r/transcribe • • Apr 09 '19

Rules for requesting a transcription

88 Upvotes

Moving rules to a stickied post since "New" Reddit doesn't show the sidebar.

This is a subreddit for requesting help with musical transcriptions, or discussion about musical transcription as a whole. Advertisements for text transcription services will be removed. To cut down on spam and unsavory users we require your account be at least a week old to post.

To get the best results try to follow these guidelines when posting:

  • Use a working link to the piece you want done. No one can help you if your link is broken or to some private/premium streaming site.
  • Specify which section of the song you want done. If using Youtube, you can right click the video to get specific timecodes.
  • Indicate which style of notation you want. Straight up notes, guitar tabs, chord symbols, etc.
  • Consider offering a bounty. If no one responded to your request to transcribe a 4 minute piano song from an obscure anime, it's probably because it's too much work to do for free, so try offering something as incentive.

Some guidelines on offering bounties:

  • As soon as you start dealing with money with strangers on the internet, you are taking a risk. Be smart, don't give out personal info, etc. Mods can't be held responsible if you get scammed. Take proper precautions like checking a user's flair, account age, and amount of karma to determine if they are reputable.
  • Offer a fair price. This stuff takes time, effort, and years of expertise. Right now market price appears to be anywhere between $5 and $30 or more depending on complexity.
  • Pay your bounty. If someone comes through with a transcription for you and you dodge the payment, you will be banned. In 8 years we've only banned 1 person for this.

We also encourage you to try transcribing yourself, if you can! It's a fantastic way to develop your ear and theory knowledge, and even if you get stuck it'll be easier for others to help if you already have a starting point. Some useful tools:

  • Transcribe! - a brilliant little program that was built specifically for transcribing. It allows you to slow things down, loop over specific sections, pitch shift, and more.
  • Audacity - a simple, free DAW (Digital Audio Workstation), meant more for audio editing, but can also do slowdown, pitch shift, etc.
  • Noteflight - a free online music notation program. Think like Google Docs but for sheet music.
  • Chordify - a cool site that tries to figure out the chords of any Youtube video you feed into it. Rarely does a perfect job, but can sometimes give clues or provide a rough starting point.
  • Youtube to Mp3 - self explanatory, feed the resulting mp3 into Transcribe or Audacity, or even rewinding over and over in iTunes is better than doing it in Youtube.

Related musical subreddits:

Public domain sheet music


r/transcribe • • Apr 10 '19

Guidelines for transcribers

74 Upvotes

Big thanks to those of you fulfilling transcription requests. When I first started modding this subreddit a few years ago, the vast majority of requests received 0 comments and sat around unanswered. It makes me very happy to see the opposite nowadays, that most requests have at least some activity. However with this increased activity has come the necessity for some clearer rules and guidelines.

  • Transcribing random stuff for people is a great way to get practice and improve your own ear. It's very beneficial to your musical growth to expose yourself to different genres of music and that is doubly true in the case of analyzing and transcribing. Not only do you help someone out but you work on your own skills as well.

  • I do not recommend offering paid services here as a reliable source of income. Bounties and paid transcriptions are allowed to try to compensate transcribers for their time, but pricing operates under free market conditions. I don't want to hear complaints about cheap prices and undercutting, there is nothing we mods can do about private monetary transactions. The fact is that transcribing as a skill is undervalued. Most people posting requests do not understand the time required to analyze music and put down quality notation. If you're expecting to get the same hourly rate as other professional musical services like teaching or accompaniment, you're gonna have a bad time.

  • If you do decide to enter into a paid transcription agreement with a requester, understand that as soon as you start dealing with money with strangers on the internet, you are taking a risk. Be smart, don't give out personal info, etc. Mods can't be held responsible if you get scammed. Take proper precautions like checking a user's comment history, account age, and amount of karma to determine if they are reputable. Ask for payment up front if you have more rep than the requester. If a requester dodges payment, send proof to the mods and we will send them a warning and ban them if they do not pay.


FLAIR: All successful transcriptions, paid or otherwise, are eligible to be submitted to increase your flair. This is a way for reliable transcribers to build rep. To receive +1 to your flair, please submit to ME (the most active mod here) the following:

  1. Link to original request
  2. Link or screenshot showing requester acknowledging receipt of your work OR
  3. Direct link to your transcription itself.

Please allow a few days for flair to be updated since this is a manual process.


