Transcribe! Help : Using Transcribe!

Here we describe how to use the Transcribe! program. For a more general discussion of how to transcribe see Introduction to Transcribing.

• 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 AIFF/AIFC (standard Macintosh sound format), WAV files (standard PC 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 wonít yet be a "XSC" (transcription) file, so you open the Sound audio file itself. When you "Save" (File Save command), Transcribe! will by default save as a "XSC" (transcription) file - this is a fairly small file containing the name of the Sound audio 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 the Transcribe! icon.

• 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.

• 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.

Return to Contents page

This resource fork intentionally left blank

ˇˇ