Introduction

The Transcribe! application is an assistant for people who sometimes want to work out a piece of music from a recording, in order to write it out, or play it themselves, or both.

The usual technique for doing this is to copy the music to cassette and then listen repeatedly to each bit, using your ear and your brain to work out what is happening. Unless you have perfect pitch then you also need a piano or a guitar handy to check out which note is which. However, if you copy the recording to your computer’s hard disk as a sound file then you can use Transcribe! instead of the cassette machine and the piano. Transcribe! offers many features aimed at making the transcription job smoother and easier, including the ability to analyse chords and show you what notes are present, and to slow down the music without changing its pitch.

It is important to understand that Transcribe! does not attempt to do the whole job, processing an audio file and ouputting musical notation or MIDI - this would be nice, but is a currently unsolved research problem for polyphonic music. Transcribe! cannot work out where the beat is, and although the spectrum analysis feature is very useful for working out those hard-to-hear chords, 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.

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! is not an editor. It records, reads and plays audio files but does not modify them.

Transcribe! is Copyright © 1998-2001 Seventh String Software.

Transcribe! is distributed as "shareware".

You can visit Seventh String Software on the internet at www.seventhstring.demon.co.uk

You can contact Seventh String Software by email at andy@seventhstring.demon.co.uk

System Requirements

You need a PC running Windows 95/98/2000/ME/NT, with a sound card.

Transcribe! is also available for Macintosh.

If You Want To Uninstall Transcribe!

Use "Start Menu" - "Settings" - "Control Panel" - "Add/Remove Programs".


Using Transcribe
Using Transcribe!

•	Obtain an audio Sound data file (WAV, AIFF/AIFC or MP3) of the piece you want to transcribe. If you have an audio CD and your computer has a CDROM drive then it may be possible to copy the audio data digitally to your hard disk - see Audio Formats for how to do this. Otherwise you play the sound into your sound card and record it to hard disk (Record to File command). Transcribe! can read WAV files (standard PC sound format), AIFF/AIFC (standard Macintosh sound format) and MP3 (MPEG Layer III - a very popular compressed audio format). High sample rates (44.1k) & 16 bit obviously give better quality, especially when pitch/speed changing.

•	Load the Sound file into Transcribe! (File Open command). When you are starting a fresh transcription there won’t yet be a "XSC" (transcribe) file, and you should set the "Files of type" selection in the "File Open" dialog to look for "Sound files". When you "Save" (File Save command), Transcribe! will by default save as a "XSC" (transcribe) file - this is a fairly small file containing the name of the Sound file and information about tuning adjustment, markers, etc. When you subsequently continue work on a transcription, load the XSC not the Sound file so as not to lose this information. Transcribe! does not edit or alter the Sound file in any way. You can also use the mouse to "drag" a Sound or XSC file and "drop" it onto Transcribe!.

•	Use the Tuning command (Options menu) to adjust (if necessary) to concert pitch (and indeed to transpose if, say, the piece is in F# but you want to transcribe in G). This is important if you intend to use the spectrum analysis feature since pitches will be displayed on the assumption that 440Hz is the note "A".

•	Place section, measure and beat markers to give you points of reference. The easiest way is to use the keyboard shortcuts - play the piece through and tap S, M, B in time, e.g. "SBBBMBBBMBBBMBBB" would mark a 4-measure section of 4/4. You can also place & edit markers by double-clicking in the "marker zone" (the grey stripe above & below the waveform display). Markers are given default names but you can give any marker its own name (double click it).

•	Use the various playback commands for listening to the bits you want to transcribe - you can play the selected section, or the current window, or from the current point (the red marker where you last clicked), etc, looping or not. The easiest way to hear the same bit repeatedly is to mouse-click once at the beginning of the section (to position the current point marker), look at the checkmark on the Play menu to check that your current play mode is  Play Current or Play Selection (this is the default), and then use the keyboard shortcuts to play : <spacebar> to restart from the marked point, <comma> to pause, <period> (<full stop>) to stop.

•	Use the Faster/Slower command (Play menu) to slow down playback if there are very fast bits. Speeding up playback ("Change pitch and speed together") can also be useful if there is a very low, murky bass part : speed it up by an octave and it becomes much easier to hear the pitch. This is especially true if you are listening on the tiny speakers many people attach to their computers.

•	If your mouse has a wheel then you can use it to scroll the music to and fro.

•	The New Window then Tile commands (Window menu) allow you to have multiple views of the same transcription - handy if you want to compare the first & last chorus of a tune, or if you want to switch between slow playback and normal speed by clicking on one view or the other.

•	To analyse a chord, select the chord in question (press & hold the mouse button and sweep over the chord in the display). The lower pane of the display shows the pitches in the chord. The longer the selection, the better the pitch resolution, especially for low notes. If you button the keyboard graphic with the mouse, the note plays. Move the mouse side-to-side to scroll the keyboard, up-and-down to adjust the keyboard volume.


Screen Layout

Here are some of the main features of the screen display of a transcription document. Not shown here are the menus and toolbar (below the menus) and the status bar (below the scrollers).

Volume control: adjusts playback volume. It works by scaling sample values so it is independent of your soundcard's volume control, which will also work. Use the mouse to adjust it.

Section marker, Measure marker, Beat marker: you can place markers wherever you like. The easiest way of placing them is by using the keyboard shortcuts S, M, B during playback but you can also use the commands on the "Markers" menu, or double click in the marker zone. The section marker shown is labelled "D" and the measure markers "D2", "D3". By default section markers are labelled automatically in alphabetical order and measure markers are labelled with the section label followed by a number. You can change the type and label of any marker by double clicking it. You can move any marker by dragging it with the mouse button pressed.

Marker zone: this is the narrow grey stripe above and below the waveform, in which markers appear.

Waveform: this is a display of the waveform amplitude of the sound file.

Current point: this looks like a marker except its color is different (red by default) and it has no label. It is the place where you last clicked on the waveform, or the beginning of the current selection if any. This is where playback will begin if you select the "Play current" command.

Current selection: if you sweep the mouse along the waveform with the button pressed then you can select part of the waveform, which is then displayed highlit. If you select the "Play selection" command then this selection will be played. Also, whenever you make a selection its spectrum is computed and displayed. You can adjust one end of an existing selection without affecting the other if you press the keyboard shift key before pressing the mouse button close to the end of the selection which you want to adjust. You can also use the right button which has the same effect.

Selection info: these two text fields give the position of the current point and selection in minutes and seconds measured from the start of the file. Like all timing info displayed by Transcribe!, it relates to the original file at its original speed, ignoring any pitch/speed changes you have specified.

Play point: this black line indicates the point currently being played. It appears in both the waveform view and also the position scroller. While playing it moves from left to right, and while paused it stands still.

Splitter: the splitter bar is where marker labels are displayed. Also you can drag the splitter bar up or down with the mouse button pressed, so adjusting the relative sizes of the waveform and spectrum views.

Spectrum: if you have a current selection then its spectrum is computed (by Discrete Fourier Transform) and displayed here above the piano keyboard graphic. In the example here, you can see that the notes in the selected chord are A, B, C#, F# : it's a chord of A6/9 (recorded from an acoustic guitar). The E above middle C and the B above that (at the far right) are probably not actually notes being played by the guitarist : they could instead be harmonics of the notes being played lower down. Transcribe! can't make this judgement for you : you must use your ears, and your knowledge of what is likely in context on the given instrument. If you click on the spectrum display Transcribe! displays a series of vertical lines indicating other notes which might be harmonics of the point you clicked, or of which the clicked point might be a harmonic. For more discussion click here.

Snapshot info: this reports the position and length of the part of the audio file from which the spectrum has been computed. Essentially it repeats the information given on the current selection, except that if the current selection is longer than a second then the spectrum of just the first 1 second will be computed, and these figures will report that.

Keyboard: this graphic represents a piano keyboard, showing which notes correspond to which part of the spectrum graph above. You can scroll the piano keyboard with the mouse (press and hold mouse button on piano keyboard, then drag to right or left). Doing this over the middle third of the piano keyboard will scroll the whole keyboard (mouse pointer changes to double headed arrow). Doing it over either end of the piano keyboard will scroll that end, leaving the other end fixed, i.e. stretching or squeezing the keyboard graphic (mouse pointer changes to single headed arrow).

Also, a circular blob appears on the specific key you have buttoned, and the note plays. You can adjust the volume by moving the mouse forwards and backwards while it is playing. Note that the pitches played are affected by the Faster/Slower command. You can also adjust the timbre of the notes played : see the Program Options command (Options menu) for details.

For Stringed Instruments Only: If you hold down <shift> while you button the keyboard, or if you right-button the keyboard, then a little window pops up telling you which strings at which fret would play the note. This initially defaults to standard guitar but can be configured for other instruments in the Fret Options dialog. If you have adjusted the pitch with the Faster/Slower command then this will affect the string & fret information just as it affects the notes played by the keyboard.

The "C"s are labelled using standard MIDI note numbering (C0, C1 etc) and C4 is labelled "Mid C4" as it is middle C. There are vertical black and white lines ascending from the middle of the black and white notes, reaching from the top of the note graphic to the spectrum graph line. These lines are positioned at the centre of the pitch of the note in question. You can tell Transcribe! to label the other notes too, if you want. See the Program Options command to find out how.

Scale scroller: this scrollbar controls the side-to-side scaling of the view. Scrolling to the right stretches out the view, scrolling to the left squeezes it up and moves your markers closer together on screen.

Position scroller: this scrollbar enables you to scroll through the sound file. The full width of the scrollbar represents the whole sound file, and the scrollbar "thumb" shows which part of the soundfile is currently visible in the window.


File menu commands

The File menu offers the following commands:

New	Creates a new transcription file, with no Sound audio file yet attached.
Open	Opens an existing transcription file or Sound file.
Load/Reload Sound file	Loads or reloads a new Sound file into the current transcription file.
Close	Closes a transcription file.
Save	Saves a transcription file using the same file name.
Save As	Saves a transcription file to a specified file name.
Print	Prints the current view on a single page.
Print Setup	Selects a printer and printer connection.
File 1, 2, ...	Loads specified recent file.
Exit	Exits Transcribe!.


View menu commands

The View menu offers the following commands:

Always On Top	Keep Transcribe! on top of other applications even when not active.
Toolbar	Shows or hides the toolbar.
Status Bar	Shows or hides the status bar.
Spectrum	Shows or hides the spectrum display.


Play menu commands

The Play menu offers the following commands:

Play All	Play the whole piece from beginning to end.
Play Window	Play as much of the piece as is displayed in the window.
Play Current	Play from the current point (the red marker, wherever you last clicked).
Play Selection	Play the currently selected (highlit) segment if any, else play from current point.
Stop	Stop playing.
Pause	Pause playback, or resume if already paused.
Loop	Select whether to play once and stop, or play repeatedly (loop).
Scroll	Select whether to automatically scroll the waveform display while playing.
Faster/Slower	Change playback speed and/or pitch.


Markers menu commands

The Markers menu offers the following commands:

New Section Marker	Creates a new section marker (the start of a chorus or verse or whatever).
New Measure Marker	Creates a new measure marker (the start of a measure or bar).
New Beat Marker	Creates a new beat marker.
Delete selected markers	Delete all markers in the selected (highlit) segment.
Compute tempo	Computes the average tempo of the selected (highlit) segment, assuming one beat per marker.
Marker Options	Change the way markers are displayed.

See Markers for a general discussion of the subject.


Options menu commands

The Options menu offers the following commands:

Tuning	Adjust the tuning of the piece.
Stereo Mix	Control the way a stereo piece is mixed to mono for analysis and listening.
EQ Filter	Equalization, otherwise known as Filtering or Parametric EQ.
Sound File Info	Display information about the current Sound file (if any).
Program Options	Global options affecting program operation.
MIDI Options	Using MIDI input to control playback.
Fret Display Options	Configure display of fret info for stringed instruments.


