I noticed this nice feature on Max Gámiz, the transcriber for Open Studio, was published yesterday:
While it’s a good write-up on Max, and Open Studio is a great company, it seemed like a bit of an odd choice for a blog post as Dorico doesn’t really offer any tools to specifically assist with transcription. There was even this exchange with the interviewer:
As I also use Dorico to transcribe daily, I can think of a lot more “features or workflow improvements” than that! If features to assist with transcription are under consideration for future development, here are a few things that I think would be helpful. I realize many people will think Dorico should stay in the notation lane and not bother with these, but they would all assist with transcription and eliminate the need for a bunch of third party apps.
1) Import audio. The ability to transcribe audio obviously requires an audio file. As of now in D6, Dorico can’t import audio files. Converting to a video file is an unnecessary step if you don’t need video.
2) Audio sync points. Recorded audio is not always exactly fixed tempos. Once we can import an audio track, the ability to set specific sync points in the score would be very useful. (I haven’t used the video feature much, perhaps there’s some capability with video sync now that I haven’t figured out.)
3) Piano audio. Most of the time when I’m transcribing, whenever I touch my MIDI keyboard I just want it to sound like a piano, not like whatever instrument I’m inputting. Using an external standalone piano VST is just an unnecessary step when this could be handled within Dorico. Windows users then are required to use an additional MIDI routing program as well so both the standalone VST and Dorico can receive the MIDI signal simultaneously. That’s three pieces of software when this could all be within Dorico. Finale has had this feature for as long as I can remember. (Set MIDI Thru to a fixed channel with the piano VST.)
4) Audio speed control. When transcribing, the ability to slow things down while keeping the same pitch is essential. I usually work in with Transcribe! and most often have the speed set at 70%. Occasionally for a really fast passage I’ll have to drop it down to 50%.
5) Foot pedal control. I typically leave Transcribe! active in the background and control the playback with my MIDI foot pedals. That way I can input directly into Dorico while staying focused on the music, can quickly review passages, etc. If playback of an audio file is implemented, some shortcuts to control it with MIDI pedals would be great. In Transcribe! have my right pedal set to toggle Play/Pause and the left set to Review then automatically start Play on release:
6) Pitch control. Not every recording is A440 so some fine tuning of playback pitch to match the piano VST is required. Being able to change the playback pitch by a couple of semitones when transcribing a Bb instrument is nice too. Finally, being able to change the playback by an octave is very useful when transcribing bass lines. If I wanted to transcribe this bass line …
… taking it up an octave into the “Alvin & the Chipmunks” range gets the bass out of the mud. The bass notes now pop out and are much easier to hear:
7) Stem splitting. Getting a bit far afield from notation now, but Steinberg already has Spectralayers so could integrate some very basic functionality from it. Stem splitting technology has come a long way and is pretty amazing now! I personally don’t use it to isolate instruments that much, as it sometimes loses some of the ghost notes and nuances, but just removing the drums from a mix makes things so much easier to hear as the drums affect the entire frequency spectrum. Here’s the 8 bar audio from above after applying stem splitting and muting the drums:
Anyway, if Dorico is going to do blog posts on Transcribing Jazz, those are some of the features that I feel would really help with transcription!
