QuickScribe Music Notation

From lead sheets to orchestra scores, Digital Performer provides sophisticated music notation transcription, including special scoring features for film composers that you won't find anywhere else.

Accurate real-time MIDI transcription

Digital Performer employs an advanced notation transcription engine that inspired Keyboard Magazine to say its, "automated transcription abilities are the best we've ever seen." Play in your music and get the most accurate transcription available. Instantly. Advanced features include floating split points, dynamic hand-splitting, multiple voices per staff, and n-tuplet recognition. The Straighten Swing feature displays swung eighths as straight eighths (instead of triplets).

Advanced tools for fine-tuning your score transcription

If the notation display looks like a train wreck because it wasn't recorded to the metronome, DP's Adjust Beats feature lets you graphically drag beats and barlines to line them up with MIDI note data - without changing how it plays back. The result? Readable notation and time rulers that match your music.

Need to move a note in the piano part from the treble staff to the bass staff for proper hand positioning? Just select it and use the Switch Staff command.

Sometimes, you'd like to preserve the way the MIDI data in your score plays back, but you'd like to adjust the way it looks as notation so that musicians can easily read it. Digital Performer lets you create Display Only notes and Playback Only notes for just this purpose. You can make your score look and sound EXACTLY the way you want.

Dynamics, articulations and page text

Simply point and click to add adjustable dynamics symbols, articulations and page text items such as rehearsal numbers, title, composer, copyright notice and directions to musicians.

On-screen page layout

Digital Performer's QuickScribe window provides an on-screen, full-page, what-you-see-is-what-you-get environment for page layout and formatting. Control staff spacing, system spacing, measure spacing, measure numbering and many other layout features.

Scores and parts

Format and print separate multi-staff scores and individual instrument parts, all from the same sequence. Each instrument part can have its own clef and instrument transposition. Make edits either in the score or when viewing individual parts — or even in the event list or MIDI Graphic Editor. All are dynamically linked to the source MIDI tracks and update instantaneously across all editor views.

Lead sheets

Digital Performer makes it easy to create and print lead sheets, complete with multi-stanza lyrics, transposable chord symbols and score arrangement features (endings, codas, etc.)

Click here for this lead sheet example as a PDF file.

Score arrangement

In an arranged score, you use repeat barlines, endings and other similar arrangement symbols to condense your linear sequence. For example, lead sheets are usually condensed to one or two pages. In Digital Performer's QuickScribe window, you simply point and click to add repeats, multiple endings, consolidated rests, segnos, codas and even double codas. Then choose Show Arranged Score and your linear score is displayed in arranged form. Playback proceeds through the arranged score as it should, and measure numbers are preserved through repeats and endings. Advanced features are provided for choosing what measures are displayed during multiple repeat sections.

Digital Performer's arrangement features make your scores and lead sheets look professional and readable.

Lyrics

Click with the Lyric tool to enter lyrics directly on the page. Or type text into the Lyric window. You can even paste in lyrics from an email or text editor and then automatically flow the text into one or more parts (tracks) with one click. Add multiple stanzas. Lyrics even follow the QuickScribe window's advanced score arrangement features (repeats, multiple endings, codas, etc.), flowing through repeats and ending as required. Choose any font and format the type as you wish.

Transposable chord symbols

Click with the Chord tool to add chord symbols directly on the page. Digital Performer can easily handle complex chord spellings and extensions. Best of all, you can select and transpose chord symbols at any time, together with or independently from notes.

QuickScribe Film Cues View

Digital Performer is used world-wide by film composers because of its unparalleled advanced features for scoring to picture. Click here to learn about DP's unique Film Cues View for scoring stage sessions.

Multiple QuickScribe windows

Digital Performer provides separate QuickScribe window for each sequence in a project. For example, if you have three sequences, you could open three separate QuickScribe windows all at once, one for each sequence. This allows you to easily view, compare and edit multiple scores simultanously, side by side.

Recent additional QuickScribe Enhancements

Numerous recent enhancements give you even more control over the look of your score and help speed your notation workflow, including improved editing of page text objects, the ability to associate page text objects with more than one track (so it can appear on multiple tracks, such as individual parts, for example), and improvements to the way that dynamics symbols are displayed.