Tools menu commands

The Tools menu offers the following commands:

Copy to File	Create a new Sound file, being a copy of all or part of the current Sound file.
Slowdown to File	Create a new Sound file, being a slowed-down (without pitch change) copy of all or part of the current Sound file.
Split to Files	Generates new Sound files by splitting the current Sound file into smaller pieces, controlled by placement of markers.
Record to File	Record from the audio input of your soundcard, creating a new Sound file on disk.


Window menu commands

The Window menu offers the following commands, which enable you to arrange multiple views of multiple transcriptions in the application window:

New Window	Creates a new window that views the same transcription.
Cascade	Arranges windows in an overlapped fashion.
Tile	Arranges windows in non-overlapped tiles.
Arrange Icons	Arranges icons of closed windows.
Window 1, 2, ...	Goes to specified window.


Help menu commands

The Help menu offers the following commands, which provide you with assistance in using Transcribe!:

Help Topics	Offers you an index to topics on which you can get help.
Seventh String on the Web	Visit Seventh String on the World Wide Web.
About Transcribe!	Displays the version number and registration information of this copy of Transcribe!.


File New command
New command (File menu)

This command creates a new Transcription (XSC) file, with no Sound file yet attached.

In fact, if you want to start work on a new transcription then it is usually better to use the Open command  to load the Sound file as this will create a new transcription file and automatically give it an appropriate name derived from the name of the Sound file.

If you want to continue work on a previously saved transcription then you should also use the Open command to open the Transcription (XSC) file you previously saved.

Shortcut

Keys:	CTRL+N


File Open command
Open command (File menu)

Use this command to open an existing transcription file or Sound file in a new window.

If you want to start work on a new transcription then use this command to load the Sound file (Select "Files of Type : Sound files"). This will create a new transcription document and automatically give it an appropriate name derived from the name of the Sound file.

If you want to continue work on a previously saved transcription then use this command to load the transcription file (Select "Files of Type : Transcription files").

You can also open a file by drag-and-drop from Explorer, or by double-clicking an XSC file in Explorer.

Note that by default this command shows you “Files of Type : Transcription Files (.xsc)” rather than showing Sound files. This is because after you start work on a transcription and save it, the next time you want to work on this transcription you should load the Transcription file. If you load the Sound file again then this will start a new transcription and you might well wonder “Where have all those markers I placed gone to?”.

You can have many transcriptions open at once. Use the Window menu to switch among the multiple open transcriptions.  See Window 1, 2, ... command.

Shortcuts

Toolbar:

Keys:	CTRL+O


File Load/Reload WAVE file command
Load/Reload Sound file (File menu)

Use this command to load a Sound file into an existing transcription.

•	The existing transcription might be a blank one created with the New command, which as yet has no Sound file attached. In this case the menu command will read "Load Sound File" (as opposed to "Reload").

•	The existing transcription might be one into which a Sound file has previously been loaded but now has a problem loading the Sound file. The point is, the XSC transcription file contains the name and location of the relevant Sound file. If you load an XSC file but the corresponding Sound file has been moved or deleted, then Transcribe! will complain that it can't find it. Use this command to reload the Sound file from its new location.

•	The other situation where you might want to use this command is if you have a new version of the Sound file, perhaps processed or cleaned up somehow, which you want to substitute for the version you did have loaded. Bear in mind that old marker positions will only remain useful if the new Sound file is exactly the same length as the old one (marker positions are stored as sample numbers).

Shortcuts

Toolbar:

Keys:	CTRL+W


File Close command
Close command (File menu)

Use this command to close all windows containing the active transcription. Transcribe! suggests that you save changes to your transcription before you close it.  If you close a transcription without saving, you lose all changes made since the last time you saved it.  Before closing a new transcription for the first time, Transcribe! displays the "Save As" dialog box and suggests that you name and save the transcription.

You can also close a transcription by using the Close icon on the transcription's window, as shown below:


File Save command
Save command (File menu)

Use this command to save the active transcription to its current name and folder.  When you save a transcription for the first time, Transcribe! displays the "Save As" dialog box so you can name your transcription.  If you want to change the name or folder of an existing transcription before you save it, choose the Save As command.

Shortcuts

Toolbar:

Keys:	CTRL+S


File Save As command
Save As command (File menu)

Use this command to save and name the active transcription.  Transcribe! displays the "Save As" dialog box so you can name your transcription.

To save a transcription file with its existing name and folder, use the Save command.


File Print command
Print command (File menu)

This command to prints the current active view on a single page. It is mainly useful if you have a complicated spectrum which you wish to peruse at leisure.  This command presents a "Print" dialog box, where you may specify various printing options.

Shortcuts

Toolbar:

Keys:	CTRL+P


File Print Setup command
Print Setup command (File menu)

Use this command to select a printer and a printer connection.  This command presents a "Print Setup" dialog box, where you specify the printer and its connection.


File 1, 2, 3, 4 command
1, 2, 3, 4 command (File menu)

Use the numbers and filenames listed at the bottom of the File menu to open the last four transcriptions you closed.  Choose the number that corresponds with the transcription you want to open.

Note that a transcription will not appear here unless it has been “saved” to create a transcription (xsc) file. In other words, if you open a Sound file to start a new transcription but then close the new transcription without saving it, it won’t appear in the recent files list.


File Exit command
Exit command (File menu)

Use this command to end your Transcribe! session.  You can also use the Close button at the right of the application's title bar. Transcribe! prompts you to save transcriptions with unsaved changes.

Shortcuts

Mouse:

Keys:	ALT+F4


Always On Top command
Always On Top command (View menu)

This command will keep Transcribe! on top of other applications even when not active. This can be useful if you are using Transcribe! in conjunction with some other app (perhaps a notation package) and you prefer not to have Transcribe! vanish every time you enter something into the other app.


View Toolbar command
Toolbar command (View menu)

Use this command to display and hide the Toolbar, which includes buttons for some of the most frequently used commands in Transcribe!.  A check mark appears next to the menu item when the Toolbar is displayed.

See Toolbar for help on using the toolbar.


Toolbar

The toolbar is displayed across the top of the application window, below the menu bar.  The toolbar provides quick mouse access to some commands used in Transcribe!.

To hide or display the Toolbar, choose Toolbar from the View menu.

Click	To

Open an existing file (transcription or Sound). Transcribe! displays the Open dialog box, in which you can locate and open the desired file.

Keyboard shortcut : CTRL+O

Saves the active transcription file using the same file name. If you have not yet named the transcription document, Transcribe! displays the Save As dialog box.

Keyboard shortcut : CTRL+S

Loads or reloads a new Sound file into the current transcription file.

Keyboard shortcut : CTRL+W

Prints the current view on a single page.

Keyboard shortcut : CTRL+P

Start playback in the current playback mode (the mode which is checked on the Play menu).

Keyboard shortcut : <spacebar>

Pause playback, or resume if already paused.

Keyboard shortcut : <comma>

Stop playing.

Keyboard shortcut : <period>

Select whether to play once and stop, or play repeatedly (loop).

Keyboard shortcut : CTRL+L

Select whether to automatically scroll the waveform display while playing (scroll).

Keyboard shortcut : CTRL+R

Review : skip rapidly backwards while playing.

Keyboard shortcut : r

 	Cue : skip rapidly forwards while playing.

Keyboard shortcut : c

Record to File : record sound from your soundcard's input to a Sound file (WAV in fact) on disk.

Half speed playback. This is equivalent to using the  Faster/Slower command and selecting slowdown by 2. Press it again to return to normal speed.

Keyboard shortcut : CTRL+2

Quarter speed playback. This is equivalent to using the  Faster/Slower command and selecting slowdown by 4. Press it again to return to normal speed.

Keyboard shortcut : CTRL+4

Brings up the Faster/Slower dialog.

Synchronize speed. When you apply pitch changes to the sound (with either the Faster/Slower dialog or the Tuning dialog) then the speed also changes. Press this button to apply a speed adjustment so as to restore playback to the same speed as the original sound file. The two dialogs just mentioned have a “Synchronize speed” button which has the same effect. Note that if you have half (or quarter) speed selected then you can release it by pressing the half (or quarter) speed button again, in which case speed adjustment is switched off, which means that if tuning adjustment has been applied then the speed will be faster or slower than the original depending on whether tuning is sharp or flat. Pressing the Synchronize button has a different effect, where there is a tuning adjustment. This may all seem a bit complicated but I want to make sure it is possible to use Transcribe! without activating speed adjustment unless you want to, because speed adjustment uses heavy computation and may not be practical on slow machines.

Keyboard shortcut : CTRL+1


View Status Bar Command
Status Bar command (View menu)

Use this command to display and hide the Status Bar, which describes the action to be executed by the selected menu item or depressed toolbar button, the load gauge, and the currently playing point measured from the start in minutes and seconds. A check mark appears next to the menu item when the Status Bar is displayed.

See Status Bar for more information on the status bar.


Status Bar

The status bar is displayed at the bottom of the Transcribe! window.  To display or hide the status bar, use the Status Bar command in the View menu.

The left area of the status bar describes actions of menu items as you use the arrow keys to navigate through menus.  This area similarly shows messages that describe the actions of toolbar buttons as you depress them, before releasing them.  If after viewing the description of the toolbar button command you don't want to execute the command, then release the mouse button while the pointer is off the toolbar button.

The right area of the status bar shows two small panels. The first panel is the "load gauge" which shows how hard your computer is having to work to keep up with playback. The more this gauge fills up to the right, the harder your machine is working. This normally only an issue when you are using slowed-down playback or MP3 decoding.

The second panel shows the current playing point measured from the start in minutes and seconds. Like all timing information displayed by Transcribe!, it relates to the original file at its original speed, ignoring any pitch/speed changes you have specified.


View Spectrum Command
Spectrum command (View menu)

Use this command to display or hide the spectrum display which appears above the piano keyboard graphic. If you are transcribing very simple material, or if your ear is very good, then you might find the spectrum display unnecessary and distracting.

With the Program Options command you can choose whether the spectrum is displayed by default in new windows.

If you want to hide both spectrum and piano, then drag the splitter bar down as far as it will go.

A check mark appears next to the menu item when the Spectrum is displayed.


Play all command
Play all command (Play menu)

This command begins playback in "Play all" mode - that is, playing from the beginning of the piece to the end. A checkmark appears alongside the menu item for the current play mode.


Play window command
Play window command (Play menu)

This command begins playback in "Play window" mode - that is, playing as much of the piece as is displayed in the view window. A checkmark appears alongside the menu item for the current play mode.


Play current command
Play current command (Play menu)

This command begins playback in "Play current" mode - that is, playing from the current point (the red marker, wherever you last clicked). A checkmark appears alongside the menu item for the current play mode.


Play selection command
Play selection command (Play menu)

This command begins playback in "Play selection" mode - that is, playing the currently selected (highlit) segment if any, else playing from the current point. A checkmark appears alongside the menu item for the current play mode.


Stop play command
Stop command (Play menu)

This command stops playback.

Shortcuts

Toolbar:

Keys:	<period>


Pause play command
Pause command (Play menu)

This command pauses playback, or resumes playback if it was paused.

Shortcuts

Toolbar:

Keys:	<comma>


Loop play command
Loop command (Play menu)

This command turns loop mode on and off. In loop mode, the music to be played will be played repeatedly. A checkmark appears alongside the menu item when loop mode is on.

You can choose to have a pause after each time the segment is played before it starts to play again - see “Playback loop delay” in Program Options.

Shortcuts

Toolbar:

Keys:	CTRL+L


Scroll play command
Scroll command (Play menu)

This command turns scroll mode on and off. In scroll mode, the waveform display scrolls automatically while playing, in order to keep the music being played visible on the screen. A checkmark appears alongside the menu item when scroll mode is on.

When Transcribe! is working hard (e.g. performing slowed-down playback) auto scrolling may become sluggish.

Shortcuts

Toolbar:

Keys:	CTRL+R


Play Faster/Slower command
Faster/Slower command (Play menu)

This command changes playback speed and/or pitch. It is a view-specific option - it does not affect other views of the same transcription, nor does it affect the spectrum analysis pitches - it only affects what you hear.