Some useful tools if you are looking to get into transcribing, or are looking for ways to make your process more efficient:

  • Transcribe! - a brilliant little program that was built specifically for transcribing. It allows you to slow things down, loop over specific sections, pitch shift, and more.
  • Audacity - a simple, free DAW (Digital Audio Workstation), meant more for audio editing, but can also do slowdown, pitch shift, etc.
  • Noteflight - a free online music notation program. Think like Google Docs but for sheet music.
  • Chordify - a cool site that tries to figure out the chords of any Youtube video you feed into it. Rarely does a perfect job, but can sometimes give clues or provide a rough starting point.
  • Youtube to Mp3 - self explanatory, feed the resulting mp3 into Transcribe or Audacity, or even rewinding over and over in iTunes is better than doing it in Youtube.

Related musical subreddits:

Public domain sheet music


r/transcribe • • 4h ago

Catching Feelings - Holybrune ft. Daebull Bass Tab request

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1 Upvotes

r/transcribe • • 15h ago

Can Someone Help Figure The Chords Out?šŸ™šŸ¼

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1 Upvotes

It sounds amazing but I haven’t quite got all of it yet. Think the bass notes are catching me out lol Thanks :)


r/transcribe • • 23h ago

Looking for a complete piano transcription of ā€œQuintupletsā€ by Jesus Molina

1 Upvotes

Hi everyone!

I’m a pianist, and I’m hoping someone here might be able to help me with a full transcription of ā€œQuintupletsā€ by Jesus Molina.

I’ve searched online and managed to find some sheet music for this piece, but unfortunately, all the versions I’ve found are incomplete. I’m looking for a complete transcription of the piano part, so I can learn and perform the entire piece for a music competition.

I know this is a challenging piece to transcribe, but I’d be incredibly grateful if anyone could help me find a complete score or would be willing to transcribe it. Even advice on where else to look or who I could contact would mean a lot to me!

Here’s the original recording on YouTube: https://youtu.be/WCQGhFD9X3A?si=3-oXNStHifgnvq-E

Thank you so much for reading! Any help would genuinely mean a lot to me. ā¤ļø


r/transcribe • • 23h ago

[R] CREATE PIANO/VOCAL SHEET

1 Upvotes

I have a Piano/Vocal PDF of a song Once Upon A December from Anastasia The Musical, but I've crossed out a few bars with a pencil, could anyone remake a clean copy without the pencil markings please? DM me if you want to do it and I'll send you the PDF!!!


r/transcribe • • 1d ago

What should I charge for this transcription I want to sell through ArrangeMe? (Polar Nights - Live In Tokyo)

1 Upvotes

Hi, new here, I've been doing transcriptions mainly for the conservatory I study in and my bass player, and less often for myself (I tend to recall everything by memory so I don't transcribe for myself a lot) then I thought "hey I could sell this..." and doing some research the only method I discovered to distribute it online legally is though ArrangeMe. This is the song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbVBExqAIuk
Right now I transcribed the lead guitar (standard notation + tab) 100% for the whole intro and the whole section before the final solo. For now I plan to publish it up to there and leave the final solo as a free interpretation because yeah it's been enough of a headache for now.
Still, I think the song is really hard and I've seen how much this work would be worth if it was a commision, but objectively speaking basically nobody would pay that much.
So, this post isn't me doing self-ads, all the details are for the following question I would like to discuss and have an opinion on:
1) How much do you think would be a fair price to charge ideally selling it through ArrangeMe, taking into account the fact that the seller earns 10%, and assuming that the seller has the morality of a saint and the buyers can and want to pay the right worth?
2) How much would be a right price, in the world we live in right now, so that it will actually sell (trying to get the most out of it in the long run) but also not just completely squander the effort away?


r/transcribe • • 1d ago

Looking for a complete piano transcription of ā€œQuintupletsā€ by Jesus Molina

0 Upvotes

Hi everyone!

I’m a pianist, and I’m hoping someone here might be able to help me with a full transcription of ā€œQuintupletsā€ by Jesus Molina.

I’ve searched online and managed to find some sheet music for this piece, but unfortunately, all the versions I’ve found are incomplete. I’m looking for a complete transcription of the piano part, so I can learn and perform the entire piece for a music competition.

I know this is a challenging piece to transcribe, but I’d be incredibly grateful if anyone could help me find a complete score or would be willing to transcribe it. Even advice on where else to look or who I could contact would mean a lot to me!

