Keys: <period>
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.
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.
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.
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.
This command stops playback.
This command pauses playback, or resumes playback if it was paused.
This command turns loop mode on and off. In loop mode the music to be played
will be played repeatedly, otherwise it is played once and then stop. 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
Preferences
.
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 or
decoding MP3) auto scrolling may become sluggish.
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. You can vary the speed
smoothly from 5% (one twentieth speed) up to 200% (double speed). If you want to
specify the slowdown speed with great accuracy then you can type a number into the
box where the "%" figure is displayed, using up to 3 decimal places.
This uses heavy computation and, depending on the speed of your machine, you may notice
Transcribe!'s responsiveness to the playback controls will be a little sluggish
while slowed-down playback is happening. On recent machines, slowed-down playback
should nevertheless be easy in real time without interruptions. You can see how
hard your machine is working from the
"load gauge".
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 Alt+2 and Alt+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.
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.
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