Your transcribing set-up

[BlobVanDam]

I'm just curious about what set-up people here use when they transcribe songs. Do you have the CD in your computer, or a CD player, and what program (if any) do you use to play the CD so you can easily transcribe the song. What program do you use to notate the song? I want to know your whole setup!

[ImaX]

It's pretty simple: I need a playback-device, a keyboard and the possiblity to listen to both at the same time.

- I use a mixer with a keyboard and a cd-player connected, listen to the song while playing and that's it. Sometimess if it gets more complex I use a piece of paper to write down details, but I don't really transcribe it into scores.

- Another possibility when I don't have a mixing console is to connect my USB-audio-interface to the audio inputs of my K2500. So I just start iTunes and listen to the song through the K2500 while playing.

I have this two options since during the week I'm at university with my mixing console while at home I have only the K2500.

[gaz]

holy balls. i just know more people are going to come in here and say they have huge soundfonts and keyboards and they transcribe into state-of-the-art midi editing programs and such...

I use:

* Tabit guitar tablature editor 2.1

* Winamp - with pacemaker plugin.

* Sometimes i use resources i have found on powertabs or guitarpro, etc...

* My ears.

thats it...

:(

[BlobVanDam]

It's pretty simple: I need a playback-device, a keyboard and the possiblity to listen to both at the same time.

- I use a mixer with a keyboard and a cd-player connected, listen to the song while playing and that's it. Sometimess if it gets more complex I use a piece of paper to write down details, but I don't really transcribe it into scores.

- Another possibility when I don't have a mixing console is to connect my USB-audio-interface to the audio inputs of my K2500. So I just start iTunes and listen to the song through the K2500 while playing.

I have this two options since during the week I'm at university with my mixing console while at home I have only the K2500.


I should have clarified better. I meant when you transcribe songs into MIDI files (such as for the midi request thread).

[kevmo_fan]

Remember how I mentioned there was a program thats really good for transcribing in the last transcribing thread??? Well, I went off and had a good dig around, and GUESS WHAT I FOUND???

*beams*

The program is fittingly enough called 'Transcribe!' and can be DOWNLOADED (whoohooo) from the following link http://www.seventhstring.com/xscribe/download.html
Do bear in mind that there is a trial period on the software and you have to make a once-off payment of 25 UK pounds once the trial is over, but this is pretty darn good software for transcribing so I'd say that its WELL worth it. My synth teacher has been using the program for a good 7 years or so (still has the old version) and man, its really something.

[Deceit]

- Sibelius 3.1 with Kontakt Silver;
- Chronotron Winamp Plug-In;
- Nismael's Autonome :D;
- Guitar Pro 4;
- Korg EC500 via midi;
- Ears & Headphones;
Deceit.

[nismael]

I need 3 things: my ears, a good pair of headphones, and a software in which I can enter the notes one-by-one, according to if I want to have a score of the passage/song and it is pretty complex. If it is not too complex, I usually keep in mind what I transcribed. A playback device and a keyboard are also pretty useful, but I need a keyboard only when I don't write the stuff I transcribe, to help keep the stuff in mind.

thx deceit for the nice ad :) If you have some suggestions of improvements (there are probably hundreds of improvements I could do!) I'd be happy to hear what you like and don't like about it and hear suggestions. Like I was thinking of allowing quick time signature changes from the main screen, such as being able to switch from 4/4 to 5/4 easily without having to create a pattern for each time signature.

And if you find the little intro annoying (the "in memory of" animation...), there is a way to bypass it. Just create a file named "nointro" in the directory where you installed the program, et voila!

[BlobVanDam]

I use Cool Edit Pro to do everything that program does (and then some), but that's a lot more expensive. And what are these winamp plugins people are talking about? What do they do? I love Winamp, but I usually record the song in small sections into Cool Edit to transcribe them.

[Liquid Shadow]

Any way of listening to the song, and an instrument with me...although the second option is not necessary in some cases. Maybe just to get the starting pitch, but then it's all relative from there, unless there's some crazy shit going on in the song. :)

[LDGuy]

Acid - to slow it down/split it into loops so i can get hard parts.
Cakewalk Pro 8 - to sequence it all together
My keyboard in the line in port - i can hear it out my headphones with everything else.

MANUSCRIPT PAPER - why dont people use this any more? I find it really easy to do rhythms on it, easier than a sequencer sometimes.

[Sk]

holy balls. i just know more people are going to come in here and say they have huge soundfonts and keyboards and they transcribe into state-of-the-art midi editing programs and such...

I use:

* Tabit guitar tablature editor 2.1

* Winamp - with pacemaker plugin.

* Sometimes i use resources i have found on powertabs or guitarpro, etc...

* My ears.

thats it...

:(

Nevertheless, you're the one who transcribed State of Grace :)

I use BigBoss for writing down, I find very useful the fact that you can play what you have written, it gives you repeatability (is this a word?) while paper sheets don't. Anyway, anything would do. My favourite though is Winamp with slow-me-down and the keyboard by my side.

[BlobVanDam]

I just got pacemaker. It told me it was only for version 2 of Winamp, but I'm using it on 5. Maybe I just didn't read it properly.

I also downloaded Chronotron aswell.

Just out of interest, I have a question for all those other pitch perfect people out there. How do you have to shift the key slider up before you notice the difference. I mean that if someone chose a random song on your playlist and played it, how far up does the slider have to be before you notice that it is higher in pitch. I can tell the difference at 15cents. I only tested in increments of 5. At 10 I can't tell the difference, but at 15 I can.