It offers two controls : the "Change Speed Only" box allows you to slow down or speed up the music without changing pitch. If you choose “Whole numbers only” then you can have slowdown by a factor of 2, 4, 8 or 16. If you choose “Continuous” then you can vary the speed smoothly from 25% (quarter speed) up to 200% (double speed). This uses heavy computation and, depending on the speed of your machine, you will notice Transcribe!'s responsiveness to the playback controls will be a little sluggish while slowed-down playback is happening. On most Pentium based machines slowed-down playback should nevertheless be possible in real time without interruptions. You can see how hard your machine is working from the a "load gauge" on the status bar. If your machine is unable to keep up then playback will pause every few seconds and a message will appear saying "Pre-computing audio data". This message will then disappear and playback will resume.

You might wonder what speed-up is used for. We have had requests for this feature from people who are using Transcribe! as a play-along practice tool. Presumably they want to play fast!

For convenience, slowdown by 2 or 4 can be accessed by buttons on the Toolbar, and also with the keyboard shortcuts Ctrl+2 and Ctrl+4.

Transcribe! does its best to keep playback going without interruptions : this can mean (especially in scroll mode) that gaps may appear in the waveform display and auto scrolling may be delayed when Transcribe! is working hard. Don't worry : Transcribe! will fill in the gaps as soon as it has a moment. Switch off scroll mode if it bothers you.

If your computer is unable to keep up with slowed-down playback in real time then the "Pre-computing audio data" message will appear regularly, every few seconds. These constant interruptions to playback are irritating but there are various things you can do about it.

•	Loop a short section you want to work on (select the section, turn on looping, and then Play Selection).

If the section is short enough to fit in Transcribe!'s Audio source buffer then once it has been computed, playback will be uninterrupted.

•	Use the Slowdown to File command (Tools menu) to generate a fresh file containing a slowed-down version of all or part of your current file, and then work on that file instead. Bear in mind that the slowed-down file will be bigger than the original, by the slowdown factor.

•	Record the music to a Sound file using a lower sample rate, e.g. 22050Hz instead of 44100Hz. You'll lose some high frequencies but you will also halve the amount of data which has to be slowed down. Changing sample size to 8 bit, or recording in mono, won't make much difference.

The second control is "Change Pitch and Speed".

This is just like changing the speed of a tape machine, so speed adjustment is measured in semitones. An octave downshift (-12 semitones) corresponds to half speed. Speeding up playback can be useful if there is a very low, murky bass part : speed it up by an octave and it becomes much easier to hear the pitch.

Note that the pitches played if you button the keyboard are adjusted by the same amount so the correspondence between the music playing and the keyboard is maintained. If you actually want to transcribe the music in a different key then you should use the Tuning command (Options menu).

“Synchronize speed” button.

When you apply pitch changes to the sound (with either this dialog or the Tuning dialog) then the speed also changes. Press this button to apply a speed adjustment so as to restore playback to the same speed as the original sound file. It is a one-shot adjustment, meaning that if you then make further adjustments to the pitch then you would need to press Synchronize again to keep the speed the same as the original. The Toolbar also has a Synchronize button which has the same effect.

If you play a transposing instrument then you might also want to read this.

Note that Transcribe! sets the Audio source buffer size to zero during slowdown adjustment. This prevents the "Pre-computing audio data" box from popping up while you are adjusting slowdown, but it does mean (if your computer is slow) that there may be slivers of silence interrupting playback.

Shortcut

Toolbar:


New Section Marker command
New Section Marker (Markers menu)

This command creates a new section marker, typically used for the start of a chorus or verse or whatever. If playback is in progress the marker is placed at the point currently playing, otherwise you will be asked whether to put it at the current point or the currently paused play point, if playback is paused. See Markers.

Shortcut

Keys:	S

Note that if playback is paused or stopped then the shortcut <shift>S will bypass the dialog and place the marker directly at the paused or current point.


New Measure Marker command
New Measure Marker (Markers menu)

This command creates a new measure marker, typically used for the start of a measure or bar. If playback is in progress the marker is placed at the point currently playing, otherwise you will be asked whether to put it at the current point or the currently paused play point, if playback is paused. See Markers.

Shortcut

Keys:	M

Note that if playback is paused or stopped then the shortcut <shift>M will bypass the dialog and place the marker directly at the paused or current point.


New Beat Marker command
New Beat Marker (Markers menu)

This command creates a new beat marker. If playback is in progress the marker is placed at the point currently playing, otherwise you will be asked whether to put it at the current point or the currently paused play point, if playback is paused. See Markers.

Shortcut

Keys:	B

Note that if playback is paused or stopped then the shortcut <shift>B will bypass the dialog and place the marker directly at the paused or current point.


Delete selected markers command
Delete selected markers (Markers menu)

This command deletes all markers in the selected region (use the mouse to select a region of the piece). It will first tell you how many there are and ask you to confirm the deletion. See Markers.


Markers Compute tempo command
Compute tempo (Markers menu)

This command computes the tempo of the piece in beats per minute. You must first use the mouse to select a region of the piece, and this region must have exactly one marker (section, measure or beat – automatically generated subdivision markers are ignored) on each beat or the computation will be wrong. Transcribe! simply counts how many markers there are in the selected region, measures the time from the first marker to the last, does a division to get the average time per beat, and reports this in beats per minute. Transcribe! reports the tempo of the original file irrespective of any tuning or playback speed alterations. See Markers.

This command also checks that all the between-marker-gaps in the selected section are approximately similar in size, and issues a warning if they're not. This is in case you accidentally put one marker on top of another, which would cause an incorrect tempo calculation.


Marker Options command
Marker Options (Markers menu)

This command displays a dialog which enables you to change :

•	Whether measure markers and beat markers should be auto-labelled. This option is transcription-wide.

•	The colors used for markers. This option is global.

See Markers.


Options Tuning command
Tuning command (Options menu)

This command displays a dialog which enables you to adjust the tuning of the piece to concert pitch (A = 440Hz). This is important because Transcribe!'s spectrum analysis assumes that 440Hz is A, and displays it as such. This means that if the piece is not at this pitch - perhaps the piece was copied on a cassette machine which doesn't run at exactly the right speed, or perhaps the musicians weren't playing at concert pitch anyway - then the spectrum display will be hard to interpret as the peaks won't be at the centres of the notes. You can also make bigger changes to the pitch here if you want, enabling you to transcribe the piece in a different key from the one it was played in. This might seem very similar to what you can do with the Play-Faster/Slower command : the difference is that tuning adjustment has transcription-wide effect, and happens before spectrum analysis and thus affects what you see in the spectrum display, whereas Play-Faster/Slower is view-specific, and is applied after spectrum analysis so has no effect on the spectrum display.

If you are using an instrument which is not tuned to A=440 then you can of course use the Tuning command to tune playback to match your instrument, but if you do then the spectrum display will be inaccurate. It's probably a better idea to tune your instrument to A=440 if possible.

If you play a transposing instrument then you might also want to read this.

Note that Transcribe! always reports playing times, durations etc as in the original file before any pitch/speed adjustments.

The left hand pair of sliders in the dialog enable you to choose a reference note to tune to, and its volume. The right hand pair of sliders enable you to adjust the pitch of the piece in semitones and hundredths of a semitone (cents).

An easy way to adjust the tuning is to do it visually. First select a clear-sounding note from the piece so its peak is visible in the spectrum display and then select the Tuning command. Adjust the tuning so the spectrum peak is centred over the middle of the keyboard note it corresponds to.

The "Adjust Note Timbre" button brings up the Adjust Timbre dialog which allows you to adjust the timbre of the reference note.

“Synchronize speed” button.

When you apply pitch changes to the sound (with either this dialog or the Faster/Slower dialog) then the speed also changes. Press this button to apply a speed adjustment so as to restore playback to the same speed as the original sound file. It is a one-shot adjustment, meaning that if you then make further adjustments to the pitch then you would need to press Synchronize again to keep the speed the same as the original. The Toolbar also has a Synchronize button which has the same effect.


Options Stereo Mix command
Stereo Mix command (Options menu)

Transcribe! plays and analyses in mono. This means that if the audio file you are using is stereo then Transcribe! must convert it to mono. This dialog enables you to control the way in which this is done, for instance by listening to one channel only, or by mixing them together in some way.

Changes you make in this dialog have transcription-wide effect, and control both what you hear on playback and also the spectrum analysis. The profile display is not affected : it always displays a straight mono mix of the two channels.

The “Bypass” checkbox returns you to a straight mono mix for comparison.

The purpose of this dialog is to help you concentrate on the instrument(s) you want to hear. Its simplest use is to move the "Mix Level" slider full left or right, to select the channel in which the instrument you want to hear is clearer. You can also check the "Out of phase" checkbox, which reverses the phase on one channel, causing them to cancel out. You may then be able to adjust the mix level to achieve maximum cancellation of whatever you don't want to hear (perhaps a vocal) while still hearing the accompaniment. How successful this can be depends on how it was recorded. Note that if the recording was originally mono (e.g. copied from an old vinyl mono recording) then it won't be effective at all. Instruments that were recorded in true stereo (using two microphones - pianos are often recorded this way) won't cancel out very much while instruments recorded on a single mic (such as vocals) and then placed in the mix by panning will cancel. Therefore it is sometimes possible to cancel out a vocal while leaving the piano audible, which is useful. Reverb is usually true stereo so it won't cancel.

Occasionally an instrument may be present on both channels but with a slight delay applied to one channel (to make a "bigger" sound). In that case you can cancel it more effectively by using the "Channel delay" slider to undo the delay that was applied.

Note that if you are using slowdown (see Faster/Slower, Play menu) or MP3 decoding then Transcribe! sets the Audio source buffer size to zero during mix adjustment. This prevents the "Pre-computing audio data" box from popping up while you are adjusting the mix, but it does mean (if your computer is slow) that there may be slivers of silence interrupting playback.

Shortcuts

Keys:	CTRL+M

This shortcut does not bring up the dialog, it switches “Bypass” on or off.

Keys:	SHIFT+L, SHIFT+C, SHIFT+R

When the dialog is not up, these shortcuts will set the mix to full left, centre or right. They will also switch off “Bypass” if it was on, but leave the other settings (such as phase reverse) untouched.


EQ Filter command
EQ Filter command (Options menu)

You can use this command to apply filtering (EQ, Equalization) to the sound file you are working on. This allows you to emphasize the sound of the instrument(s) you want to hear, and to reduce the volume of things you don’t want to hear. It operates according to the frequency (pitch) of the sound so cannot distinguish between two sounds both in the same frequency range.

Changes you make in this dialog have transcription-wide effect, and control both what you hear on playback and also the spectrum analysis. The profile display is not affected : it displays the sound in the sound file, without EQ.

This dialog is rather large : if you are running a low-resolution screen (640 * 480) you may need to right-click the Taskbar and switch off “Always On Top”, so the taskbar doesn’t obscure the bottom of the dialog.

The “Bypass” checkbox enables you to switch off the EQ, for comparison.

The “Gain” slider at the right adjusts the overall gain. If you use a lot of boost in the EQ settings then digital overload (distortion) may occur. In this case, reduce the overall gain to prevent distortion.

The EQ offered is 5 band parametric, with a graphical display showing the overall frequency response curve resulting. The 5 bands are marked “Low”, “Mid 1”, “Mid 2”, “Mid 3” and “High”. Each band has the same controls, as follows :

•	The checkbox alongside the band’s name determines whether this band is active. If not checked, then this band is not active and whatever you do to its controls will have no effect.

•	The first slider controls the band’s frequency (in Hz or kHz). For the “Low” and “High” bands this is the frequency at which the filter reaches its full effect. For the 3 “Mid” bands it is the centre frequency of the band affected.

•	The second slider controls width, measured in octaves. For the “Low” and “High” bands this is the width of the sloping part of the response curve. For the 3 “Mid” bands it is the width of the flat central section of the response curve.

