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With all the musical experts here I figure someone will be able to help me out with this.
I have a .pdf file with a transcription in the bass clef.
Can BIAB or another program somehow get that .pdf transcription into the treble clef where I am much more comfortable reading it?
I'm a guitarist and so we have no problem reading lines in the treble clef that actually sound an octave lower when played.
Obviously I'm trying to avoid inputting all of the notes by hand, which would take a mammoth effort on my part.
TIA
BIABguy
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I used to have sheet music scanning programs years ago. I don't use them anymore, and haven't kept up with their capabilities, but how about printing your PDF and then scanning it into one of those programs? Once you get the data into MIDI, you can transpose it. EDIT: just took a look at SmartScore, the program I used to use. It reads PDF files. Check out http://www.musitek.com/?gclid=CO_szqzInJoCFQSwFQod-S_e9Q
Last edited by Matt Finley; 05/01/09 06:19 PM.
BIAB 2025 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 7 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Presonus 192 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Slate VSX, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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I have used "Finale Print Music" which will read scanned music. It worked well for me. Sorry I didn't get a link for you. Just google "Finale Print Music". As I recall it is fairly inexpensive.
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Learning bass clef is easy. Takes a few hours if you can read treble clef.
However another solution involves a ruler a pencil and white out.
You draw a iine below the bottom one. And white out the top one. For me I just imagine the line is there. Optical delusion.
John Conley
Musica est vita
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For reading scanned music check out SharpEye ( http://www.visiv.co.uk/ ) - IIRC this is the engine that Finale uses
--=-- My credo: If it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing - just ask my missus, she'll tell ya  --=--You're only paranoid if you're wrong!
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Or play an alto sax, and read like it's concert !!
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Quote:
You draw a iine below the bottom one. And white out the top one. For me I just imagine the line is there. Optical delusion.
Pay attention to John on this one, it is easier than it sounds...
And doesn't cost a cent.
I also suggest a dab of the white-out over the bass clef and draw in a treble clef.
--Mac
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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OP
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Quote:
Learning bass clef is easy. Takes a few hours if you can read treble clef.
However another solution involves a ruler a pencil and white out.
You draw a iine below the bottom one. And white out the top one. For me I just imagine the line is there. Optical delusion.
Thanks!
Oh I can read in the bass clef, but ten times slower than the treble clef!
As for drawing a line below the bottom one, no sweat.
Whiting out the top one is a big problem however. Lots of note activity there throughout the solo.
That means big problems where the notes occur on/around the top line.
BIABguy
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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OP
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Quote:
For reading scanned music check out SharpEye ( http://www.visiv.co.uk/ ) - IIRC this is the engine that Finale uses
Thanks!
Yeah I had a feeling this might be suggested. I guess I'll have a look and see if I can dust off my copy from years ago and get it working again.
I just thought that perhaps there was software around that could take an existing .pdf file, read it into the program, and translate it into midi.
BIABguy
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I'm not sure why, but my old SharpEye 1.0 and 2.0 which used to be extremely accurate in its note recognition is giving extremely poor (unusable) results with this .pdf file that I scanned.
The .pdf printout is excellent quality.
BIABguy
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As I mentioned, I don't use the scanner notation-reading software anymore. It used to make too many errors, and I could write it myself faster than finding and fixing errors. However, did you see my edit, in which I gave you a link for software that reads the PDF file directly, without printing anything?
BIAB 2025 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 7 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Presonus 192 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Slate VSX, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Quote:
I'm not sure why, but my old SharpEye 1.0 and 2.0 which used to be extremely accurate in its note recognition is giving extremely poor (unusable) results with this .pdf file that I scanned.
The .pdf printout is excellent quality.
Make sure the scan is in monochrome and NOT greyscale or colour. Makes the image file smaller and gives greater contrast making the reading process easier and thus less prone to error.
--=-- My credo: If it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing - just ask my missus, she'll tell ya --=--You're only paranoid if you're wrong!
