[patseguin]

Anyone know of any good software to do this? I have a PDF I bought online and it is very clear but in the wrong key for alto. I want to open the PDF in something and be able to automatically transpose it. Any suggestions? SmartScore stinks. It doesn't recognize grace notes and triplets.

 

[ericdano]

No such thing exists for PDFs. Sorry. Your best bet is SmartScore or some other OCR thing for music and convert to either Sibelius or Finale format.

 

[robscott]

I've had good results doing a similar task using sibelius and photoscore lite.
here is a link:
http://www.sibelius.com/products/photoscore/lite.html
Once you get the sheet music into sibelius then you can manipulate it any way you want.

You can download a demo. Sibelius is pretty expensive though IMO.

 

[piwikiwi]

The latest version of finale can do it but it costs 600 dollars

 

[Blonski]

This program does this!
http://www.myriad-online.com/en/products/pdftomusicpro.htm

 

[hakukani]

This program does this!
http://www.myriad-online.com/en/products/pdftomusicpro.htm

...but only if it's not a scanned .pdf...

 

[Koen88]

photoscore works well, done it a few times it isnt perfect but it does the job if you are willing to correct some passages

 

[JohnGalt]

...but only if it's not a scanned .pdf...

Huh? Print it out, then scan it with Photoscore/Sibelius.
Warning about Photoscore: the technology is not perfect...you will spend almost as much time correcting its interpretation of what it scanned (a spec of dirt becomes a clef change, a dotted note becomes too amny beats in the meausre etc) than you would inputting the data right into Sibelius. This is not a knock, it's just disappointing when you first get it.

 

[hakukani]

Huh? Print it out, then scan it with Photoscore/Sibelius.
Warning about Photoscore: the technology is not perfect...you will spend almost as much time correcting its interpretation of what it scanned (a spec of dirt becomes a clef change, a dotted note becomes too amny beats in the meausre etc) than you would inputting the data right into Sibelius. This is not a knock, it's just disappointing when you first get it.

I wasn't talking about photoscore. I was talking about musicpro. From their site:

Because it only processes PDF files that have been exported from a score editor software, PDFtoMusic Pro offers a unique reliability and outstanding results.
Therefore, scanned sheet music cannot be managed by PDFtoMusic Pro.

I always found, though, that you could transcribe the tune and one chorus of the solo in the time it takes to do this, adding the time to correct the 'mistakes' photoscore makes.

 

[scotts]

I wonder if that language is there to prevent copyright troubles.

 

[Enviroguy]

I wonder if that language is there to prevent copyright troubles.

No. PDF files rendered from text programs usually have text characters embedded in them. It's easier for a third-party program to use these to reconstructed an editable version than it is to use true text recognition routines.

 

[patseguin]

This program does this!
http://www.myriad-online.com/en/products/pdftomusicpro.htm

Thanks I'm going to try this. I have PDF transcriptions, not scanned so I hope for something that would do this easily.

 

[timobrien]

Take the time to input it by hand into a notation program.
Doesn't take as long as you think.
You will get experience with the program, learn something and might figure out improvements with the score.

I use Harmony Assistant from myriad-online.com but Musescore is free....

 

[Koen88]

Take the time to input it by hand into a notation program.
Doesn't take as long as you think.
You will get experience with the program, learn something and might figure out improvements with the score.

I use Harmony Assistant from myriad-online.com but Musescore is free....

I use Sibelius in combination with Photoscore. In some cases this spares A LOT of time, but for the short few page arrangements it's not worth the startup time.. But when I have a full arrangement let's say 2 pages and for 10+ instruments this can be quite the time saver!

 

[bjornblomberg]

Photoscore / Sibelius works fairly well for me. I think more than 95% of the notes get interpreted correctly by photoscore, and the rest are easily corrected. It doesn't work that well for chord symbols, in my experience, probably 1/3 to 1/4 of the chord symbols need some kind of amendment. Audioscore (audio to notation), on the other hand, has not been very useful for me.
Bjørn

 

[Koen88]

Photoscore / Sibelius works fairly well for me. I think more than 95% of the notes get interpreted correctly by photoscore, and the rest are easily corrected. It doesn't work that well for chord symbols, in my experience, probably 1/3 to 1/4 of the chord symbols need some kind of amendment. Audioscore (audio to notation), on the other hand, has not been very useful for me.
Bjørn

similar experiences here! from the times I try audioscore, only one time I saved me time.. some chords that I didnt have to work out, but it's not really a time saver...

 

[Hot Rats]

I don't think any software like that exists. Transposing is really easy though, after a day of practicing I was able to transpose at writing speed.

 

[bobsax]

I thought I had a perfect and quick solution without having to print out or scan anything.

I put the solo as pdf into iPhoto and exported it as TIFFs onto my desktop.
Then I went to Finale >File>Scanning Smart Score Lite>Import an existing TIFF

It failed
Anybody know why.?
It would be a nice solution if it worked.

 

[diskman50]

The MIDI edition of SmartScore will work with a scanned PDF music file. The PDF file doesn't have to be exported from a music program. It's not perfect but worth a look.

http://www.musitek.com/

Diskman50

 

[bobsax]

Thanks Diskman

I actually got SmartScoreLite to recognize the converted TIFF's but the result in Finale was a jumbled mess.
The midi edition of SS may be interesting to try. I think you have to do all the editing in SS? It's $50. I'm not sure I'd use it enough to justify that.
I guess I could try it out but I hate mucking up my computer with these trial versions. If you don't like them you never can be sure that you'll completely get rid of them.

-bob