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Munchies_Matt wrote: And how do you determine the key? There are only 12 notes. Working out the key is very difficult.
The technology to do this has greatly advanced over the last 20+ years. There are several $100 pedals that do this very accurately. Many of them (Digitech, TC Helicon, BandInaBox) license the same software from a Canadian company (I forget the name).
/ravi
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A guitar effects pedal? Why would that need to know what key the guitar is playing in?
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Munchies_Matt wrote: A guitar effects pedal? Why would that need to know what key the guitar is playing in?
To generate a harmony line and/or harmony vocals. Here are some examples:
Check out the videos on YouTube - they're pretty compelling! I used the DigiTech Harmony Man to create the harmony lead on this.
/ravi
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Adding harmonics isnt the same as decoding music and working out the key it is in.
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The device needs to know the key you're playing in, in order to generate harmonies.
/ravi
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No it doesnt. It takes the input sine wave and adds thirds and fifths commonly.
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Munchies_Matt wrote: It takes the input sine wave
The control input to these devices is a chord played on a guitar, which (as I'm sure you know) is not a pure sine wave. The hardware (actually the software running on the hardware) determines the root note from the complex input waveform, and uses that to generate the selected harmonics.
/ravi
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As hinted at above -- it's not even as simple as identifying the pitch (frequency) of the note of a particular instrument.
For example, a particular pitch could be considered a D# or an Eb, depending on the context.
As for the rhythm, one example is that swing 8ths are notated on the page exactly the same way as Bach or Mozart's straight 8ths (let's see... those are quavers on the other side of the pond, I think.... two quavers per crotchet, isn't it?).
And is it in 3/4 time or 6/8? That depends on where you the emphasis on those crotchets and quavers.
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kholsinger wrote: As hinted at above -- it's not even as simple as identifying the pitch (frequency) of the note of a particular instrument.
For example, a particular pitch could be considered a D# or an Eb, depending on the context.
If the machine could just identify the pitches of each note, that would be a massive leap forward and would simplify transcription greatly. Fixing up enharmonic equivalents later wouldn't present any kind of meaningful problem to the user and is a piece of cake compared to trying to transcribe a whole song by ear.
That said, all automated transcription software I've tried to date has indeed done a really bad job at rhythmic dictation and tends to be produce a mess of rapid notes. This is more time-consuming to fix and badly obscures understanding of the music.
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kholsinger wrote: For example, a particular pitch could be considered a D# or an Eb, depending on the context.
True enough, most of my music friends are amateur musicians (but some of them at a quite high level). Very few of them distinguish beetween D# or Eb.
Music editors are usually quite bad at it, too, even though they know the key of the piece.
Expecting a program that only has the sound waves to do something similar is naively optimistic.
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Some humans can do it, so it must be possible.
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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Such an assumption!
You really do believe computers can do everything a human can dont you?
Extraordinary belief!
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Munchies_Matt wrote: You really do believe computers can do everything a human can dont you?
Except make more humans. That we'll still have to do for ourselves.
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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Computers are SO bad at thinking for themselves!
They are slaves to a program written by a man. And that program has to think of everything!
We dont even understand how our brains work, until we do we havent a hope in hell of replicating its ability/.
(We dont even understand how a baby can be formed in just 9 months, heck, we dont even understand how anaesthetics work!)
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I already found several that do. They may not be able to differentiate an A440 by a guitar from a French Horn (though at least two do by analyzing timbre differences), but they all can analyze polyphonic musical sounds and differentiate.
Welcome to the 21st century!
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MSBassSinger wrote: an A440 by a guitar from a French Horn
So they dont work.
Now, do they recognise the key the music is in?
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Yes, they do work, and yes, they get the correct key.
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If they cant identify separate instruments they do what was asked.
As for the correct key, prove it.
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Read the other posts. I have no need to feed the trolls today.
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Ah, the old 'I already told you' gambit, when in fact you havent.
I have of course read the posts, and no mention of an example of software that can identify the key, which is crucial to putting notes on a stave.
So, I ask again.
Waiting....
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Would never say its impossible, in fact its getting more likely all the time.
Seasoned musicians can easily pick up on the key, and from that and their musical knowledge will have a good idea of how to play along with a band even if they don't know the individual piece.
For a device it will depend on how complicated the piece being played is and the instruments.
For solo instruments especially those that aren't playing chords its relativity easy.
Add chords - a bit more difficult but still fundamentally an FFT, a bit of timing and logic.
Where it starts to get complicated is multiple instruments and techniques for example bends etc., but add some AI and possible directional information of the sound sources not impossible.
Would it be useful, probably not, although have to admit wouldn't mind something that could write out music scores as I played it from a guitar or scored the quality and correctness of a chord!
Although already have a device which judges musical quality - its called a partner!
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I was a beta tester for some software that did it a long long time ago. It "listened" to a .wav file and turned it into a MIDI file. It didn't make any attempt to separate out the tracks, so it produced a really ugly file, all the notes squished onto one track...but he mananged to get the notes all there.
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AudioScore from Neuratron (Transcribe MP3s & CD Tracks with AudioScore) has been around for a while and offers a free demo (not sure if this is a trial period or a "can't save" version).
I've no experience of it but their music OCR (PhotoScore) is pretty good.
Cheers,
Pete Sykes
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I have used both Finale and Sibelius do to this with varying degrees of success depending upon the actual music. Both offer trials so that you can see if it works for you.
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