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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OP
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Quote:
As I mentioned, I don't use the scanner notation-reading software anymore. It used to make too many errors, and I could write it myself faster than finding and fixing errors. However, did you see my edit, in which I gave you a link for software that reads the PDF file directly, without printing anything?
Yeah thanks Matt, I caught that. This is a one off thing, so I'm not sure it's cost-effective to buy that software.
BIABguy
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Quote:
Quote:
I'm not sure why, but my old SharpEye 1.0 and 2.0 which used to be extremely accurate in its note recognition is giving extremely poor (unusable) results with this .pdf file that I scanned.
The .pdf printout is excellent quality.
Make sure the scan is in monochrome and NOT greyscale or colour. Makes the image file smaller and gives greater contrast making the reading process easier and thus less prone to error.
Thanks Lawrie. I did have it in monochrome but the results as I mentioned were very poor.
I remember using the software a few years ago with some piano music and the results were excellent.
BIABguy
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Quote:
Learning bass clef is easy. Takes a few hours if you can read treble clef.
However another solution involves a ruler a pencil and white out.
You draw a iine below the bottom one. And white out the top one. For me I just imagine the line is there. Optical delusion.
Well I've taken a stab at John's suggestion, a variation of it.
I used a scan (.bmp) of the first page and brought it into Paint.Net software.
From there I followed your advice about deleting the top line and adding a line to the bottom.
A bit time-consuming but the result is pretty decent-looking. Still faster than re-writing everything by hand.
The only weird thing is that the resulting image is slightly smaller than the original.
When my printing options pop up before the page is printed, I'm shown 'photo settings' because Paint.Net is a photo editing software. But I still don't see why the image size is reduced.
BIABguy
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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It might be due to the fact no Ontario hockey teams are going to win the Stanley cup. Don Cherry will tell you it's due to Russians all getting the nod for the Hart.
At the end of the day, Band in a Box is not a note scanning piece of software.
What song do you want, 10's of thousands are already somewhere, ready to go.
The ones missing might be tonight's show with Elvis Costello, Elton John, and Diana Krall where she sits at the piano and plays a hot version of OP's rendition on Night Train, and used some chords I don't remember OP using. And it was cool to hear her talk about going to his house and playing with him.
So give us the song and let's see who comes up with what solution. Lots of musical talent kick around the board here, use it.
John Conley
Musica est vita
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Quote:
It might be due to the fact no Ontario hockey teams are going to win the Stanley cup. Don Cherry will tell you it's due to Russians all getting the nod for the Hart.
At the end of the day, Band in a Box is not a note scanning piece of software.
What song do you want, 10's of thousands are already somewhere, ready to go....
So give us the song and let's see who comes up with what solution. Lots of musical talent kick around the board here, use it.
Love your sense of humour John! 
(That's humour with two u's, everybody notice!)
Unfortunately I'm one of those weirdos like Krall et al.
The piece I'm working on is Lennie Tristano's 'Line Up'.
The .pdf that I picked up yesterday, was from this site:
http://chnani.club.fr/ejma/lineup.pdf
If anyone here can get _that transcription (which is pretty accurate)
bumped into the treble clef, I'd be very grateful! 
That's bumped up to treble and then an octave higher (so it would fit for the guitar).
So the first note would be C, above B in the middle of the clef.
Last edited by BIABguy; 05/02/09 09:29 PM.
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Entering notes can be a royal pain but is sometimes faster than trying to scan something in and correct the errors. I've learned to watch for repeating phrases and then copy and paste. I'm not familiar with much of the notation software, but I have no trouble with transposing with Sibelius. When I do a song in BIAB, in treble clef, I just transpose to whatever key I need, click on leadsheet view and print. I did buy a "pro" version of the scanning software used by Sibelius but, to me. it's faster to enter the stuff manually. It's lots easier to just play it in if you can. There's a tutorial for entering notes into biab using the computer keyboard for the rhythm and tempo and then manually move the notes to the correct spaces and lines. I've never tried it though. Seems there are lot's of ways to skin the same cat.
Stan
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I have SmartScore. If the PDF is decent quality, send it on over and I'll have a go.
Stephanie
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