•	The third slider controls gain, up to plus or minus 20dB in half dB steps.

If any of this is unclear, just have a play with it – you will easily see what the controls do by looking at their effect on the displayed frequency response curve.

EQ filtering uses substantial computer power, so if your machine is slow you may see the "Pre-computing audio data" box pop up. On the other hand, if your machine is fast enough to do slowdown without pitch change, then EQ should not be a problem.

Note that Transcribe! sets the Audio source buffer size to zero during EQ adjustment. This prevents the "Pre-computing audio data" box from popping up while you are adjusting the EQ, but it does mean (if your computer is slow) that there may be slivers of silence interrupting playback.

Shortcut

Keys:	CTRL+E

This shortcut does not bring up the dialog, it switches “Bypass” on or off.


Options WAVE File Info command
Sound File Info (Options menu)

This command displays a dialog giving details on the name and format of the currently loaded Sound file (if any).


Program Options command
Program Options (Options menu)

This command displays a dialog allowing you to alter some global aspects of Transcribe!'s behaviour.

Choose Audio Output Device

Normally the "Use default device" box is checked. However if you have more than one sound card in your computer then you can uncheck this box, and select the device to be used for playback output.

Show waveform volume changes

This affects the display of the waveform profile : when you adjust playback volume with the slider at the left of the profile, should the graphic of the profile itself be scaled too? This is purely cosmetic, according to taste.

Playback loop delay

When looping playback is on, you can choose to have a pause after each time the segment is played before it starts to play again. This gives you a bit of time to think and to write down what you hear.

Min: 0  Max: 10  Default: 0  (seconds).

Playback buffer size

When Transcribe! has prepared some audio to be played it puts it in the playback buffer and hands it to the soundcard driver to be queued for playing. If the buffer is too short then you may get playback glitches - short slivers of silence. If the buffer is long then Transcribe!'s response to such things as volume and pitch changes gets slow, as these changes can only take effect after the present buffer contents have been played.

Min: 2  Max: 20  Default: 3  (tenths of a second) or 6 in "cautious playback mode".

Audio source buffer size

Sometimes, heavy computation is required to obtain audio data from the Sound file ready for playback. This is particularly true when decoding MP3 files and when you use slowed-down playback. Transcribe! buffers the audio source data, and you can choose the buffer size in seconds. On a faster machine a short buffer will provide a faster response, while on a slow machine you may want a longer buffer so as to get longer stretches of uninterrupted playback. If Transcribe! is unable to keep up then a dialog appears from time to time saying "Pre-computing audio data", while the buffer is refilled. The buffer length applies to the duration after any slowing down has been applied.

You can always avoid this problem by using the Copy to File or Slowdown to File commands.

Min: 0  Max: 10  Default: 4  (seconds).

Cautious playback mode

You shouldn't normally need to touch this. There are some differences between soundcard drivers under NT/2000 and 95/98. Non-Cautious mode should be ok under Windows 95/98 and provides a smoother playback (less liable to playback glitches). Non-Cautious mode may not work under NT/2000 in which case you must use Cautious mode. In this mode glitches are more likely, and you may need to increase the playback buffer size to avoid them.

Default: "on" under Windows NT/2000, "off" under Windows 95/98

Adjust Keyboard Timbre

This button brings up the Adjust Timbre dialog which allows you to adjust the timbre of the sound generated by Transcribe! when you mouse-button the keyboard graphic.

Label piano keys if wider than . . .

Transcribe! always labels the C's on the piano keyboard, giving their MIDI octave numbers for reference. If you want then you can also have note names appear on all the white notes. If you specify 0 here (the default) then Transcribe! will only label the C's. Otherwise, Transcribe! will label all the white notes whenever their size on the screen is wider than the number of pixels you specify. About 20 or 30 is usually a suitable sort of value.

In new windows . . .

Here you can specify your preferences for the initial state of new transcription windows when they are first opened. You can choose whether the piano and/or spectrum should be displayed, and whether auto-scroll and loop should be enabled.

The “Set size and keyboard position from current window” button is only enabled if you currently have a transcription open. It records the overall size and position of Transcribe!’s main window and also the position of the piano keyboard (if you have scrolled the keyboard position, which notes appear at the top and bottom). Subsequently when you launch Transcribe! it will appear in the same position on the screen and when you open a transcription the initial piano keyboard position will be set from what was recorded.


Keyboard Timbre
Adjust Timbre of Keyboard and Tuning Notes Dialog

This dialog allows you to change the timbre (the tonal quality) of notes generated by Transcribe! when you mouse-button the keyboard, and also of reference notes used for tuning comparison. This is a global option.

The point is that the timbre of a note can sometimes affect your ability to hear its pitch clearly, so adjust it according to your taste.

A choice of triangle or square wave is offered. The slider adjusts the symmetry of the wave : "mild" gives a symmetrical wave while "savage" is very asymmetrical and thus has more harmonics.


MIDI Options command
MIDI Options (Options menu)

The MIDI Options dialog enables you to set up Transcribe!’s response to MIDI input, so you can use MIDI messages to start and stop Transcribe!’s playback. Transcribe! does not output MIDI at all. MIDI options are global.

The point about this is that when you are transcribing you will often have pencil and paper in your hands, or a musical instrument, or both. It is therefore very useful to be able to operate Transcribe! “hands free” – to start and stop playback with your feet. To use this feature you need to have a MIDI input port on your computer (these can be bought from many different manufacturers if you don’t already have one) and you need to have some kind of foot pedal capable of generating MIDI output. Typically you might use :

•	The sustain pedal attached to your MIDI keyboard instrument.

•	Program change pedals such as those used by guitarists.

•	Organ pedals intended for playing bass notes with your feet.

Simple Setup

•	Check the “Respond to MIDI” box and select the appropriate MIDI input device from the list. When you press your controller pedal (e.g. your sustain pedal) you should see MIDI events appearing in the “MIDI Event Monitor”.

•	Double click the event in the “MIDI Event Monitor” to bring up the “New MIDI Response” dialog. Press OK to accept its default settings. The new response should now be listed as a line in the “Current Responses” list.

•	Press OK to dismiss the MIDI Options dialog. You should now find that pressing the controller pedal will start playback from the current point.

If you need to know more, read on . . .

The Gory Details

Transcribe! can respond to any note on/off event, controller on/off event or program change event, on any channel. Continuous controllers (such as volume or pitch bend) are ignored. You should be aware that program change events are a bit different from note on/off and controller on/off events. When you press a note, or a controller such as a sustain pedal, an “on” event is generated. Later when you release the note or controller an “off” event is generated. On the other hand a program change event is strictly a one-shot affair, there is no “end of program change” event. This means that a program change event is not as versatile for controlling Transcribe!, as note and controller events are. Also, most program change pedals will generate the same program change twice if you press the same pedal twice but they don’t have to and if yours doesn’t then that is more limiting still.

The basic concept is that you can configure Transcribe! to respond to selected MIDI events by effectively translating them to keystrokes on the computer keyboard. The MIDI options dialog is where you specify these translations. The reason why this is useful is that Transcribe! already has a rich collection of keyboard shortcuts for controlling playback, so this technique gives you access to the same collection of shortcuts under MIDI control. Some of these shortcuts (such as <spacebar> to start playback, <period> (full stop) to stop) are documented alongside the command in question, many others including the function keys are documented on the keyboard shortcuts page.

When you tell Transcribe! to translate a particular note or controller to a particular key on the computer’s keyboard, it naturally treats the note or controller “on” event as pressing the key and the subsequent “off” event as releasing it. However because of the “one-shot” nature of program change events mentioned above, when you tell Transcribe! to translate a program change event to a particular key on the computer’s keyboard, it treats the program change event as if the corresponding key was pressed and then immediately released. This is fine for those keys which anyway take no notice of when they are released such as <spacebar>, <period>, <comma> but it doesn’t work so well for those keys which only make sense if they can be held down for some time, such as :

‘C’ (cue) and ‘R’ (review) : these only happen for as long as the key is held down, so press followed by immediate release is not useful.

‘Z’ and ‘;’ : these are keys which play only as long as they are held down and pause on release, so press followed by immediate release is not useful. Function keys can (if you want) be programmed to pause on release in which case the same applies.

‘[’ and ‘]’ commands for moving the current point or selection. These will work when triggered from a program change but they won’t auto-repeat as you would need to be able to hold the key down for that.

The MIDI Options Dialog

Respond to MIDI : this checkbox switches Transcribe!’s MIDI responses on or off globally.

Release when in background : when you activate another application, Transcribe! is then in the “background”. If you leave this box unchecked then Transcribe! will still listen and respond to MIDI messages while in the background, which can be very useful if the foreground application is perhaps a notation program into which you are entering the results of your transcription. However if you want to switch to another application which also uses MIDI input then you will have a problem as the other application won’t be able to claim MIDI input while Transcribe! still has it, so in this case you should check the box so Transcribe! releases MIDI input and the other app can claim it. When you switch back to Transcribe! again, it may happen that Transcribe! reports that it cannot open MIDI input. This would indicate that the other app has failed to release MIDI input. On Finale, for instance, if I use MIDI input for "speedy note entry” then I find I must select a different tool (e.g. “mass mover”) before switching back to Transcribe!, otherwise Finale will not release MIDI properly.

Device selection list : here is a list of MIDI input devices attached to your computer. Select which one you want Transcribe! to listen to.

MIDI Event Monitor : this list box shows what MIDI events Transcribe! is hearing. If you press a note on your MIDI instrument and nothing appears in this box, this means you’ve plugged the MIDI cable in the wrong hole.

Specify a Response for the Selected MIDI Event : this button will only be enabled if you have selected (clicked on) an event in the “Monitor” box. Pressing it will bring up the “New MIDI Response” dialog (see below) which enables you to specify what keystroke Transcribe! should translate this MIDI event to.

Current Responses : this list box shows what responses are currently configured. Each line specifies a translation from a MIDI event to a keyboard shortcut.

Edit/Delete the Selected Response : these buttons will only be enabled if you have selected (clicked on) an event in the “Responses” box.

The Edit MIDI Response or New MIDI Response Dialog

In this dialog you select the keyboard shortcut to which the selected MIDI event will be translated. The MIDI event in question (its type, number and channel) is displayed in the “MIDI Event” box.

Keystroke generated : this list shows all the keyboard shortcuts which can be generated from MIDI events. You should select one of these.

Invert Action : it is sometimes possible for a controller’s action to be “upside down”, so that pressing it produces an “off” event and releasing it produces an “on” (you will see from the “MIDI Event Monitor” if this is happening). In this case you should check the “Invert Action” checkbox to get correct behaviour.

Action : for your convenience, this gives a brief description of what the currently selected keyboard shortcut actually does.

Edit Function Key : this button will only be enabled if you have selected a function key as the current keyboard shortcut, and if you currently have a transcription open as some of the function keys have transcription-wide effect. It brings up the Program Function Key dialog for the function key selected.


Fret Display Options command
Fret Display Options (Options menu)

The Fret Display Options dialog is relevant only if you play a string instrument. When you shift-click or right-click the piano keyboard, a little window pops up telling you which strings at which fret would play the note. This initially defaults to standard 6 string guitar : the Fret Display Options dialog is where you specify other string instruments, the number of strings and tuning. This information will then be used when you subsequently shift-click the keyboard. Changes made here have global effect.

If you have adjusted the pitch with the Faster/Slower command then this will affect the string & fret information just as it affects the notes played by the keyboard. The true sounding note is reported in the string info pop-up.

We speak here (and in the string info pop-up) of “frets”. Of course, many string instruments don’t have frets but I think our meaning should be clear anyway.

The dialog has a selection list at the top where you can select from various common instruments such as guitar, violin, bass etc. This is simply a convenience – if you select one of these then Transcribe! will set the number of strings and their tuning to the usual for that instrument. If you use the other controls to change the number of strings or their tuning then Transcribe! will set the instrument selector to “Custom”.