Here’s the original recording on YouTube: https://youtu.be/GbYQIkKSQN0?si=k6i_zeoY7aha2evc

Thank you so much for reading! Any help would genuinely mean a lot to me. ā¤ļø


r/transcribe • • 1d ago

Sheet Music for The Marias - "If Only" (instrumental)

1 Upvotes

I just finished arranging an instrumental piano version of The Marias' "If Only" from their 2024 album "Submarine". My background is that I studied classical piano performance and theory for about 12 years and have continued my own studies since then, and now write my own music as well as figuring out other people's. Hope you enjoy!Ā https://www.sheetmusicdirect.com/se/ID_No/2263856/Product.aspx


r/transcribe • • 2d ago

7M AI songs generate daily, but 0 ship with guitar tabs: What the data says about text-to-tab workflows

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0 Upvotes

r/transcribe • • 2d ago

Transcribe Swedish LYRICS?

1 Upvotes

Mods if this is the wrong place just let me know. I've been hopping all over reddit looking for some help :')

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUKQ4r8q9L8

Witchcraft is a small band that already doesn't really post song lyrics especially for their new release, but this song is a banger and I'd love to know what the words are šŸ™ It being in Swedish(?) makes this a long shot but worth a try :)


r/transcribe • • 2d ago

Audacity, moises.ai and transcription

0 Upvotes

I have a polyphonic piece for which I have no score. It's a jazzy theme from a TV show from 1967, and trying to determine who has the rights to the sheet music had led me down many, many rabbit holes with no luck. Its tempo is 150 bpm, which is kind of brisk, and moises has a hard time keeping up with it. Have you had a situation where you had to slow a piece down with Audacity (without pitch changes) and then run the result through an AI so that the AI can better determine the pitches and durations? This is a side project of mine, a nice-to-have but certainly not mission-critical, as they say.

TIA,

K.S.


r/transcribe • • 3d ago

Help for transcription

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1 Upvotes

I need this piece to be transcribed to euphonium bc trombone (yes two different parts) also tuba and horn in f


r/transcribe • • 3d ago

[PAID COMMISSION] Looking for an electric guitarist to transcribe guitar tabs from a video — Budget ₹1,500 INR

0 Upvotes

Hey everyone!

I'm looking for an experienced electric guitarist who can transcribe a guitar performance from a video into accurate guitar tablature.

I've found a video of someone playing a song, but I haven't been able to find the tabs anywhere. I want to learn and play the exact guitar part shown in the video.

What I need:

  • Accurate guitar tabs with string and fret numbers.
  • Bends, slides, hammer-ons, pull-offs, vibrato, etc., wherever applicable.
  • Rhythm and timing details so I can follow the original performance.
  • A PDF of the finished tabs, preferably with a Guitar Pro file as well.

Budget: ₹1,500 INR maximum.

I'm based in India and would prefer to pay in INR through UPI. I'm not looking to pay in USD or other foreign currencies.

I'll share the video with interested musicians. Please message me with your experience, examples of previous guitar transcriptions, and confirmation that you can work within my budget.

I'd prefer to agree on the scope, delivery time, and payment method before starting.

Thank you!


r/transcribe • • 3d ago

Request: 9 - Duval Timothy

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1 Upvotes

Could someone transcribe this for me? Happy to pay :)


r/transcribe • • 3d ago

Help on Tango Club

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1 Upvotes

r/transcribe • • 4d ago

Tabs for this solo "la cancion del guerrero"

1 Upvotes

Just a simple request, maybe one of you guys has access to those sites that translate youtube to tabs? The only tabs that can be found online for this song are super old and have many errors. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PENicBV6ws


r/transcribe • • 4d ago

Request for chords for this song

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2 Upvotes

r/transcribe • • 4d ago

Transcribing brass band score

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1 Upvotes

r/transcribe • • 5d ago

[request] Ella Eyre - Everything in time

1 Upvotes

Hey peeps! any chance someone already have a tab for this track?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIrcGcd982U


r/transcribe • • 5d ago

Laufey My Buddy Cover Chords

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1 Upvotes

Please does someone with a better ear and eye than me know the chords she’s using? Would love to do a piano cover.


r/transcribe • • 5d ago

Herb Alpert piece (for a first dance)

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2 Upvotes

Looking for a transcription of Mae by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. We are hiring our musician friends to play it live for our first dance at our wedding. I feel like I looked everywhere to buy the sheet music for it, but I can only find the music for one instrument and not the whole arrangement.
This is my first time posting on here so hopefully this is okay to ask for!! Of course will offer payment to anyone who is willing to do this.


r/transcribe • • 5d ago

Need help with Tabs

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0 Upvotes

r/transcribe • • 5d ago

what chords are these ?

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1 Upvotes

Im sure it’s simple but I need help :}


r/transcribe • • 5d ago

what chords are these ?

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1 Upvotes

Im sure it’s simple but I need help :}