens the door to a deeper level of understanding and comprehension.
If transcriptions are anywhere in your life, Transcribe! might be just for you. It’ s the kind of software you fall in love with.
What it does not do
- Transcribe! does not read or deal with MIDI files
- Transcribe! is not an audio editor or a multi-track recorder
- Transcribe! does not attempt to do the whole job of processing an audio file and outputting musical notation or midi
What it is
- A specialized player program optimized for the purpose of transcription
- The perfect tool to map out songs, chords, solo, etc
- Also used for play-along practice
- It can change pitch and speed instantly
- Can store and recall any number of named loops
- Used for speech transcription
- Transcribe! keeps you focused because of its simplicity.
- Can display video synchronized to the audio for some video files (on Windows & Mac, not yet on Linux)
- Supports USB and MIDI foot pedals
- Ability to slow down music without changing its pitch
- Ability to changing pitch only
- Analyzes chords and show what notes are present
- Capability to create & manage markers and textual annotations
- Piano keyboard displayed on screen which you can click to play reference notes
- Powerful EQ filter to filter out individual instruments and/or vocals
- Performs “note guessing” and “chord guessing”
- Available for Windows, Mac & Linux
Features
- Transcribe! keeps you focused because of its simplicity.
- Can display video synchronized to the audio for some video files (on Windows & Mac, not yet on Linux)
- Supports USB and MIDI foot pedals
- Ability to slow down music without changing its pitch
- Ability to changing pitch only
- Analyzes chords and show what notes are present
- Flexible system of markers and textual annotations
- Piano keyboard displayed on screen which you can click to play reference notes
- Powerful EQ filter to filter out individual instruments and/or vocals
- perform “note guessing” and “chord guessing”
- Available for Windows, Mac & Linux
- Audio files supported: wav, aiff, mp3, wma, aac, m4a, ogg, flac, xsc – Transcribe! will even allow you to open an audio CD track directly as a sound file
- Video file formats supported: mov, wmv, mp4
Our Experience with Transcribe!
Version Tested: Transcribe 8.10 for Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7
Download Size: 1.9 MB
It installed flawlessly. It is very light on resources. It performed over our wildest expectations. We found it to be a very stable software. It handled without problems any of the many types and sizes of audio files we asked it to open, loop, slow down, transpose, etc. Video integration is also flawless.
Above all, this software is a joy to use. Like mentioned earlier, Transcribe! keeps you focused because of the simplicity of its design. It does NOT try to be all & everything. It does incredibly well what it does, period.
The included help file is well written & covers all needed aspects of the software.
This software is a dream tool and a must have for any musician, music teacher or anyone who needs a focused piece of software for transcription.
The added bonus of being able to loop and process both audio & video at the same time, is just amazing. This software brings a total new meaning to audio and video tutorials as one can now easily “study” and practice any sequence of any clip to his/her heart’s content.
Conclusion
There is a lot to be liked about this software, its author and his website. Clean, efficient, useful, reliable software with a heart & a soul. Nothing comes close to it in its category. What can we add? At $39 USD it’s a steal for all you’re getting, really!. Highly recommended!
There is even an older version of Transcribe6 available for Windows95/98/ME/NT. Very thoughtful for people still using older and smaller systems.
Where to get it
- TryTranscribe! Free for 30 days
- Buy Transcribe! for Windows
- Buy Transcribe! for Mac
- Buy Transcribe! for Linux
- Become a Transcribe! affiliate
More about it
Conventional 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. They are very inconvenient for transcribing music as they are not designed for this purpose.
If you copy the recording to your computer’s hard disk as a sound file then you can use Transcribe! instead. 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 analyze 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. Transcribe! also has a piano keyboard displayed on screen which you can click to play reference notes.
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. 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.
If you have never worked out even a simple piece of music by ear then Transcribe! will probably not help you, but if you do sometimes work out recorded music by ear then Transcribe! can make the job a lot quicker and easier.
If you are working from a video file then on Windows & Mac (not yet on Linux) Transcribe! will display the video too. You may need to convert the video to a suitable format first, and install QuickTime if you are on Windows (it’s a free download).
