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To transcribe a performance

  1. Record the music. See To record a performance, above.
  2. Choose Edit > Select All. The display area is highlighted. You’re about to tap along with your music as it plays back, providing Finale with a tempo point of reference. These taps are called Time Tags.
  3. Choose a rhythmic value for your taps from Time Tag > First Tag. If you plan to tap even rhythmic values (all quarter notes, for example), also choose Time Tag > Record Equal Durations. (If you don’t select Record Equal Durations, you can actually vary the rhythmic value of your tap—sometimes eighths, sometimes quarters—and Finale will attempt, by interpolating and extrapolating, to assign the Time Tags correctly.)
  4. Under the word Keyboard, click the Play option. There are two distinct layers of MIDI information in the Transcription Mode: the Keyboard layer, which records every aspect of your synthesizer performance, and the Time Tag layer, which records only your beat taps. You want the Keyboard layer to play while you record the Time Tags.
  5. Under the words Time Tag, click Record. If you’re about to generate Time Tag taps on any channel other than MIDI channel 1, choose Click Input from the Time Tag menu. Click Listen to MIDI, and play the note (or MIDI controller) you’ll be tapping. Click OK.
  6. Click the Wait Till button. Finale goes into pause mode, where it will remain until you touch a key or pedal on the synthesizer.
  7. Tap any key in time to the music. Click anywhere (except on a button) to stop recording. If you need to start over, choose Edit > Select All and repeat the last four steps. When the music ends, Finale automatically stops recording, and you should see small note symbols (Time Tags) across the top of the screen.
  8. Choose Time Tag > Align Tags. This command “quantizes” your taps to the nearest notes. A small dialog box appears, asking you to specify the search width. The number in this text box, in thousandths of a second, tells Finale how far from each tag it may “search” for a note with which to align it. If the performance was slow, you can increase this number; if it was very fast and “notey,” you may want to use a smaller number (so as not to move a Time Tag inadvertently to the note after the one with which it should align, for example). In most cases, however, you can simply keep the default search width setting (200 thousandths of a second).
  9. Click OK (or press ENTER).
  10. Choose Time Tag > Assign Measure Tags. Finale automatically puts a tiny M at the beginning of every measure, according to the time signature (or time signatures) you’ve already established in the score itself. If your piece has several different time signatures but you haven’t already established them in the score, choose Time Tag > Measure and repeat the tapping process, but this time tap at each downbeat. When you’re finished, choose Time Tag > Convert to Time Signatures; this will automatically create time signature changes in the correct measures in your score.
  11.  If you’re transcribing onto two staves, choose TranscriptionSplit Point > Fixed or Moving. If you choose Fixed, a dialog box appears. Enter a synthesizer key number at which to split the performance into two staves. (Click Listen, if you prefer, and play the key.) If you choose Moving, a dialog box appears in which you can enter (or, by clicking Listen, play) the largest hand span that occurs in your performance (in half steps). This doesn’t necessarily mean the widest interval you can play with one hand; rather, it means the widest interval you played in the piece. When transcribing, Finale will attempt to split your two-handed performance onto the correct treble- and bass-clef staves by tracking the positions of your hands as they move up and down the keyboard. As long as there’s a discernible gap between your two hands during the performance, Finale can track a changing split point automatically.
  12. Click OK to exit either dialog box.
  13. Choose a smallest note value and type of quantization. Choose the smallest predominant note value in the piece. Select either Mixed Rhythms, Space Evenly (for a swing feel) or No Tuplets. See Quantization Settings dialog box for more information.
  14. Click More Settings. The More Quantization Settings dialog box appears.
  15. Select Include Voice Two if desired. If there are few places where you’ll be needing an inner voice, however, don’t select this option. This will prevent Finale from creating secondary voices where you didn’t intend them—for example, where two successive notes were accidentally overlapped in the sequence. The status of this option can have a dramatic effect on the “cleanness” of your transcriptions. Use MIDI/AudioRetranscribe to correctly place Voice 1 and Voice Two in the few places you want them. See Retranscription.
  16. If you like, click Key Velocities, Note Durations.
  17. Click OK twice.
  18. If you like, click Save Continuous Data, and Save Tempo Changes. When the dialog box appears (when you click Save Tempo Changes), press ENTER. These options tell Finale to remember the precise “feel” of your original performance, and to keep this data handy for playback when you dismiss the dialog box. Save Key Velocities tells Finale to retain key velocity information (see Key velocity). Save Note Durations preserves Start and Stop Time data, such as rolled chords and swing (see Start and Stop Times); Save Continuous Data retains continuous data (pedal, pitch bend, and so on); and Save Tempo Changes captures your tempo fluctuations, including ritards and accelerandi. If you don’t choose these options, then when you play back the transcribed music from the score, Finale will simply play back the sheet music—mechanically reproducing the notes, but without expression or feeling—instead of exactly re-creating your original performance.
  19. Click the Transcribe button. If the results aren’t perfect, remember that your performance is still intact, in the Transcription window. Click the first measure of the transcribed notation to switch back into the Transcription Mode, where you can correct any split point or quantization settings; then click Transcribe again. If you still don’t get good results and you can’t figure out what’s wrong, read the section called Quantization Settings Guide in the Appendix. If you discover occasional split point errors in the transcription (where a right-hand note was notated on the left-hand staff, for example), you can either change the split point settings in the Transcription window and try again, or simply go to the score and fix the wrong notes manually. See Recording with HyperScribe, Quantization Settings dialog box. See also Quantization Guide, To correct split point errors and and Retranscription.

 

 

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