How is Sheet music transcribed?

[pagey]

Is this done by some guy listening to a track and breaking it down by ear (who is extremely talented!) or is there some fancy software that breaks a song down into Chords, melody bass line etc?

Just curious

[Voltan]

it's usually done by the author who usually happens to know what he's written

[Diego]

Hi!

Well, to be honest, I've done it several times for my bands/choirs...
I start playing the CD or MP3 and write down what I ear, then try to focus on what I need to transcribe; if it's getting harder I use some winamp plugs to slow down tempo at a confortable speed without affecting the tune (thanks God I've quite nearly perfect pitch).
I must say it's a nice work if you do it because you want, but not so good if you have to do it for 24/7

BTW, the topic "WAV to MIDI" (which seems to summarize your general question) is so opened, and, IMHO, so unseful...
The human ear can't be never be beated!



Regards

[Lorenzo]

Mr Diego saied so just cos he doesn't know a lot his digital performer software...

[Diego]

Ahah, lorenzo, you discovered me once again
BTW, I'm still convinced that the human ear works better.
But I must admit that if you have a monophonic part, a WAV to MIDI converter could do a quite nice and faster job than any human on the heart

[JonSolo]

I find that a lot of sheet music (i.e for piano for example) while quite involved, is usually quite wrong with many songs, especially as it references chords. It could could be that I never really became proficient at reading music, and relied so heavily on my ear that I fully understood the structure and makeup of recorded music. So when a wrong chord is listed, or written out, and someone who IS good at playing from music, plays it incorrectly, it makes me cringe.

So I agree with Diego. Nothing substitutes the ear. BUT...it still requires a really good ear to hear the subtle nuances of some chord changes.

Jon