Transcribe! takes no interest in MIDI files – these already contain explicit information about what notes are to be played and when, and there are plenty of programs available which can display this information. Transcribe! deals with audio sample data files.
Transcribe! plays and records audio files but it is not an audio editor. It is capable of applying various effects to audio such as speed change, pitch change and EQ. You can save the modified audio to a new sound file if you want.
Transcribe! is available for Windows 95/98/ME/2000/XP/Vista/7, Mac OS 7.5 – 10.6 and Linux/x86/GTK.
You may download Transcribe! and use it for a 30 days evaluation period for free. If you want to continue using it after that you must buy it.
What’s so Special About Transcribe!
There are a lot of software applications and hardware devices out there whose stated purpose is to help you to transcribe music. Almost all of them are in fact tools for slowing down the music without changing the pitch.
Transcribe! certainly does perform this trick but it’s not the main function of the program, and in fact version 1 of Transcribe! didn’t even have this feature. The most awkward and tedious part of the job of transcription is simply that of navigating around the track and controlling playback. On a CD or other conventional music player, the business of finding again the section you want to hear, of playing again the phrase you are working on, and generally knowing where you are, is a constant distraction from actually concentrating on the music. Transcribe! keeps you focused. That is a major plus.
Transcribe! displays the track as a scrollable waveform from left to right. You can place markers for sections, measures and beats, and you can label them with descriptive names and add textual annotations if you want. The markers identify the various points in the track and you can click on any point to play instantly from that point. There is a rich collection of keyboard shortcuts for controlling playback, and you can also use pedals for hands-free playback control. You will soon find that this allows you to concentrate on the music instead of concentrating on fiddling with the playback controls and wondering where you are.
Features
Depending on version, Transcribe! reads audio from many different types of audio file and audio CD. It also has a “Record” facility for recording from analog sources such as cassette or vinyl. It displays the audio waveform and allows you to scroll around, place markers for sections, measures and beats, and easily play or loop from any point.
Transcribe! can also display the video synchronized to the audio for some video files (on Windows & Mac, not yet Linux).
Loops and positions can be stored and recalled. There are many keyboard shortcuts and you can configure these as you like. You can configure Transcribe! to respond to pedals of various types so as to keep your hands free : start and stop playback with your feet!
There is extensive and readable help accessible from within the program.
The “spectrum” feature displays the strength of the various pitches in any chord or note you select, in the form of a graph – a wavy line over a piano keyboard graphic. The height of the various peaks in the graph indicate the strength of the note above which the peak appears. This is not a magic bullet for analysing chords but it can be a very useful source of information.
Transcribe! will perform “note guessing” and “chord guessing” – that is, it will attempt to interpret the spectrum information for you, marking the notes being played on the piano keyboard, and attempting to name the chords (in standard form such as “Am”, “E7#9″, etc).
Transcribe! supports Automation (or Scripting)
Transcribe! supports Automation (or Scripting). You can run Transcribe! automatically from commands in a file, perhaps to process a number of sound files, saving them at different altered speeds, or to instruct Transcribe! to play various sound files with various effects.
Transcribe! offers various audio processing effects (Slowdown, Pitch Change, EQ filtering etc) intended to help with transcribing. These effects all run in “real time” unless your machine is old & slow. This means there is no pre-processing or other waiting, the processing is performed on-the-fly while playing and you can instantly hear the effect of changes to EQ etc. For instance if you press the half-speed button while playing then playback simply continues, at half speed.
Mono/Karaoke
This effect allows you to mix the two channels of a stereo recording together in various ways including phase-reverse, commonly known as “karaoke” as it sometimes has the effect of removing the vocal (if the vocal is panned dead-centre).
EQ
A powerful EQ filter.
Tuning
Adjustment to playback pitch, in cents (hundredths of a semitone) for fine tuning and also larger shifts of up to three octaves, which can for instance be useful in hearing low, murky bass parts by raising them by an octave or two.
Transposition
Special handling for those of you who play a transposing instrument such as trumpet or saxophone.
Speed
Speed variable from one twentieth to double speed.
