Transcription Resources. Software to slow down music.

There are various other tools aimed at helping people to transcribe music from recordings. Here are the ones I am currently aware of. None of them are in head-on competition with Transcribe! as they all have differing approaches. Personally I don't think any of them equal Transcribe! as a general purpose transcribing assistant but perhaps I'm biased - try them and see.

There are also tools which are quite different from Transcribe! such as hardware playback devices, and software which attempts automatic transcription (output as MIDI or notation, Transcribe! doesn't do).

Software - desktop

AKoff Music Composer
AmazingMIDI by Araki Software
Amazing Slow Downer by Roni Music
AudioLobe from JS8 Media
AudioScore from Neuratron
AudioSculpt sound analysis tool from IRCAM
BestPractice by Robert Moerland
Capo by SuperMegaUltraGroovy
Chord Pickout
CHRONOStream by PSOFT Audio
CLAM Music Annotator
DDMF Chorddetector
Digital Music Mentor (DMM) from Sienzo (was called FullSuiteScriber)
DsChordFinder by Dubbeldam Software
ELAN by Eudico
Elevation by Superscope
f4 transcription software for audio and video
Frequency Analyzer by Reliable Software
FullSuiteScriber by Sienzo (now called Digital Music Mentor)
GoldWave Digital Audio Editor
Guitar & Drum Trainer by Renegade Minds
Guitar Shed by Astoundit
GuitarMaster by RoboSens
Integrated Music Transcribing Tool - Music Analyzer by Atsu Oka
Intelliscore by Innovative Music Systems
iRehearse from RJV Media
Loop-A-Lick by DPR Technology
Loop Master WinAmp Plugin
LoopyLoopX by Jean-Louis Valero
MPEX time stretching by Prosoniq
mTrax by TerraSofta
Music Analyzer by Andrei Volkov
Music Explorer by Geoff Peters and Gabriel Lo
muDic by i-yanase.com
Neutrino by MachineCodex
PaceMaker WinAmp Plugin
Pitch 'n Time by Serato
PitchScope by Creative Detectors
Pulse Master by Pianosoft
Riff Master Pro
Riffster by Polarity
ScoreExtractor by Roman Yakimenko
Slo-Mo Director by Mike Herberts
Slow Me Down by Roni Software
Slow MP3 by Pekka Kauppila
SlowGold & SlowBlast by World Wide Woodshed
Solo Explorer by Recognisoft
Song Surgeon
Sonic Visualiser
SoundSlice
SoundTouch Audio Processing Library
SoundToys (formerly WaveMechanics) - pitch and speed software
Speedshifter from The Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music
Tartini - real-time music analysis tool
33 RPM by Edenwaith
TimeToyPro by LowNorth - time-stretch software
Transcribe! by Seventh String Software
Transkriber by Reed Kotler Systems Inc
TwelveKeys from NCH Software
Video Surgeon
Waon Wave-to-Notes transcriber
WIDI Recognition System

It's also worth mentioning that Windows Media Player version 10 and Apple's QuickTime version 7 are both capable of slowing down music without changing pitch. In fact, the internet is awash with software to slow down music without changing the pitch. I'm glad Transcribe! does so much more than that.

Windows Media Player version 10 instructions : load the track for playing in Windows Media Player, select "View" at the top, and under "Enhancements", select "Show Enhancements". Then go to the "Now Playing" tab, and you can use the slider to slow the piece down.

QuickTime version 7 instructions : load the track into QuickTime Player, and on the Window menu select "Show A/V Controls". There is a "Playback Speed" slider in this window.

QuickTime version 10 (QuickTime X, released with OS 10.6 Snow Leopard) : does not seem to be capable of doing this. I have heard it said that future versions may be able to. In the meantime, you can install QuickTime 7 alongside Quicktime X if you want to. Search the web for "Quicktime 7 Snow Leopard" (without the quotes) for more info.

Software - iOS

Amazing Slow Downer
Anytune by Anystone Technologies
Capo by SuperMegaUltraGroovy
iHearit by Trent Reschny
iLift by rCreativ
Notedown! by Thomas Leitz
RiffMaster Pro
Slow Down Music Player by Santa Cruz Integration
Slow Down Music Trainer by Santa Cruz Integration
Slow Notes

Software - Android

Audio Speed Changer by Gabriel Simoes
Practice Makes Perfect by Aocate Inc.
Search Google for more apps.

Source Code

If you are a programmer and you want to know how to write such programs, some of the above projects are "open source" which means you can download the source code and look at it. For spectrum analysis see Music Explorer, and for slowdown see Best Practice. I haven't actually looked at the source for either of these so I can't say for sure what you'll find.

Join a Discussion Forum on Transcribing

There is a discussion forum hosted on Yahoo! groups called "MusicTranscribers". It is for everyone who transcribes music of any sort by any method. Feel free to join whether or not you are a Transcribe! user. For more info, click here. If you have bought Transcribe! then I will notify you anyway of updates or other Seventh String news, but if you want the earliest notification, for instance when a new version starts testing but is not yet released, then join this discussion group.

Other Transcription Resources

TheoreticallyCorrect.com - tutorial material about using Transcribe!

The DSP Dimension - technical material about speed and pitch changing, by Stephan M. Bernsee (formerly Stephan M. Sprenger). In particular Dirac "Time Stretching & Pitch Shifting" under the Products menu.

Matija Marolt, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia - research in automatic transcription.

Anssi Klapuri, Tampere University, Finland - research in automatic transcription.

Other names/places for automatic transcription: http://www-sigproc.eng.cam.ac.uk, http://iie.fing.edu.uy/investigacion/grupos/gmm/audio/, Keith Martin, David Mellinger, Dan Ellis, Paul Walmsley, Simon Godsill, Manuel Davy.

Alisdair MacRae Birch site - a useful page with more info about transcribing hardware and software.

Wikipedia: "Audio timescale-pitch modification"

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