Then there are four numerical “spin” controls.

The first is “Highest fret”. Transcribe! does not set this for you when you select an instrument, it’s up to you to change it if you want. It doesn’t actually have to be the highest fret on the instrument, you should set it to the highest fret which you want Transcribe! to consider using for alternative fingerings. The point is that most notes can be played on several different strings, at higher fret positions on lower-pitched strings. Transcribe! will report these alternate fingerings as long as they do not exceed the “highest fret” that you have specified. Transcribe! makes an exception for your highest-pitched string and will always report the fret number for this string no matter how high the note is.

“How many strings” – can be from 1 to 12.

“Tuning for each string” – here you select which string and specify its tuning. The tuning is specified as a MIDI note number, but for convenience an English description of the note’s pitch is given as well. The MIDI octave number is also given – for instance, middle C is “C4” and the B just below it is “B3”. Remember that guitar and bass are transposing instruments : they sound an octave lower than written. The top string of the guitar in standard tuning is correctly reported as E just above middle C.


Window New command
New command (Window menu)

Use this command to open a new window with the same contents as the active window.  You can open multiple transcription windows to display different parts or views of a transcription at the same time.  If you change the contents (e.g. move a marker) in one window, all other windows containing the same transcription reflect those changes.  When you open a new window, it becomes the active window and is displayed on top of all other open windows.


Window Cascade command
Cascade command (Window menu)

Use this command to arrange multiple opened windows in an overlapped fashion.


Window Tile command
Tile command (Window menu)

Use this command to arrange multiple opened windows in a non-overlapped fashion.


Window Arrange Icons command
Arrange Icons Command (Window menu)

Use this command to arrange the icons for minimized windows at the bottom of the main window.  If there is an open transcription window at the bottom of the main window, then some or all of the icons may not be visible because they will be underneath this transcription window.


Window 1, 2, 3, 4 command
1, 2, ... command (Window menu)

Transcribe! displays a list of currently open transcription windows at the bottom of the Window menu.  A check mark appears in front of the transcription name of the active window.  Choose a transcription from this list to make its window active.


Help Topics command
Help Topics (Help menu)

Use this command to display Transcribe! Application Help. From this dialog you can access Help topics by subject, or by text-search for keywords.


Seventh String on the Web command
Seventh String on the Web command (Help menu)

Use this command to visit the home page of Seventh String on the World Wide Web where you can find more information about Transcribe! and Seventh String, including the OAQ (Occasionally Asked Questions) and information about updates.

You need to be connected to the Internet for this to work.


Help About command
About command (Help menu)

Use this command to display the copyright notice, version number and registration information of your copy of Transcribe!.


Interpreting the spectrum

See Screen Layout for a picture of an example spectrum, and see Spectrum for a brief discussion of its meaning. Also see Keyboard for instructions on how to scroll the piano keyboard graphic, so as to choose which part (higher/lower) of the spectrum to bring into view.

Any waveform, no matter how complex, can be regarded as the combination of a number of pure sine wave tones. Transcribe! calculates the spectrum graph by a "discrete fourier transform" which can take any waveform and "separate out" the sine wave tones which are present in it, determining the pitch and amplitude of each.

The spectrum for a sound which is a pure sine wave would consist of a single narrow spike. Real musical instruments do typically produce a strong sine wave component at the note being played, and it is this spike in the spectrum that shows us the note being played. However, real instruments also produce a lot of other stuff which can confuse the picture, especially when several instruments are playing.

•	Harmonics: these are more-or-less exact multiples (2 times, 3 times, etc) of the fundamental frequency (the note being played). This means that they appear at intervals above the fundamental of 1 octave, 1 octave + 5th, 2 octaves, 2 octaves + 3rd, 2 octaves + 5th, 2 octaves + minor 7th, 3 octaves, etc. Look up "harmonic series" in a musical reference book if you want to know more. Look at Spectrum again for discussion of an actual example. For a very "raspy" sounding instrument, it can happen that some of the harmonics may be stronger (a taller spike) than the fundamental. Mellow sounding instruments have weaker harmonics.

•	Vibrato or glissando: obviously, any variation of the pitch of the note during the section you have selected for spectrum analysis, will result in a smearing of the spectrum.

•	Spurious tuned notes: some instruments, tuned percussion especially, produce extra notes that are not on the harmonic series. Beware of bells and timpani!

•	Other percussion: non-tuned drums, cymbals etc, tend to produce a broad fuzzy lump in the spectrum.

•	Other noises: e.g. the "wind noise" in the blowing of a flute, the clicking of the keys, finger noise on a guitar, lots of brief noises associated with the beginning of a note on most instruments, audience noise, recording noise, resonances of rooms, instruments etc. This kind of stuff can produce a lot of small spikes right across the spectrum.

Transcribe! has a feature to help you identify harmonics. If you click with the mouse on the spectrum display Transcribe! displays a series of vertical lines extending four octaves either side of the clicked point. Those above the clicked point indicate other notes which might be harmonics of the point you clicked, while those below the clicked point indicate notes of which the clicked point might be a harmonic. Naturally, the pattern of lines is symmetrical either side of the clicked point. I find this feature can sometimes be surprisingly useful. I have come across heavily distorted single-note guitar sounds where the pitch is clear to the ear but the note that the ear hears does not show up at all clearly on the spectrum. By clicking on the spectrum and moving the mouse around, you can get a perfect fit on the whole harmonic series, which reveals the true pitch of the note even though there is no peak in the spectrum there (at the clicked point). What is happening is that the guitar distortion generates lots of harmonics but has lost – perhaps by subsequent filtering – most of the fundamental. When we hear this, the ear is clever enough to recognise the harmonic series and tell us what note is really being played.

The first step in getting the cleanest picture you can is to select as large a segment as possible, during which the chord you want remains constant. Do not expand the selection to include any part of the chord before or after as this will really confuse things. The easiest way to get the selection right is to set Transcribe! playing it round and round (turn on "loop" playback mode) while you adjust the selection length with the mouse. You can adjust one end of an existing selection by holding down the <shift> key while you press the mouse button near one end of the current selection, or use the right button, or with the keyboard.

Note that the maximum length of selection for spectrum is one second : if you select more than this then the spectrum you get will be of only the first second of the selection.

If the main peaks in the spectrum are consistently mis-aligned with the note-centre pitches (the vertical black and white lines rising from the keyboard graphic) then it might be that you have not adjusted the piece to concert pitch (A = 440Hz). Use the Tuning command (Options menu) to adjust until the alignment is better. Of course, if some peaks are aligned while others are not then this could mean that the musicians are playing out of tune with one another, and you'll just have to live with it. Bear in mind that the tuning of a piece can vary from moment to moment if it's been recorded on wonky old equipment.

Usually the messiest part of a complicated spectrum is the upper part since this is where harmonics proliferate. However if you listen by ear to the segment, in context, then it's often quite easy to make a judgement about what the highest note being played really is (play notes by buttoning the keyboard graphic, to locate the spike in the spectrum which corresponds to it). You can then dismiss everything above this point as irrelevant. Scroll the keyboard so this stuff disappears off the right of the view and doesn't distract you.

If the spectrum shows more notes than you think should be present, then is it possible that some of the notes are actually changing during the segment you have selected? Listen carefully. Try making the selection shorter at one end or the other and see if some of the notes in the spectrum disappear. You can adjust one end of a selection by holding down the shift key first, and then mouse-click near the end you want to adjust, or with the keyboard.

If the Sound file you are working on is stereo then try the Stereo Mix command. You may be able to find a mix which emphasises the instruments you want to transcribe while reducing the volume of distracting sounds.

Use the "Print" command to print out the spectrum. Then look for other occurrences of what you suspect may be the same chord, and look at their spectra too. You can also use the New Window followed by Tile commands to view spectra of two chords at the same time.

You have to make a judgement about which peaks are notes being played, which are harmonics, and which are just rubbish. You must use your ear and your brain, try playing the various possible chords on your own piano or whatever and see what sounds right. Of course, this is exactly what you would be doing if you didn't have Transcribe!. Transcribe! simply gives you an additional source of information on the sounds, to be added to what your ear tells you. This brings us back to the point mentioned in the Introduction that Transcribe! should be seen as an assistant, and cannot do the whole job for you. To some extent the peaks in the spectrum graph should be seen merely as suggestions.


Markers

Markers can be placed anywhere in the piece and come in three flavors : "Section", "Measure" (bar) and "Beat". There is also the current point marker (the place where you last clicked). Markers are displayed as little triangles in the marker zone above and below the waveform profile, except beat markers which get just a little tick line. Each marker type has a different color (configurable in the Marker Options dialog) and each marker can have a text label which is displayed in the splitter bar. See Screen Layout for a picture showing all of these features.

There can also be automatically generated subdivision markers – these are described below.

Markers are for your benefit : Transcribe! doesn't care where you put them, or whether you use them at all. However, if you have ever transcribed music from cassette then you will know that finding your way around is always a bit tedious - when you want to hear the last bit again, how far should you wind back? When you want to hear the middle section again, where was it? By placing markers, you can locate the desired spot very easily. You don't, of course, need to place markers throughout the whole piece - only the part you are interested in.

Often the easiest way to place new markers is to set the piece playing and use the "New marker" keyboard shortcuts 'S', 'M' and 'B' for new section, measure (bar) and beat marker respectively. Thus tapping the keyboard in time with the music, "SBBBMBBBMBBBMBBB" marks a four measure section with four beats per measure. The measure markers mark the first beat of each measure (bar), and the section marker marks the first measure of the section.

If you use these commands while music is not playing then you will be offered the option of placing the new marker at the current point or at the paused play point if you are paused. However if you hold the <shift> key down when using the keyboard shortcuts 'S', 'M' and 'B' then this will bypass the dialog and the marker will be placed directly at the paused point (if paused) or the current point.

You can also place a new marker by double clicking in the marker zone.

If you right-click in the marker zone then you will get a popup menu from which you can select various marker related commands. If you clicked on an existing marker then you can change its type, edit, or delete it. Otherwise you will be offered choices for creating a new marker at the clicked point.

Editing Markers

You can move an existing marker by clicking on it and dragging.

You can edit (change its type or label) or delete an existing marker by double clicking on it (in the marker zone).

If you want to delete a lot of markers then select the relevant section of the piece (so the waveform profile is highlit) and then use the Delete markers command.

Marker subdivision

The “Subdivide” options in the Edit Marker dialog refer to the automatic generation of subdivisions between markers. These are shown as little tick lines in the same color as the current point marker (red by default). These are not true markers – they cannot be moved, edited or deleted individually.

They are for your convenience : if a piece is in (say) 4/4 then you could decide to mark just the measures (bars), but tell Transcribe! to divide each into 4 which would effectively mark the beats. Or if it is in sections of 8 measures you could mark just the section starts, but tell Transcribe! to divide each into 8 which would effectively mark the measures.

You can specify the subdivisions for each marker individually if you want. The choices are :

•	Same as previous (the default) : the same number of subdivisions will be used for this marker as were used for the last.

•	No : no subdivisions.

•	Yes, this many subdivisions : specify the number required by adjusting the number in the “spin control”.

Marker labelling

Text labels are used to distinguish one marker from another. The text is displayed in the splitter bar, beneath the marker. By default, section markers are automatically labelled A, B, C etc, measure markers are labelled using numbers appended to the section label thus A2, A3 etc. and beat markers are not labelled. By editing a marker you can override this and give it any label you want. Also the Marker options command allows you to switch auto labelling on or off.


If You Play a Transposing Instrument

If you are transcribing something in order to play it on a transposing instrument (e.g. Trumpet in Bb, which we will use as an example here) then you may want to work directly in the transposed key. Simply using the “tuning” command to raise the pitch by a whole step is not a satisfactory solution as although it puts the piece into the key you want your transcription to be in, you will not then be able to play along with it on your trumpet.

