Purpose
Songscription is a music transcription platform that uses artificial intelligence to convert audio recordings into sheet music, MIDI files, guitar tabs, and MusicXML. It is aimed at learners, composers, teachers, and producers, helping users extract notes from audio and generate readable, editable, and exportable sheet music.
Main Capabilities
- Audio input: Supports uploading MP3, WAV, and M4A files, pasting YouTube, Instagram, or TikTok links, or recording audio directly.
- Instrument support: Can separately transcribe piano, acoustic guitar, bass guitar, violin, flute, trumpet, saxophone, drums, and vocals. When a single instrument is selected, the AI will, as much as possible, extract only that part and ignore the rest of the arrangement.
- Multi-instrument mode: Multi-Instrument mode can transcribe a mixed recording all at once, generating separate tracks for keyboards, guitar, bass, strings, brass, woodwinds, saxophone, synths, vocals, and drums.
- Arrangement features: Any song can be arranged into a piano cover at a specified difficulty level, a piano + vocal arrangement, or a lead sheet with chord symbols.
- Output formats: Can be exported as PDF sheet music, MIDI (for DAWs), MusicXML (for notation editors such as MuseScore and Sibelius), or Guitar Pro format.
- Notation details: The AI automatically detects time signatures, key signatures, trills, staccato, and other expression markings, and intelligently notates the notes on the staff.
- Built-in editor: Provides an interactive piano roll, displaying notes falling on a piano keyboard for easy viewing of what is being played; supports splitting notes into left and right hands, controlling velocity, transposition, color, and more; can play the score and adjust tempo; includes a built-in AI assistant, Annie, which can describe editing operations in natural language; supports automatic piano fingering.
- Guitar tabs: Can detect notes from acoustic guitar audio and notate them as guitar tabs, showing which finger should be used for each note. Currently only standard tuning is supported. Guitar tabs can be played and exported as PDF or GuitarPro files.
How to Use
- Upload an audio file, paste a video link, or record audio directly.
- Select the target instrument or use Multi-Instrument mode.
- The AI analyzes the audio and generates sheet music, a piano roll, or guitar tabs.
- In the interactive piano roll, view, play, adjust tempo, transpose, split left and right hands, and more.
- Use the AI assistant Annie to edit in natural language.
- Export as PDF, MIDI, MusicXML, or Guitar Pro format.
Use Cases
- Music learners: Understand how a piece is played intuitively through the piano roll and guitar tabs, suitable for users unfamiliar with traditional sheet music.
- Music teachers: Quickly obtain sheet music for teaching.
- Composers and producers: Convert audio to MIDI for further editing in a DAW.
- Guitarists: Obtain guitar tabs that clarify the fingering for each note.
- Classically trained musicians: Obtain accurately notated sheet music.
Limitations
- The free plan supports only 30-second transcriptions; longer recordings require a paid subscription (Plus or Pro, with a maximum of 15 minutes per transcription).
- Transcription accuracy is higher for single-instrument recordings, especially piano; in multi-instrument mixed recordings, some parts in dense mixes may need to be manually cleaned up in the editor.
- Guitar tabs currently support only standard tuning.
- The list of supported instruments is limited, and more instruments are in development.
- In the free trial, a single transcription can be unlocked with a one-time payment; Plus and Pro plans include unlimited downloads in all formats.
Background
Songscription was founded in 2024, is backed by Reach Capital, and has been covered by TechCrunch, Billboard, and MusicRadar. Its AI model is fully self-developed and trained specifically for music transcription, and can shorten a transcription process that usually takes hours to just a few minutes.
