Transcribe for Mac

Summary

This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.
This is an incredible transcription software. It is a 2 part program, essentially. One part is manipulating audio, slowing it down usually, without changing pitch, that used to be a big deal, and now is built into most audio programs such as quicktime player. The 2nd, and ingenious part, is the marker system. Markers are set up by the user by tapping the key on the keyboard. There are 3 markers: Section, Measure, and Beat. You are supposed to tap them along with the rhythm of the song one time through, before you begin to transcribe. The program saves this data, and then (and this is the reason the program is awesome!) you can use keyboard shortcuts (or midi commands even) to cycle through the different parts of the song. You can move one beat, measure, or section at a time, and you can have playback start from the same spot each time, loop between markers, or start and stop manually according to your presses. All these possibilites are useful when transcribing a song. It is a huge improvement over Quicktime, or any other slow-down software, because with those you have to manually fast forward, rewind, or click and drag with the mouse and there is no way of precisely moving a "musically relevant" amount. Because of this, it takes me at least 3 times longer to transcribe anything with these programs. I can transcribe at an incredible pace with this program. If I wanted to, I could assign a midi foot-pedal to control the various navigation functions, and transcribe hands-free, which would let me run the program in the background while typing in the notes in Sibelius or whatever notation program I am using. I don't do this (maybe if I can get a wireless midi pedal, otherwise, too many cords on the ground), but it's greta to know that I can, and that the developer is thinking of pro musicians with this software.

Any complaints I have are with the way the GUI looks, which is very "windows 95" and the software is indeed cross-platform. It would be much nicer to have a pretty looking mac window to go along with the rest of my programs, and the developer has said he will consider this in future versions. I think the program would sell a lot more copies if it did make the front end a little nicer looking. Another complaint is that this software is very dependent on memorizing shortcut keys. I use the program "keycue" to help me remember and memorize shortcut keys, but for some reason the shortcuts for this program do not show up in "keycue." This is annoying, and has made me print out the shortcut sheet for reference until I memorize all of them. These complaints are minor, though, compared to the HUGE upside of having this software and all the time it has saved me.

Summary

This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.
I have used Transcribe for several years and it is quite good and up to the task of helping transcribe music. The addition of now being able to handle video is good though many will simply leech the audio portion of a video out so as to use less CPU power for running Transcribe. Unlike some people, I find the GUI to be adequate for the task it was created for and I have no problems figuring out how to use this software.

Additionally, I have never had this application bomb, which is a rare thing.

Summary

This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.
I have talked to the developer about the software and he used software that will create for many operating systems, this is why the GUI is goofy. This is well worth the money paid for it, and if you buy the license you also get Classic support for it as well. This is something I use all the time, especially being a musician and music student myself. A MUST have!

Summary

This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.
This software works very good for what it's supposed to do. Timestretching sounds great, and I love that you can tune your song to work with your (not-so-easy-to-tune) piano.

The GUI could still use some work. It's a little akward having to open a new window to set your playback speed. More controls could have been placed on a toolbar. Also the Program Icon looks like it's made by a 4 year old:)

What I would really like is a simple score view of the spectral display. When selecting one "chord" in the song, you get to see score representation in another window (should have a sensitivity setting for how many notes that would be shown)

Also it should be easier to set the tempo and beats, there should be an auto mode for this instead of having to enter the beats manually on the keyboard