What you really want is for the piece to play at its usual, unaltered pitch but you want Transcribe!’s spectrum display and piano keyboard to work in transposed pitch, so that when there is a concert Bb played in the piece, if you select it for spectrum analysis you want the peak to appear over the keyboard’s “C” and if you button “C” on the keyboard you want to hear concert Bb – in other words you want the keyboard to be a transposing instrument having the same transposition as the trumpet.

This can be done using features of Transcribe! which have been in there since the very beginning, but I hadn’t realized myself that they could be used for this purpose until a recent discussion with a trumpet player who asked whether this could be done. The idea is to take advantage of the fact that the Tuning command adjusts the pitch (and speed) of the track before spectrum analysis is applied while "Change Pitch and Speed" in the Faster/Slower command adjusts the pitch (and speed) of the track after spectrum analysis is applied, and it maintains correspondence between the spectrum and the keyboard by transposing the keyboard to stay in step. The original purpose of this was to provide a speed change facility back in the days of version 1 when we didn’t have slowdown-without-pitch-change. These days I tend to use it only for changing the pitch up or down by an octave.

This may all seem a bit complicated but actually using it is simple enough. We set the Tuning command to take it up a whole step and "Change Pitch and Speed" in the Faster/Slower command to take it down a whole step. The result is that we hear the music at its original, unaltered pitch and speed but the spectrum and keyboard are transposed as we want. Note that if you shift-click a keyboard note then the box that pops up tells you the sounding (concert) pitch of the note you are hearing.

The commonest transpositions are :

Bb instrument : Tuning +2 semitones, Pitch and Speed -2 semitones.

Eb instrument : Tuning -3 semitones, Pitch and Speed +3 semitones.

and you will easily work out any others you need.

There is one slight irritation. Tuning changes are transcription-wide which means that they are saved with the transcription you are working on (good). However Playback speed adjustments are view-specific which means they are not saved and you will have to reset the playback speed adjustment each time you start work on the transcription.


Keyboard playback shortcuts

Transcribe! has many keyboard shortcuts relating to playback and to adjusting the current point or selection. Shortcuts which are equivalent to some menu or toolbar command are documented with the command in question. Here, we describe some additional shortcuts which do not correspond directly to any menu or toolbar command.

You can use Transcribe! very effectively without ever using any of the shortcuts described here, and in fact you should probably not bother with these until you are fairly familiar with Transcribe!. However we have had requests from users for convenient shortcuts for some often-repeated operations, so here they are.

Adjusting the current selection

Left Arrow	Enlarge the selection at the left.
Right Arrow	Reduce the selection at the left, unless there is none in which case move the current point.
Shift+Right Arrow	Enlarge the selection at the right.
Shift+Left Arrow	Reduce the selection at the right, unless there is none in which case move the current point.
[ , ]	Move whole selection or current point to left or right.
Shift+[, Shift+]	Move whole selection or current point to previous or next marker.
Ctrl+[, Ctrl+]	Move whole selection or current point to previous or next measure or section marker.
Alt+[, Alt+]	Move whole selection or current point to previous or next section marker.
E	Set the current point to the currently playing or paused point (no effect if not playing or paused), then scroll the current point or selection into view.
D	Select from the current point to the currently playing or paused point (no effect if not playing or paused). For a weird effect, try holding this key down while playback is looping.
1,2,3	Set the current point to the left, middle or right of the window. This can cause a forwards playback jump if the current point is now to the right of where you were playing.
J,K,L	These create a small (1, 2 or 3 tenths of a second respectively) selection, centred on the currently playing point. This is intended to allow instant looping of a single note (if you have loop mode switched on).
U,I	These cancel any existing selection, placing the current point at either the left or the right edge (respectively) of where the selection was.

Adjusting the scale of the waveform profile display

Ctrl+Right Arrow	Enlarge the horizontal scale (stretch the profile out).
Ctrl+Left Arrow	Reduce the horizontal scale (squeeze the profile up).
Ctrl+Up Arrow	Enlarge the vertical scale.
Ctrl+Down Arrow	Reduce the vertical scale.

Scrolling the waveform profile display without changing the current point or selection

Up/Down Arrow	Line-scroll (like buttoning the arrows on the scroll bar).
Up/Down Page	Page-scroll (like buttoning the scroll bar to the right or left of the thumb).
Home/End	Go to the beginning or end of the piece.
Q	Scroll the current point or selection into view.
W	Scroll the currently playing or paused point into view (no effect if not playing or paused). This is irrelevant if scroll mode is on.

Playback control

'Z' when pressed : Start playback as if <spacebar> was pressed. Play only as long as the key is held down.

When released : pause playback.

';' (or key to right of 'L') when pressed : if paused then resume playback. If playing already then continue playing. If stopped then start playback as if <spacebar> was pressed. Play only as long as the key is held down.

When released : pause playback.

The effect of this is that this key can be used to play back progressively, resuming playback each time the key is pressed at the point where playback paused when the key was last released.

Function Keys

The function keys can be programmed to start playback in various ways.

For each of them (except F1 which is always "Help"), you press Shift+Function Key to bring up a dialog enabling you to program the key, or you press the Function Key on its own to initiate playback accordingly. You have to have an active transcription with a sound file loaded before you can program any function keys.

All the playback function keys can be programmed but you should bear in mind that F2, F3 and F4 are global which means whatever you program them to do, they will do the same whatever transcription you are working on. This means you cannot program them to play from a specified point in the transcription you are working on, as this might well be meaningless when you switch to another transcription.

From F5 to F12 the function keys are transcription-wide which means that whatever you program them to do, will be saved and restored with the transcription you are working on. This means that you can program them to play from a specified point in the transcription you are working on, and it also means that they can do different things in each transcription you work on.

The "Program Function Key Playback" dialog offers the following options :

•	Pause playback when key is released. If this is checked then it does exactly what it says : playback continues only for as long as you hold the key down (then use the ';' key to continue playback). Otherwise playback continues when the key is released.

•	Change Speed Only. Here you can change speed without pitch change. Like the Faster/Slower command.

•	Change Pitch and Speed. As it says, in semitones. Like the Faster/Slower command.

•	Playback Mode. All, Window, Current or Selection like the commands on the Play menu.

And for F5 to F12 only you get the "Current Point or Selection" box which allows you to program the function key to take you to a particular place in the piece :

•	Set current point or selection from these figures, when Function Key is pressed. If this is not checked then the figures in this box have no effect : for instance, if the play mode is "Play Selection" then whatever the current point or selection happens to be when you press the function key, that's what it will play. However if this option is checked then when you press the function key the current point or selection will be set from the figures in this box before playback starts, so in that case playback will begin always from the programmed point, when you press this function key.

•	At & Selected : the current point or selection which will be set if required, when you press this function key. You can type directly into these boxes if you want.

•	Set these figures now, from current point or selection. This is the easiest way to fill in the "At" & "Selected" boxes to the point or selection you want : select the point or selection you want first, using the mouse or keys in the usual way. Then hit Shift + Function Key to bring up the dialog to program the function key, then hit this button to feed the values into the "At" & "Selected" boxes.

Here are the defaults for the playback function keys :

F2	Half speed.
F3	Normal playback.
F4	Quarter speed.
F5 - F12	Normal playback from start of piece.


Audio file formats

Transcribe! reads Sound (audio sample data) files. There have been dozens of formats used for audio sample data on various computer systems at one time or another and it is not our intention to support the more esoteric ones. Transcribe! currently reads :

•	WAV files. This is the Microsoft standard.

•	AIFF/AIFC files. This is the Apple Macintosh standard.

•	MP3 files - MPEG Layer III. This is a very popular compressed format.

If there is much demand then we might add to this list, but our view is that if you are using some esoteric format then you probably already have ways of converting it to standard WAV or AIFF. There are lots of tools out there for Sound file editing and conversion, e.g. CoolEdit on the PC.

Most audio file formats support a variety of sample formats and speeds. If you have a choice then 16 bit is always preferable to 8 bit. Stereo can be preferable to mono as the Stereo Mix dialog can then give you some useful options. However mono files are half the size of stereo ones so you can save disk space by using mono, and Transcribe! may then run a little faster too. High sample rates (44.1k, 48k) give better quality, especially when pitch/speed changing, but they also require larger files.

Uncompressed CD quality sound files (16 bit stereo at 44.1k) occupy about 10MB per minute.

MP3 files are much smaller (depending on the bit rate used) but decoding them in real time is hard work for Transcribe!. If Transcribe! can't keep up (likely if you have a slow machine and the MP3 file is a high bit rate) then the "Pre-computing audio data" dialog will appear from time to time while playing. Read about the Audio source buffer (Program Options) for solutions to this.

About MP3 versions : so called MP3 files are actually MPEG-1 (MPEG version 1) or MPEG-2 (MPEG version 2) both of which are recognised by Transcribe!. There is also a “Version 2.5” but this is not an official standard and will not be recognised by Transcribe!. Within MPEG-1 and MPEG-2, audio can be encoded as Layer I, Layer II or Layer III. Layer II is basically an update on Layer I, offering the same sound quality in a smaller file. Layer III is more sophisticated, and is usually superior when very high compression is desired. Transcribe! reads Layers II & III but not Layer I as this is seldom seen these days, having been essentially superceded by Layers II & III. So, don’t tell your MP3 encoder to produce Layer I.

Sound file editing programs allow you to change sample size & sample rate, to convert formats and modify Sound files in many other ways. Transcribe! is not an editing program, and it is not our intention that Transcribe! should wander into this territory which is already well served by existing applications.

How to obtain audio files

If you want to transcribe a piece of music then you presumably have a recording of it in some form or other. Here are some of the possibilities.

•	You have an audio recording in any format at all (cassette, vinyl, CD etc). Plug the audio signal into your soundcard's input (you must have a soundcard or you can't use Transcribe! anyway) and use the Record to File command (Tools menu) to "record" the audio to hard disk. There are also various shareware packages for recording.

•	You have a standard audio CD of the piece, and you have a CDROM drive on your computer. In this case the simplest thing to do is to use the computer's CD play function to play the CD while Transcribe! records it. See the Record to File command for more information.

•	Transcribe! does not support direct digital reading of audio CD's but there are programs which do this. Some systems support this directly, for instance I use the software "Easy-CD Pro" with a Teac R56S drive. The "Disk info and tools" command offers the option to digitally copy audio tracks to the hard disk as WAV files.

We have decided not to add digital CD-Ripping (copying) to Transcribe! as there are lots of shareware or free programs out there which do it already, many offering useful features like MP3 encoding, accessing online catalogue information (CDDB) and so on.

Check out http://www.mp3.com for a list of such programs. We use "CD-DA X-Tractor" from http://xtractor.sourceforge.net/ which works and is free.

•	You have been given, or have downloaded, a data file containing the audio. If it isn't a format which Transcribe! can read then you must convert it, see above. Remember that files are often stored in various compressed formats (ZIP etc) and these must be uncompressed first.


XSC file details
Transferring XSC files between Windows & Mac, and importing XSC files into spreadsheets

Starting with version 4.80, Transcribe! uses a comma-delimited text format for its saved XSC transcription files. The content of these files is basically the same whether on Windows or Macintosh. This offers several advantages compared to the binary format used previously.

•	XSC transcription files can be transferred between the Windows and Mac versions of Transcribe! – if you have placed lots of markers in a transcription you are working on, and then you want to continue work on a different species of computer then previously it would have been necessary to start again from scratch. Now, though, you can copy the XSC file to the other machine (and the Sound file too of course) and carry on.

•	It is possible to import marker position data into other programs such as spreadsheets. I have had communications from people using Transcribe! to analyze timings who would find this useful.

•	It will make version compatibility issues easier for the future.

Transferring XSC files between Windows & Mac

First you should copy the Sound file to the destination machine (or reload it from audio CD or whatever). It is best if the Sound file is identical on the two machines. Since marker positions are recorded as sample numbers, any difference in length of lead-in will cause misalignment of markers.

Now copy the XSC transcription file to the destination machine. You may need to tweak its name so that Transcribe! can recognise it. You must ensure that the name of the XSC transcription file ends with the four characters “.xsc” (upper or lower case).

