Here are some of the main features of the screen display of a transcription document. Not shown here are the menus and the toolbar (below the menus) .
Volume control: adjusts playback volume. It works by scaling sample values so it is independent of your system 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 "A" and the measure markers "A2", "A3". 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.
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 F, G, middle C, D, F, G, A, C : there is also a low F which doesn't fit on this small picture, so it's a chord of F6/9. The F & G above middle C are possibly not being played by any of the instruments : 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
Preferences
command for details.
For Stringed Instruments Only: If you hold down <shift> while you 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 Preferences 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.
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