You can also add markers, add a loop really easy and save your work. Using mp3 you can slow down the tempo anyway you like.
TuneTranscriber is a free online tool where you can upload your mp3 or paste the link of a YouTube video and then slow down the music.
Guitar Pro is a great piece of software along with their Mysongbook project to learn songs and solos, read tabs and sheet music, create your own tabs (I use it myself to create tabs for Guitarhabits), mix your sounds and share your music.
8 ways to develop your aural skills and 12 Ways How to Transcribe What You Hear. Here are two posts that will help you develop and train your aural skills to transcribe solos and songs by ear. You can learn to transcribe by ear using one of the slow down tools and have the book or musicsheet as your backup support whenever you need it. If you don’t want the entire book, but just one song, Musicnotes allows you to buy a single copy of your favorite song on high quality tablature. If you want better quality and precision then get yourself a tablature book with some nice solos. The tablature you find on internet can be a great help, but there are still a lot of flat-out-wrong tablature transcriptions out there.
It’s for both Windows and Mac.Īnytune helps you learn, transcribe or practice songs by slowing down the tempo, adjusting the pitch, repeating loops, setting navigation marks, sharing timed comments and much more. It has a slow-down tool, a great advanced EQ and even a loop function. If you want to keep things simple VLC Media player is a free software tool for playing any kind of audio format. You can import any song from Spotify or Apple Music into the app and then slow down or speed up the music, you change the pitch and create a loop from any part of the song. The Amazing Slow Downer is absolutely my favorite go-to app for figuring out guitar parts. He is not so good at playing slowly :) For me, the Youtube slowdown setting was a great help to figure out the tapping part successfully. And what better way than learning it from the master himself, so I checked a lesson video from Nuno Bettencourt where he attempts to explain the solo slowly. I just finished transcribing the solo of “Get the funk out” by Extreme. This is really great for learning guitar solos that are too fast for the eyes and ears. You can choose 0.5 for half-speed or even 0.25 for quarter-speed playback. Click the Settings icon in the lower right corner of the window, then click “speed”. It’s easy to miss because it’s somewhat hidden in the “settings”. These tools will help both guitar players who can already transcribe and guitar players who can you use some extra help.įor those who (are learning to) transcribe songs by ear and eyes the YouTube speed selector is a pretty convenient tool.
I created a list with the best tools that make the process of transcribing and learning a song or solo going as smooth as possible. So, try to develop the skill of transcribing and use the appropriate tools to improve your skill and take it to the next step. It takes your guitar playing to a higher level and gives you a deeper understanding and insight in many aspects of guitar playing. Working out a song by ear is an important skill that is often overlooked.
And oh, what makes it transcribing fun and easy! I’m not complaining, because I learned a lot from those limitations, but I also enjoy the benefits of the technology today. The tools we have today are something I could only have dreamed of back then. The downside was that some notes were so low they became undefinable and I couldn’t tell what notes they were playing anymore. So when I had to deal with a fast blazing solo I set the pitch exactly an octave lower than the original key so I could transcribe the solo by ear.
The only problem was the slow down function also lowered the pitch when you’d slow down the song. One of the things that is really helpful developing and applying this skill, is to have some good solid tools that make this process as effortless as possible.īack when I was 15 I had a cassette recorder with a slow down function, so I could figure out the notes of a guitar solo. Being able to transcribe a song or guitar solo is a great skill that anyone can learn.