By Reed Kotler

ã Copyright 1997 Reed Kotler Systems, Inc.

Transkriber is a trademark of Reed Kotler Systems, Inc.

Congratulations on your purchase of the Transkriber software.

Our goal is to provide the best software to aid the person doing transcriptions.

The latest versions, 1.x of the software and manual can always be downloaded from our web site at http://www.reedkotler.com.

Tech support is provided by subscribing to the discussion list transkribe-L and posting an e-mail to transkribe-L@justjazz.com. Directions on how to do this may be found on the web site.

We also maintain other latest information and tips about the product at the web site.

There is no phone support provided at this time for the product.

1. Place the floppy disk in your floppy drive.
2. Click on
3. This will bring up the another menu.



4. Click on the Run menu item. By default, it is assumed that a: is the name of your floppy drive.



5. Type in the name of the setup file, which by default is a:\setup.exe and then click on okay.



 

6. Follow the instructions of the installation software.
7. You are now ready to start using the Transkriber program.

First lets start up the Transkriber.

1. Click on



.

2. Move the cursor to Programs



3. Move the cursor to the "Transkriber" and click the mouse.



4. Now you should see the main screen of the Transkriber.

The simplest way to record audio is to record directly from a CD placed in your computers CDROM player.

It is also possible to record by playing the CD on your stereo system and sending the output of your stereo to the audio inputs of your sound card.

1. Move the cursor to the "CD Player" button and click the mouse. The CD player screen will appear.



2. The current track will initially be 1. You can change this value by using the left and right arrow buttons located next to the "Home" button.
3. You should then press the play button.
4. When you reach the music you wish to record, press the "Record" button.
5. When you are done recording, press the stop button. Then click on the "X" in the upper right hand corner of the "CD Player" screen to go back to the main Transkriber screen.

When initially setting the CD player to where you want to record, you may also use the slide bar above the row of buttons to move the CD player forward or reverse from its current position.

When you have returned to the main Transkriber screen, you will see that the "Total Time" window and the "Select To" button now contain the amount of time in seconds that was recorded.

1. Connect your stereo (or portable CD or tape player) to the audio input of your sound card as specified in the manual for your computer or sound card.
2. Press the "Record" button on the main Transkriber screen.

You may now play your music back by pressing the "Play" button.

All the buttons with the exception of "Record" and "CD Player" on the main row of buttons can be used to control the sound player much the same way that they would on a traditional tape player.

When depressed, many of the buttons turn into other buttons (the label on the button will change) in anticipation of the next most common function.

For example, after depressing the "Play" button , that button turns into a "Stop" button so you don’t have to move you cursor again to stop playback. Similarly the "Pause" button will turn into a "Resume" button after being depressed.

The slider among the main row of buttons may be used to move the current position as can the "Left" and "Right" buttons next to the "Home" button.

The playback speed of the music may be adjusted using the "Speed" control.

This adjustment may occur at any time, including during playback.

Depressing the "down" button will make the playback slower. Speed amounts of up to 1/12 of the original speed are supported. The speeds are 1, 1/2, 1/3, 1/4….1/12.

For example, depressing the down arrow once will change to the control to 1/2.

Depressing the "up" button will speed up the playback.

After one first records some audio (or opens an audio wave file), the playback region is the entire recorded section.

When transcribing a piece of music, in general one will work on one section at a time.

The Transkriber allows many ways to create a restricted region of playback. In addition once this region is created, it may be subsequently modified.

The current playback region is defined by the values of the numbered buttons in the "Select From" and "Select To" sections.

In this case the playback region is from 0.00 seconds (the beginning) to 84.15 seconds (the end) within the recorded music. (Note: these time values are not related to the original time markings on the CD ).

During playback, by clicking on the numbered button in the "Select From" section, the beginning of the playback region will be changed to the value of time when you clicked on the button.

Similarly by clicking on the "Select To" field during playback, the end of the playback region will be changed to the value of time when you clicked the button.

The playback region in the above example is now set to 25.51 to 31.31 seconds. Subsequent playbacks will playback just this section of the music.

At any time, you may revert the playback region to it’s initial state where it contained the entire recorded music by clicking on the "All" button.

You may decrease/increase the time value of the from/to points of the playback region by pressing the arrow buttons next to the time amount.

You may also move the playback region forward or backward in time (as a unit), by using the arrow buttons under "Shift Selection". The top row of buttons will make a fine adjustment and the bottom row a more coarse adjustment.

During playback, you may also define the beginning of the playback region by using the "Begin Select" button. After clicking on this button, it turns into an "End Select" button which can be clicked to end the region.

During playback, it the loop box is not checked, play will stop when it reaches the end of the playback region.

When the loop box is checked, (checking is done by moving the cursor to the box and clicking it), play will move to the beginning of the playback region when the end of the playback region is reached.

This feature is particular useful for freezing piano or guitar chords.

You create a very small playback region which just covers the chord and then you can play things back with a continuous loop (the loop box checked).

When playing back a stereo recording, one may select that only the left or only the right channel is played back. This is primarily useful when the instrument you are transcribing is more prominent on one of the channels.

If only the left channel is played back, the left channel of the recording is sent to both the left and right channels of the sound card.

While transcribing, one will often need to listen to a reference pitch in order to identify the pitch on the recording.

One way to get a reference pitch is to play your own instrument.

Another way is to use the "Pitch Reference" control .

By clicking on the correspond note, it will be played on your sound card. In addition, the octave may be adjusted up or down by clicking on the up/down arrow keys on the far left.

Sometimes it may be necessary to adjust the pitch of the audio during playback.

One application for this may be for recordings that are slightly out of tune.

Another application is for transcribing rock guitar players that tune their guitar down a half or whole step. For example, if on the CD the guitar was tuned down a half step, you can pitch adjust it up a half step so that you don’t have to re-tune your guitar when checking the transcription.

We provide a pitch control which lets one adjust the pitch up or down a given number of semitones (half steps) and/or cents (100ths of a semitone).

The up/down arrows on the left will adjust by semitones and those on the right will adjust by cents.

The number X’Y’’ will change as the adjustment is made. X’Y’’ means X semitones and Y cents.

Using the File Menu

The File menu may be used to create new sound files, open an existing sound file, close the current sound file, save the current sound file as well as view or set various properties of a sound file.

B

By clicking on "Properties", the property window is brought up.

You may only change properties of a new sound file which has not been recorded yet.

You may also set the limit of disk space used for recorded music. We have nominally set this value to 20 megabytes. This is a safety feature so you don’t start recording a CD, leave you machine for a while and come back to find that your whole hard disk has been used up for the sound file.

The only option currently available is to use an alternate method for slowing down the sound.

The default one provided is the best overall method but for some recordings you may prefer to change the default.

By clicking on "Alternate Slowdown Method", a check mark will appear next to the item.

The original method will be restored up clicking on the "Alternate Slowdown Method".

Occasionally it may be difficult to hear the instrument you are transcribing due to problems with the original recording.

To help in these situations, we provide a series of filters which are designed to reinforce the sound range of various instruments.

In general, filters are not needed and this one part of the Transkriber takes some time to process so we recommend against using it unless you are experiencing some particular problems in hearing the instrument even at full speed on a particular recording.

To invoke the equalizer, click on the "Equalizer" menu item on the top of the main screen.

This will bring up the equalizer screen.

By clicking on the down arrow, you will be able to select the instrument you want reinforced. You may apply this filter more than once.

Now it’s time for you to start doing your own transcriptions.

We wish you the best of luck.

Budi Sutardja and Reed Kotler