From Windows to Mac : the file should already have the extension “xsc” but if it hasn’t, rename the file so the last four characters of its name are “.xsc”

From Mac to Windows : You probably will need to rename the file so the last four characters of its name are “.xsc”. Note that in Windows Explorer you should switch OFF “View - Folder Options – View – Hide file extensions for known file types” to enable you to see and change file extensions.

Now start Transcribe! on the destination machine and use “File – Open” to load the XSC file. It is likely that this will get you a dialog saying “Unable to load Sound file”. Don’t worry – this means that the transcription file has loaded ok, but Transcribe! has been unable to locate the Sound file which goes with it. The name and location (folder) of the Sound file are recorded in the transcription file but the folder information will not transfer between different machines as the filing system layouts are unlikely to be the same. So Transcribe! will look for a Sound file of the right name in the same folder as the transcription file itself, and if it isn’t there you get the dialog described. All you have to do is use the “Reload Sound File” command to locate the sound file and your markers should now reappear and all is well.

On the Mac it is a good idea now to use “Save As” to save this transcription under a new name or in a new location. This is because the XSC file you copied from Windows does not have the correct Mac ‘type’. If you “Save” to the same file then the wrong type will remain, whereas if you “Save As” then Transcribe! creates a brand new file of the correct type. The correct “creator type” and “file type” for a transcription file should both be ‘7SSt’. Transcribe! on the Mac takes special steps to be able to load files of the wrong ‘type’ as long as their names end with “.xsc”. Finder doesn’t know about this though, so you can’t open a wrongly-typed XSC file by double-clicking it, which is a nuisance.

Loading XSC files into Spreadsheets

Some people use Transcribe! for technical analysis of timing and find it useful to load marker timing information into a spreadsheet. The best way to do this will depend on what spreadsheet you are using, but here are a couple of tips:

On Windows : rename the XSC file to give it the extension “.csv” (instead of “.xsc”) – this is a standard extension indicating comma-separated text fields (but see the note above about Windows Explorer and file extensions). You may well find that double clicking it will now open it in your spreadsheet. If not, start your spreadsheet and either Open or Import the file. Alternatively you may get a result by opening the file in Notepad or Wordpad, Copy the contents to the clipboard and Paste into your spreadsheet.

On Mac : Using Excel, the “File – Open” command has an option to “Show Files of Type – All Files”. If you select this then you will be able to load an XSC file directly. In the Text Import Wizard on Step 1 under “Original Data type” ensure “Delimited” is selected, then press “Next”. On Step 2 select “Comma” as your “Delimiters Type” and in the text qualifier popup select “None”, then press “Next” and “Finish”. Alternatively if you have a resource editing tool such as ResEdit or Resourcerer then you can change the file’s type to ‘TEXT’ and its creator to ‘ttxt’. This makes it look like a SimpleText file which you can load into SimpleText by double-clicking.

XSC File Format

When you load an XSC file into a spreadsheet or text editor you will see its structure which is very simple and uses mnemonic names so is fairly self explanatory. It is divided into sections and the only section documented here is the “Markers” section. It’s hard to think of any reason for wanting to understand any of the others, but if you do you’ll work them out easily enough. Here is a typical (but short) “Markers” section.

SectionStart,Markers

Howmany,8

S,23623,1,A,0

B,38947,1,,0

B,48469,1,,0

B,60249,1,,0

M,71835,1,A2,0

B,83296,1,,0

B,95514,1,,0

B,108719,1,,0

SectionEnd,Markers

It tells you how many markers there are, then the markers themselves, one per line. Each line starts with “S”, “M” or “B” indicating Section, Measure or Beat marker, then a number giving the location of the marker (as a sample number – divide by the sample rate to get the time), then a 1 or 0 indicating whether or not the marker label is determined automatically (as opposed to being typed in by user), then the label text itself. Then there is a number indicating automatic subdivision : 0 means same-as-previous, 1 means no, 2 or more means divide into this many subdivisions.

There is one more issue which you only need to worry about if you type in marker names which use the characters ‘,’ or ‘\’. Clearly Transcribe! cannot allow the ‘,’ character to appear within any field as it would be mistaken for a field delimiter when reading the file. Therefore Transcribe! saves any ‘,’ within a field as the pair ‘\C’ and saves any ‘\’ as the pair ‘\\’. Transcribe! then performs the reverse translation on loading.


Troubleshooting

If you hear no sound

Try closing any other applications which might be using the soundcard.

Check whether other Windows programs (e.g. Media Player) can play the Sound file in question.

Try "Cautious playback" mode in the Program Options dialog. This should be the default anyway if you are using Windows NT.

The volume slider (see Screen Layout) should of course not be on zero.

Check the Stereo Mix dialog, and make sure it is not set "out of phase".

In the Program Options dialog, if you uncheck the "use default device" box then the combo box which appears should show your sound card(s) by name - does it? Select the soundcard to play on, then "ok" (instead of "use default device").

Does the waveform profile appear properly in the upper pane (look at the Screen Layout for comparison)?

Sometimes soundcard drivers have bugs in. So another thing to try is, search the internet to find the website of the soundcard manufacturer to see if a driver update is available for your soundcard. This is worth doing even if your soundcard plays ok with other applications. Different applications use different ways of keeping a sound card supplied with data so it is perfectly possible for a soundcard driver bug to prevent one application from playing properly, while causing no problem for a different application.

Problems recording

By far the commonest problem is that you must select the appropriate source to record from. If the VU meter in the "Record to File" dialog is not jumping up and down with the music then probably the recording input selection is not set correctly. See Record to File help for more information about how to fix this.

Make sure you are recording to a disk which has sufficient space (not a floppy).

Also, see the comments about updating soundcard drivers, just above.

If you still have problems

Send email to Seventh String Software (andy@seventhstring.demon.co.uk) and describe the problem as accurately as possible.

Remember to include the following information :

•	What version of Transcribe! do you have? (It says in the "About" box).

•	What machine & soundcard & soundcard driver version are you using?

•	What version of Windows are you running?

•	What other Windows programs can play the audio file in question?

•	What format of audio file are you using?

•	If you are having problems recording, can any other software on your machine record successfully?

Computer speed & Playback Glitches

Spectrum computation

Computing a new spectrum should take less than a second (about 0.4 secs on a 133MHz Pentium). If it is much slower than this then probably you have an old machine (a 386 or a 486SX) with no math coprocessor. There's not much you can do except run Transcribe! on a 486DX or Pentium.

Waveform display glitches

Transcribe! does its best to keep playback going without interruptions : this can mean (especially in scroll mode) that gaps may appear in the waveform display and auto scrolling may be delayed when Transcribe! is working hard. Don't worry : Transcribe! will fill in the gaps as soon as it has a moment. Switch off scroll mode if it bothers you.

The "Pre-computing audio data" dialog

This dialog pops up during playback if Transcribe! is unable to read/decode/process audio data as fast as it needs for playing. Read about the Audio source buffer (Program Options) for solutions to this.

Playback glitches

There are four main causes for playback glitches (brief silent gaps interrupting playback).

1. Some video card drivers disobey the rules regarding buss usage, causing problems for soundcards. See http://www.zefiro.com/vgakills.txt on the internet, for more information about this along with some possible fixes. If this is the problem then it will of course affect all applications which play sound, not just Transcribe!

2. "Cautious playback" mode in the Program Options dialog.

Try both settings. Non-cautious mode should be less liable to glitches, but may possibly not work at all on some systems.

3. Other applications are hogging the system. Solutions :

•	Don't activate other applications while Transcribe! is playing.

•	Increase the size of the playback buffer.

If you use "Turnpike" software for connecting to the internet, then be aware that Turnpike Offline uses a lot of computer time even when minimised and doing nothing. So close it down completely, for smoother playback.

4. Your computer isn't fast enough to keep up with the sample data. In this case Transcribe! will respond sluggishly to commands given while playing back. Changing the size of the playback buffer won't help with this. Solutions :

•	Set tuning adjustment to none and playback speed to normal. This reduces the amount of work Transcribe! has to do while playing.

•	Use a Sound file with a lower sample rate (22k rather than 44k). This reduces the data rate.

•	Use a Sound file with a smaller sample size (16 bit mono rather than 16 bit stereo). This also reduces the data rate.

•	Turn off scroll mode.

•	Get a faster computer. A 133MHz Pentium has substantially more speed than is needed to keep up with 16 bit stereo at 44k sample rate, with tuning adjustment and slowed-down playback applied. So if yours isn't keeping up, it must be pretty slow.


Scope (global vs. local)

The effect of things you do in Transcribe! can be global, transcription-wide, or view-specific.

Global options change the behaviour of the program Transcribe! globally irrespective of what transcription you are working on. Global options are saved between sessions in the registry of your computer. Examples include :

•	The size of the playback buffer (Program options dialog)

•	The colors used for markers (Marker options dialog)

Transcription-Wide edits change the content of the active transcription but do not affect other transcriptions. If you have multiple views of a single transcription on-screen then all these views will be affected. Transcription-wide edits are saved in the "XSC" transcription file. Examples include :

•	Placement of markers

•	Tuning adjustment (Options Tuning dialog)

View-Specific changes affect the active view only, without affecting other views of the same transcription. View-specific changes are not saved between sessions. Examples include :

•	Playback speed and volume

•	The current position and selection


About Shareware
About Shareware and Registering

Transcribe! is Copyright © 1998-2001 Seventh String Software.

Transcribe! is distributed as "shareware".

This does not mean that the software is free, but it does mean that you may download it for 30 day evaluation from the internet for free, and you may freely copy and further distribute it so long as you have not modified the program or its associated files in any way.

Dead Simple License Agreement (DSLA)

You may only use Transcribe! if you agree to the license agreement stated here.

You may use Transcribe! unregistered for up to 30 days free of charge, but if you want to continue using it beyond this time then you must register it. This means paying a modest fee - $40 (forty US dollars) or £28 (twenty-eight UK pounds sterling) - to Seventh String Software, in return for which you get a registration number. You may not share this registration number with anyone else : it is for you only.

Registering Transcribe! entitles you to run it on one machine only, or on two machines as long as the program is for your exclusive use on both of them.

While we make all reasonable efforts to ensure that Transcribe! is bug-free and performs as it should, we cannot guarantee that it will always perform as expected or accept any liability for any aspect of its use.

Support is available from Seventh String Software via email only and is free.

End Of Dead Simple License Agreement

You can download the latest version of Transcribe! from www.seventhstring.demon.co.uk

You can contact Seventh String Software by email at andy@seventhstring.demon.co.uk

If you have not registered Transcribe! then each time you launch the application you get the "Unregistered Copy Of Transcribe!" dialog. Once it is registered, you don't get this dialog.

There are two steps to registering Transcribe! :

•	EITHER : Register online via a secure server (RegSoft) with a credit card. The internet address is http://www.regsoft.net/purchase.php3?productid=9500

•	OR if you cannot use secure http then http://www.regsoft.net/purchase_nonsecure.php3?productid=9500

•	OR : Fill out the registration form and mail it to us, along with your registration fee.

•	OR : By Phone: You can register via a Voice Order Line at 1-877-REGSOFT (1-877-734-7638) (Non-US users must dial 770 319-2718 (USA)). You will need the RegSoft "Product ID #" which, for the Windows version of Transcribe!, is 9500.

•	OR : By Fax: You can register by fax at 1-800-886-6030. Non-US users must dial 1-208-279-3837 (USA) except in the UK where you can dial (0870) 132-2485. You will need the RegSoft "Product ID #" which, for the Windows version of Transcribe!, is 9500.

•	We will send you a registration number in return.

•	THEN : Hit the "Register Now" button on the "Unregistered Copy Of Transcribe!" dialog which appears when you start the application. Fill in the dialog which appears, and hit OK. That's it.

Please note that if you register at RegSoft then you will receive from them an order confirmation : this does not contain your registration information. Your registration information will come from Seventh String Software within 48 hours and usually sooner.

