Transcribe! – by Seventhstring
Transcribe! Is designed to help you work out lines and solos
from a recorded piece of music. It doesn't do the transcribing for you, but it
will help you find the accurate notes your favorite musicians are playing. It
can also be used for play-along practice purposes, with the looping and slowing
down sections and bits you are working on.
It reads mp3s, wave files, and pretty much all the popular
audio files as well as .mov & mp4 movie files, which is great when you want
to transcribe bass lines from videos.
I started out using the 30 day free trial for transcribing a
difficult solo. By the time I was done, I had some time left to tackle another
solo. Once the trial was over I was hooked. It was clear I had to go ahead and
buy the software.
During my musical career, I have tried several different
tools for transcribing. In the beginning, there was the mechanical variable-speed cassette player, that dropped the pitch of the song. Then there was, the costly digital hardware slow-downer that would only record a phrase at a time. Then came the free software. And
finally the “Not-So-Expensive” software. But after giving Transcribe! a try for
a full month, thanks to the 30 day free-trial, I was convinced. Transcribe! was
in a league of it's own.
The main reason I started using Transcribe! was mainly for
transcribing solos. However there are many situations where I now use it, such
as; When all of my basses are tune to standard tuning (A440), and a bass line I
need to learn is tuned half a step down. Transpose the pitch of the song you
want to learn half-a-step up and voilà! Thanks to Transcribe! No need to re-tune
your instrument.
Transcribe! is ideal for working out fast and buried bass lines
& passages. There is an EQ that allows you to Filter-out certain
frequency ranges in order to better hear the instrument you are working on. You
can slow down or speed up the audio file to 150, 70, 50, 35, 25% or adjust to
your custom specs.
You can also add section markers (by pressing S on the fly),
Measure markers (by pressing M) as well as Beat markers (by pressing B) to help
you subdivide and notate the lines that you are working on. You can loop any of
these sections. Transcribes also shows you the possible chord/note matches
in the piano roll view.
Transcribe won't do the work for you, but it is a tremendous
help in helping you find the accurate notes or chords of a piece of music. Make
sure you check out the help file to learn the keyboard shortcuts. It will speed
up your navigation within the application. There are also several features such has foot pedals, fret
views, etc…that I haven’t even looked into.
Transcribe! is my Go-To software for learning bass lines and
solos from any instruments. Don't take my word for it, download the demo and
give it a try for yourself today!
Happy transcribing!
