Window 73

=  Notes Found in Recording =

Open, Audio file of Tune...
Open a temporary recording into the Temp Rec. window

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Find notes in clean recording - use other programs to clean them first...

The dection of notes is easily confused by background noise or low or high frequency sound.

So to improve the accuracy of the results, first use a sound editor to do a band pass or high pass to remove all frequencies outside the range of interest. Also do a noise reduction.

You could for example use Goldwave.

http://www.goldwave.com/

The count waves method is easily confused by low background noise such as traffic hum, and also by high fequency noise adding extra wave crossings. It can also be confused by any background noise as it can find regular patterns in noise not corresponding to any heard pitch.

The frequency spectrum method is less easily confused but background noise can add extra partials or lead it to detecting a pitch in the noise as the fundamental of the note to detect.

Both methods are programmed for solo recordings, withthe emphasis on high resolution pitch detection of the notes.

Any polyphony is just treated as noise and confuses the method.

Sometimes you can remove other instruments from a polyphonic recording to some degree using bandpass, most likely to be successful with instruments with few higher partials such as bird song and whistle, flute, recorder etc. If successful there, one might then in some cases be able to transcribe each part individually in Tune Smithy and then combine the result.

Record Control...
Select whether to record from microphone, or midi, or "what you hear" etc...

What you see hear depends on your system and soundcard. Usually there is a fader for the microphone and one for your midi synth, or maybe "What you hear" or "Stereo mix" etc. It controls the standard levels of recording for the whole of your system and windows.

Start rec.
Start the recording - short cut Page up...

This starts the temporary recording and the oscilloscope at the same time as the oscilloscope uses the temporary recording to analyse the sound to try and locate the wave.

Tip: the Page up shortcut also works from the PC keyboard music player.

To stop the recording you use Page down and again you can use that from the PC keyboard music player.

This stops the temporary recording and the oscilloscope at the same time.

This means you can pause the oscilloscope at a particular note you are currently playing in the pc keyboard player without needing to switch over to the oscilloscope to do it, to view the waveform at your leisure.

Stop rec.
Stop the recording - short cut Page down...

This stops the temporary recording and the oscilloscope at the same time.

Tip: the Page down shortcut also works from the PC keyboard player.

This means you can pause the oscilloscope at a particular note you are currently playing in the pc keyboard player without needing to switch over to the oscilloscope to do it, to view the waveform at your leisure.

Save Rec. As...
Save the temporary recording currently showing in the Temp Rec. window

Show recording...
Recording to temporary memory - time limited by the memory available...

This records directly to your computer's temporary volatile memory (such as RAM or whatever). You can then save the result using the Save Rec. As button in the Temp Rec. menu.

The maximum time for the recording is limited by the amount of memory. On a computer of the last few years (as of 2007) this is quite long, perhaps a quarter of an hour or more. On an older computer it can only make very short audio clips.

You can configure it from the Temp Rec Times window, and choose there how much computer memory to set aside for the recording.

If you want to make longer recordings, limited only by the file space available on your computer, use the Record to File window

Oscilloscope...
Shows the music currently played or as it is recorded in an Oscilloscope...

Play
Play recording, Alt, Shift or both + Play to slow down and reduce freq...

The Shift + play plays a recording at half speed, so reduces the freq by an octave, and plays each note for twice as long as normal. Similarly Alt + play reduces the frequency by two octaves, at quarter speed, and the two together reduce it by three octaves, and plays it at eighth speed.

This is particularly useful for the Count Waves task - you can use the same combination of Shift and alt with the Play Seed buttong, and so use it to compare the trnascribed seed with the original at a lower pitch and slower speed. Especially useful for high pitched quickly changing sounds like bird song.

Play in theremin
To hear the effect of this, press one of the Transcribe -> Ther. buttons

Ther.
Theremin played from mouse or joystick...

The theremin is that instrument you can play by waving your hands in the air without touching anything.

Here you use the mouse or joystick instead of just moving your hands around. As you move the mouse or joystick the note you play slides around in pitch wherever you want it to go.

This is just a bit of fun. Has various options - try the sliding chords preset :-).

Record To File Options
Choose the file name to record to and file format. Many options.

Current Scale Notation....
Set the notation such as cents, ratios etc used for display of all scale values...

Also has various options to configure how other numbers (volumes etc) are displayed in Tune Smithy.

Opts
Options for the mouse theremin

Seed as Text
Edit the seed numbers times, and volumes by hand

Ok skip fast ther. notes
If there are many fast notes, theremin can struggle to keep up in real time...

Symptom: notes are longer than they should be, encroaching into any silences that follow.

This is most likely to happen if there are many small fluctuations in pitch, e.g. for bird song.

It may also happen just because you have the Use rec. volume at note switched on together with volume glides - the combination is very computing intensive. For the volume glides, you can try reducing the envelope size in seconds a bit.

Whether it is necessary will also depend on your computer speed - a faster computer will be able to keep up with the desired time during playback more easily.

This option only affects playback during the Transcribe to Theremin. It will make no difference to the results when you save the transcription directly to midi files.

During the direct midi save, since the notes don't need to be played immediately, it is no problem if it takes longer to do the calculations needed to make the midi file than it would take to play it.

Help = F1
Click for help for this window. Or F1. Other opts: Shift, Alt, Ctrl + click...

F1 or click shows the help for the current window in your web browser.

Some windows may have no help yet in which case the help icon is shown crossed out with a red line.

Shift + F1 or Shift + Click brings up the tool tips extra help window (this window) to show any extra help for a tool tip.

You can tell if a tool tip has extra help if it ends ... like this one.

Ctrl + F1 or Ctrl + click takes you to the list of keyboard shortcuts for Tune Smithy.

Alt + F1 or Alt + click (alternatively Caps lock physically held down + F1 or Click) takes you to the on-line page at the robertinventor.com web site about the current main window task - which gives a short introduction to it for newbies to the program. If there is no on-line page specific to a task, takes you to the main tune smithy page on the web site.

Since the help for Tune Smithy is currently a bit out of date and needs to be redone completely for the new 3.0 release, then you may find the on-line page for some of the newer tasks particularly useful.

Organise Windows = F2
Or F2 - Reset / save / open for individual windows, right click for cat. list...

Shows the Organise windows window - which you can use to reset all the parameters for the current window - or save them all, or open previously saved parameters for just this window. Also has a drop list of all the windows and their shortcuts.

You can also right click on this icon as a quick way to get the floating drop menu of all the Tune Smithy windows organised by category