Transcription & Pitch Detection: Your Strategies

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Level 4

1,523 points

Transcription & Pitch Detection: Your Strategies

I have been given hundreds of Voice Memo recordings of piano to transcribe. Having been away from Logic for a few years, there have been some changes…

If you were presented with the task of transcribing lots of rather poor-quality piano recordings, how would you go about it? Obviously I can manage the old-fashioned way, but I suspect there are new features in Logic which could help, & it would be a shame if I overlooked them through unfamiliarity. In particular there seem to be pitch-detection features, although I don't suppose these would be accurate enough for complex chords… would they?

(Thanks to Jan Due1 for solving the varispeed part of this question when I posted it earlier, & to Pancenter for suggesting "The Amazing Slow-Downer" — but I'd like to keep to Logic tools as far as possible to avoid complications!)

iMac, OS X Mavericks (10.9.5), Logic Pro X 10.1.1, Occam's Razor

Posted on May 5, 2015 1:31 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Kurt Weber

Level 6

13,969 points

May 5, 2015 12:23 PM in response to Caramby

For the heck of it I tried using Flex pitch on a piano track. It identified the pitches quite nicely. For sections that you can't identify Flex pitch might help.

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Answer 2

Caramby Author

Level 4

1,523 points

May 5, 2015 12:29 PM in response to Kurt Weber

Yes — that's exactly what I've already done, when trying to locate a varispeed function. It's Flex' suggestions as to pitch that made me think there might be more pitch-detection features somewhere… presumably Flex finds the predominant pitch, or possibly the root, when several notes are playing together. For a single note, I don't think Flex will help where the human ear can't, but if somewhere there's a pitch-detection tool that can analyse all the notes in a vertical sonority that would be enormously helpful. It can get quite messy in there…

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Answer 3

Kurt Weber

Level 6

13,969 points

May 6, 2015 4:14 AM in response to Caramby

Looks like making it into MIDI is possible. You may have to correct some mistakes but it might get it close for you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GU9nHBSC0lw

When it is in MIDI format score printing is possible.

Kurt

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Answer 4

Caramby Author

Level 4

1,523 points

May 6, 2015 4:22 AM in response to Kurt Weber

You're right, & this is exactly what I had in mind. I was wondering if there was a tool which was sophisticated enough to disentangle more than one pitch in a vertical sonority, but really this was a vain wish since obviously the line between harmony & timbre is very blurry…!

Still, if you don't ask, you don't find out about these things.

It's very helpful to know how to do this, & I'll experiment with it to see what can be achieved… in the meantime, I'll leave this question open so that if anyone comes along who does know of some magical method, they'll be able to tell us about it. Let's face it — what's available now was considered completely impossible when I first started teaching this stuff thirty years ago!

Thanks again for pointing to the right procedure for achieving the audio to MIDI conversion.

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Answer 5

DaCaptain

Level 4

1,048 points

May 7, 2015 6:16 AM in response to Caramby

I import those tracks without importing tempo information and enable flex time with the polyphonic mode. Then, I turn down the tempo. It doesn't so much artifacts as varispeed and the stretching range is wider.

If going from 120 to 15 bpm or even lower, there's enough time to identify weird chords.

Sometimes I use the Channel EQ and sweep around a bit to bring out bass notes or chord notes.

Hope this helps,

DaCaptain

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Answer 6

Caramby Author

Level 4

1,523 points

May 13, 2015 1:41 PM in response to DaCaptain

Thanks!

(Although unfortunately I've run out of "this helped me"s…)

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