[LAU] seeking a creative songwriting solution.

[Chris Caudle]

On Tue, May 17, 2022 11:36 am, Karen Lewellen wrote:
>  do you know of a  many track recorder able to print the
> results sung into that recorder?

I do not personally, but after a little research I believe that is just a
limit of my experience.

> I wish to skip the midi step leading to the conventional final product
> for  performance / recording with live musicians.
...
> Why would midi be needful, and if so do you know of pitch to
> midi programs I can investigate?

The reason I suggested using MIDI as intermediate step is because I know
there are pitch-to-MIDI devices and software available, often used for
using a guitar or other instrument to control a synthesizer, and I know
that most music notation software can accept MIDI input and convert to
conventional notation.
To me that seems to fit in with the Unix philosophy of building solutions
from individual tools that specialize in a particular task.

However, I realize that my approach can be a little cumbersome, and that I
tend to not change tools easily even if a newer, better solution may be
available, so I searched the term "audio to music notation" and found that
there are indeed applications now which skip the intermediate formats and
can go directly from audio input to musical notation.

None of the integrated applications seem to be available for linux, which
explains why I have not seen them and why they are never discussed on the
linux audio users list, but they are available.
I see that Sibelius notation software is still around, which was
considered one of the two best (along with Finale) for many years.  The
"Ultimate" edition includes audio to notation support, but seems to be
subscription only (i.e. you do not own a perpetual license, you purchase
the right to use the software on a per month or per year basis).

Besides being a good argument for using GPL software when available, that
also seems to me like a good incentive to use whatever version has export
to a standard format available (probably MusicXML is the most widely
supported) if you do not want your compositions to become stranded in a
proprietary format which becomes unsupported, or which you do not wish to
continue paying for in perpetuity.

-- 
Chris Caudle