StaffPad, the innovative and acclaimed composition app from Muse Group, has launched a new tool set to permanently transform how composers notate scores.
Powered by advanced AI, Piano Capture listens to real piano performances and converts them into readable sheet music. For the first time, any pianist with StaffPad — or any keyboardist with a piano preset loaded — can capture any musical ideas instantly without microphones or complex set-ups. Composers can also import, edit and transcribe previously recorded audio performances into scores.
Arriving alongside Piano Capture in this update comes realtime MIDI Capture, allowing composers to connect a MIDI controller and notate performances directly into the app. Film clips can now also be imported onto any score, with new Video Staffs.
These tools mark a sea-change in digital composition, lowering the barriers to scoring music for aspiring composers, and expanding the creative freedom of experienced professionals. In particular, StaffPad is now essential for film, TV or game soundtrack composers, who can sketch ideas with Piano Capture, while watching Video Staffs in real time.
On-device machine learning (ML) is behind StaffPad’s latest groundbreaking development. David William Hearn, composer and StaffPad founder, describes the process of building Piano Capture’s artificial intelligence engine:
“We built a special training pipeline — called Pianola — able to generate thousands of hours of music, recorded through digitally-controlled acoustic pianos and sample libraries. This simulated all kinds of real-world scenarios and environments, resulting in a huge collection of output recordings. Pianola then analyzes each performance in reverse, learning to recreate the audio input. Over many hours of training time, the system learns to recognize what note pitches and durations look like, even within chords. And from there, it learns to transcribe piano performances it hasn’t heard before.”
“As a final and crucial step, the AI then tidies the score to make sure it’s easy for other musicians to read. The entire process runs directly on your device. So your audio remains private, and you don’t have to be online for it to work. For pianists, it’s a magical feature. We think you’re going to love it.”
Piano Capture is included in the latest StaffPad app update. The app is available for $89.99 USD in the Apple App Store for iPad, or the Microsoft Store for Tablet or Surface (Windows 10 & Above).
More information: StaffPad
