Even Better Transcription Tool - Transcribe!

Happy 2013 Everyone.

Thank you for all your support in 2012 when I decided to re-launch my music "career." In 2013, I will be studying some Film/TV music production at Berklee as well as taking more piano coaching.

So I posted a note about the Amazing Slowdoner.  Shortly after that I have also found Transcribe! Which is also Mac/PC software. This one is much more geared towards musicians doing serious transcribing job. In addition to being able to slow down, it has a lot of nice workflow feature that can facilitate the job.

Why I found it so much more useful?

• I can scroll over the samples. 
• I can slow down with preset rates like 25% or 50%
• You can loop through sections easily. You can drag a marker in the sample. You can also slide the loop section, so if the song is played in a steady tempo then you can set the width of the section to exactly 1 measure + a second or so of lead in, and you can continue to transcribe the whole song without typing in or changing the loop setup. There are also shortcuts to move along by a section of a measure.
• It shows on the keyboard where the dominant frequencies are. This greatly aids in guessing complex Jazz harmonies. 
• While I do not use it, it also has a chord guessing feature. If you are still not yet familiar with Jazz harmonies, this may aid you in coming up to speed.
• Like the ASD you can use the MIDI controller programming to control the transport on the software to start, stop, rewind etc.
• It's actually cheaper than ASD, and going for $39.00 per computer. Also there is a fully functional 30-day evaluation period.

Here is Some Useful Tip Using this Tool

• Mark the Sections and Measures using the keyboard. What you should do is to play the whole tune and using the keyboard mark major sections with letter S. This will put section markers.
• Once the sections are defined, slow down if needed, and play again and now start marking measures.
• If necessary, you can play again and mark the beats. This is helpful in figuring out syncopated and tied beats between measures.
• Now you have the structure well marked on the material, you can print a lead-sheet you have and with this in front of you, loop each section or each beat and begin transcribing notes.
  
  At this point you would loop and try to play the same passage on the piano until you think you got it completely and if you have a direct input option to charting software,  that could help you in speeding up the input process.
  
  Note there are many free options to write out the charts on a computer. I use Noteflight.COM which is an online service, and also there is Finale Notepad, which is an App. I like Noteflight.COM because I can pull up a chart anywhere there is a computer and internet.

Some Drawbacks

I am not completely versed with this software, but here is some annoyances:

The marker idea is great but there is no easy way to clear them out of a section as far as I can tell right now.

While it is not a drawback of software, in complex band scenario there will be a lot of frequencies and none of the spectrum analysis will work well. The only way out is your ear training to discriminate melodies and chords coming out of specific instrument. You can adjust the EQ settings.

Overall I will give this product a 4-Stars out of 5.