How I transcribe pieces in seconds/minutes

[davidjohnson]

Hi everyone, I’ve spent the last few months building a polyphonic signal processing engine specifically for acoustic piano frequencies. My goal was to see if I could automate the 'first draft' of a transcription for complex pieces that usually take hours to do by ear. My goal is not to replace the human ear and human transcribers, but to help them.

I just ran an excerpt from La Campanella through the software—the total processing time was about 28 seconds.

The Results:

Synthesia Playback:

Original so you can compare and see:

The Produced MIDI File:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1H7g4jHhrECq18YVY3MMKlJAhBcEq8WxR/view?usp=sharing


I’m looking for feedback on how the algorithm handled the polyphony and the piece in general. I know automated tools usually struggle with the dynamics and sustain especially ins such pieces, so I’d love to know where it still feels 'robotic' or inaccurate to your ears.

If you want to test your own recordings, you can try it here: https://melodify.studio

[anacrusis]

Your app doesnt seem to be working, I fed it a youtube recording but after a while I got
"Processing Failed Connection error: Unable to connect to server. Please check your internet connection."

[davidjohnson]

Your app doesnt seem to be working, I fed it a youtube recording but after a while I got
"Processing Failed Connection error: Unable to connect to server. Please check your internet connection."

Hey there, can you try now? the app sleeps after some period of inactivity. Thank you.

[perfect_pitch]

My goal is not to replace the human ear and human transcribers, but to help them.

Kind of curious... how does in any way does this help us? I can already do everything it can. Albeit in not so quick of a timespan.

However, does your system take a piece of music and manage to appropriately score in a way that is fully playable by a human being (no 12ths or 15ths in the LH for instance), or articulate it?

From my quick test (and it won't let me test anymore as it's asking me to apply for unlimited requests now), it didn't seem to do a great job.

And you're probably thinking that no, maybe it doesn't do that - but in seconds it can give you all the notes. Then the problem is you have to spend time manually tidying up the score and fixing any voicing problems which seems like more of a headache.

I'm not seeing the helping part. I'm just asking as a person who will always continue to use my ears and transcribe just for the fun of it.

[ac11122]

You can try Songscription.ai -- it is a relatively new tool that let's you upload audio files and convert to MIDI, sheet music, and piano roll.