Also note : if you don’t hear anything from us then it may be that there is a problem with your email address. Occasionally we send emails to people and they don’t get through but they don’t get bounced back either, so we are not aware of any problem. So if you don’t hear from us, send us an email with an alternate reply address (give the email address of a friend of yours) so we can contact you.

About Upgrades (new versions of Transcribe!) : it has been our policy so far that all upgrades are free to registered users and we have no intention of changing this, although we can't make a firm promise that this will remain so for ever.

If you want to run Transcribe! on multiple machines (e.g. an organisation such as a university) then you will need to purchase multiple registrations. Discounts are available in this case, in fact you pay full price for the first 4 copies and half price for all subsequent copies. You should email andy@seventhstring.demon.co.uk for more information if you want to do this.


Registration Form
Transcribe! for Windows : Registration Form

Please read the dead simple license agreement before registering Transcribe!

It costs $40 (forty US dollars) or £28 (twenty-eight UK pounds sterling) to register Transcribe!.

You can pay by cheque in US dollars or UK pounds sterling. Other forms of payment are acceptable only if it is possible for us to pay them in by posting them to the bank (in other words, not if we would be required to make a personal visit to a bureau somewhere to collect it).

You can pay in currencies other than UK or US if you want. Add £5 (that's what the bank charges us for exchanging one-off foreign cheques) to give a price of £33, then convert to your currency at the current rate. You can find a currency exchange calculator online at http://www.x-rates.com/

Cheques payable to Seventh String Software please.

You can also register online with a credit card, in which case you don't need this form.

Print this form by hitting the Print button above, or by selecting Print Topic on the File menu (of Windows Help). Then fill it in, and send it with a cheque for the above amount to:

Seventh String Software

Jazzwise

2B Gleneagle Mews

London SW16 6AE

England

(Please do not telephone Jazzwise or call in person as Seventh String does not receive callers at this address)

You can contact Seventh String Software by email at andy@seventhstring.demon.co.uk

Date :

Your full name :

Your email address :

Your phone number :

Your postal address :

Please do give at least two contact methods (email/phone/post) and three if possible. Occasionally there can be problems with email so we need alternate ways of contacting you if this happens. If you give an email address then we will email your registration number, otherwise we will post it. If we send an email and it bounces back, we will phone you.

If you don’t hear anything from us then it may be that there is a problem with your email address. Occasionally we send emails to people and they don’t get through but they don’t get bounced back either, so we are not aware of any problem. So if you don’t hear from us, send us an email with an alternate reply address (give the email address of a friend of yours) so we can contact you.

Click here for more information about registering Transcribe!, including online registration and volume discounts.


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Copy to File command
Copy to File command (Tools menu)

This command creates a new Sound file (WAV in fact), being a copy of all or part of the current Sound file. It is similar to what can be done with the Split to Files command, but is quicker and simpler if all you want is a copy of the whole file or just one part of it.

Its main use is format conversion, since the Sound file you are working on might be any of the formats which Transcribe! reads, but the copy is always WAV format. This can be useful if you have a slow machine and you have a high-bitrate MP3 file which Transcribe! is unable to decode in real time. Create a WAV copy and work on that instead.

You should first select (highlight) the region you want to copy (unless you want to copy the whole file). The Copy to File command brings up a dialog offering a choice of "Whole File" or "Current Selection", and a choice of where to put the generated Sound file. When these are selected, hit OK and that's it. A large MP3 file on a slow machine will take some time : if you "Cancel" the operation then you will still get a valid Sound file, complete up to the point where you cancelled.


Slowdown to File command
Slowdown to File command (Tools menu)

This command creates a new Sound file (WAV in fact), being a slowed-down (without pitch change) copy of all or part of the current Sound file.

The usual way of slowing the music down is to use the Faster/Slower command (Play menu) but if your computer is slow then you may want to create a new file containing the slowed-down version of the part you are interested in, and then load this file for transcription. The Slowdown to File command is also useful if you want to load the slowed-down version into any other software.

Obviously, the slowed-down file will be bigger than the original by the same factor that you slow it down by, or even more if the original is compressed (MP3), and this can make it a good idea only to slow down the part you are interested in rather than the whole file. The sample format (mono or stereo, sample rate, etc) will be the same as the original.

You should first select (highlight) the region you want to slowdown (unless you want to do the whole file). The Slowdown to File command brings up a dialog offering a choice of "Whole File" or "Current Selection", a choice of slowdown factor, and a choice of where to put the generated Sound file. When these are selected, hit OK and that's it. A large file on a slow machine will take some time : if you "Cancel" the operation then you will still get a valid Sound file, complete up to the point where you cancelled.


Split to Files command
Split to Files command (Tools menu)

This function will create new Sound files (WAV in fact) on your hard disk, extracted from the Sound file you have loaded. Its primary use is for dividing very long wave files into separate tracks. It creates new Sound files and will not modify the source Sound file in any way.

The source file may be any of the audio formats supported, but the output files will always be WAV format. The sample rate and sample format will be the same as the source.

This command is not all that strongly related to transcription, however I wanted the feature, and it made sense to include it in Transcribe! rather than write a separate application, as Transcribe! already contains 90% of what is needed to support this feature.

I sometimes copy old vinyl records, tapes of live gigs, etc. to hard disk and thence to audio CD using the CD burner on my computer. This means I regularly have audio files of perhaps 500MB to work through, locating the beginnings and ends of tracks, and saving individual tracks as WAV files. I have not found any tool which does this job quickly and easily. With Transcribe!, it's a pleasure.

•	Start a new transcription by loading the large Sound file you want to split.

•	Place a "section" marker at the beginning of each track you want and a "measure" marker at the end of each track. The cue and review buttons are particularly useful here.

•	Save your work, if you like (in the usual XSC Transcribe! file).

•	Select the "Split to Files" command.

•	Use the Browse button to select a location for the resulting files.

•	Check the listbox contents : it lists the tracks and their durations.

•	If all is well, press OK.

The Use Of Markers

Obviously, we are not using markers here for their normally intended purpose, but they work fine nevertheless. Beat markers are entirely ignored. The opening section of the source file, up to the first section marker, will be deleted. If you want to keep the beginning, place your first section marker at the very start. If you place a measure marker at the end of a track then the source from here to the next track start (section marker) will be lost. If you want to keep the entire source then don't use a measure marker at all. A section marker not only starts a new track but also ends the last one, if it has not already been ended by a measure marker.

Naming Of Tracks

The "File Prefix" edit control specifies the location on disk for the new files, including the first part of the file name but not the extension. You can type a different location, or use the Browse command to select one. The WAV file names will be constructed by appending suffixes to this. The suffix will normally be the number of the track as listed in the list box, but if you edit the section marker which begins the track, and give it a non-default label (the track name) then this will be used as a suffix instead.

Note that if a file with the same name already exists, it will be erased without warning.


Record to File command
Record to File command (Tools menu)

This command is a straight forward recording facility, where you feed sound into your soundcard either from a microphone or (more likely) an audio cable from your CD or cassette player and use this command to record the result to disk as a Sound file (WAV in fact) suitable for transcription.

WAV files are large : about 10MBytes per minute at CD quality. Keep an eye on your disk space and delete old WAV files when you don't need them any more.

Note that if you have an audio CD and your computer has a CDROM drive then it may be preferable to copy digitally instead of "recording". See Audio Formats for discussion of how to do this.

Most soundcards can receive audio input from a variety of sources which can include "mic", "line" and perhaps "digital i/o" (these three usually mean mini-jack connector sockets at the back of the machine) and also perhaps "CD audio" meaning a direct audio feed (connected internally) from your CDROM drive. You will need to find the software controls for your soundcard, in order to select the appropriate input source according to where your audio is coming from and set the volume level (e.g. if you are recording from a cassette machine then you would plug the signal into the "line" input, and you must then tell the soundcard to receive from "line"). When the correct source is selected you will see the VU meters at the lower right of the Record to File dialog jumping up and down with the dynamics of the music playing.

Different soundcards have different features, and different software drivers (provided by the manufacturers) to control them. You may need to consult the documentation supplied with your machine and soundcard to find out how to do this.

On some Windows 98 systems this can be a matter of using "Start Menu" - "Settings" - "Control Panel" then double click the "Multimedia" icon, select the "Audio" tab, and click the "Recording" icon. Then select the appropriate input (mic, line, CD) according to what you want to record, and set the volume level.

If an option is provided for "monitoring the recording input" then you should select it : this way you will be hearing the same as what you are recording. If you hear nothing when you select this option then you have not yet set things up correctly to get the sound feeding into the recording input of the soundcard.

On other systems there may be a separate program for these controls, often called a "Mixer".

If your soundcard does have an option to receive sound directly (via an internal connection) from your CDROM drive then use this (if your source is an audio CD). If it does not then you will need a lead running from the CD's Headphone jack to the mic or line input on the back of the machine.

If you are using the machine's CDROM drive to play the audio then you can use "CD Player" (supplied with Windows 98) or "Media Player" (supplied with Windows 95) to control the CD player. Note that "Windows Media Player" (supplied with Windows 98) does not play audio CDs.

With Windows 98, "CD Player" may start automatically when you insert an audio CD, but if not you will find "CD Player" on the "Start" menu, "Programs", "Accessories", "Entertainment".

With Windows 95 you will find "Media Player" on the "Start" menu, "Programs", "Accessories", "Multimedia". On Media Player's "Device" menu select "CD Audio".

Then use the controls in the usual way to play CD audio tracks, while using Transcribe! to record them to disk.

The options offered in the "Record to File" dialog are as follows :

•	Use default card. Normally you would use the default card. The only reason for unchecking this option would be if you have more than one soundcard in your machine. When you uncheck it a list box appears and you can select which soundcard to use.

•	Status. This shows the current soundcard status, which should read "Opened OK" if all is well, and will show "Recording" while you are actually recording. If there is an error then a message will appear, and so will a "TRY AGAIN" button alongside the status display.

•	Sample Format. Here you can choose from the sample formats (mono or stereo, sample size 8 or 16 bit, sample rate) supported by your soundcard. CD quality (44.1 kHz, stereo, 16 bit) is recommended but bear in mind this uses approx 10MB of disk space per minute of sound. Lower quality formats use less space.

•	File to record to, and Browse button. These allow you select a location for the WAV file to be recorded. If you select a WAV file which already exists then Transcribe! will ask for confirmation before it is overwritten.

•	Record button. This creates a new WAV file on disk and starts filling it with audio data. The red recording light will flash while recording. Hit "Stop Recording" when you have enough. You can record many files one after another if you want : simply select a new file name and hit "Record" again. While recording is in progress, Transcribe! will disable your screensaver. This is because the launching of a screensaver can sometimes cause soundcards to glitch.

•	VU Meters. These display current signal level. If they are hitting the top then turn the volume down!

•	Margin dB. To the right of this label is displayed a number, being the amount of headroom to spare on this signal so far, in decibels. It is cleared whenever you hit the "Reset Margin" button, and also when you hit "Record". If it goes to 0 then this means no headroom left, and possible overload. If at the end of recording it shows more than 6 or 10 or so, then it might be worth re-recording with the input volume set higher if you want maximum quality.

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If It Doesn’t Work

If you have an audio CD and your computer has a CDROM drive then it may be preferable to copy digitally instead of "recording". See Audio Formats for discussion of how to do this. This means you don’t need “Record To File” at all.

However if you do want to make “Record To File” work, then by far the most common problem is that you must select the appropriate recording source, or else you will just record silence. Instructions for doing this are above. Even though the CD is playing while you "Record to File", if you have selected "Mic" or "Line" input for recording then you will record silence (unless there is something plugged into the "Mic" or "Line" inputs).

Are the VU meters jumping up and down while the music plays? If not then Transcribe! is not “hearing” the sound, probably because the correct source has not been selected.

As a double-check you could try recording with the Windows program SoundRecorder (On StartMenu/Programs/Accessories/Entertainment) to see whether this can "hear" the sound.