Anyone know of a sheet music creator?

[IhaveAquestion]

Is there a program that can take a non-voice song and create sheet music for it?
This seemed the perfect site to find someone who would know, I'm hoping to find such a program for a friend. Thanks!

[SLyGeN]

If you're talking about an mp3, the short answer is no. Try to find a midi of the song you're talking about.

If you have a midi, there are multiple programs that can put it to staff paper, although in my experience, midi's are created in such a way that the staff paper ends up looking like garbage. I actually spend a lot of my time importing garbage midi's and cleaning them up to readability.

--> in b4 move.

[Olarin]

Your request is unclear. Do you mean a program that can analyze an audio recording of music and generate sheet music to indicate what the musicians played? If so, such technology doesn't exist; the combinations of frequencies from different instruments in an audio file is too complex to split apart into the abstract notions represented in sheet music.

(However, note that MIDI files are not recordings, they're just sets of instructions for a synthesizer, and as such can typically be turned into sheet music by any decent notation program)

[Alexis]

Two programs which are both specifically for creating sheet music are Sibelius and Finale.
I'm not sure what you mean by a non-voice song, but those two programs are the best out there for making sheet music. There are other programs like Logic that have a function built in that take midi and shows you the sheet music. The problem with this though is that it doesn't always translate accurately to sheet music, and the editing tools are a pain to work with.

[Olarin]

blast, beaten to the punch again. i always take too long editing and rereading my post.

If you have a midi, there are multiple programs that can put it to staff paper, although in my experience, midi's are created in such a way that the staff paper ends up looking like garbage. I actually spend a lot of my time importing garbage midi's and cleaning them up to readability.

to be specific, the most common cause of 'garbage' is that a MIDI file intended for playback contains a lot of expressive variation (mostly in timing) that requires some sort of quantization to look good as sheet music.

the overriding concept here is that a piece of sheet music does not directly correlate to a sound; it's simply a means of communicating abstract musical ideas.

[BardicKnowledge]

If you can find it, Finale Notepad 2008 is still free to use, though its features are limited. Seeing as how the full version of Finale as a college student is $300 though, something is better than nothing...

I'll throw my two cents in for Finale as the best way of editing and working with sheet music though -- it does great things as long as you don't need to do a lot of production.

[prophetik]

in general, your ears are the best transcribing program out there. sit down in front of a piano and sound it out. that's how most of us got started with music.

[Caster13]

If you can find it, Finale Notepad 2008 is still free to use, though its features are limited. Seeing as how the full version of Finale as a college student is $300 though, something is better than nothing...

I'll throw my two cents in for Finale as the best way of editing and working with sheet music though -- it does great things as long as you don't need to do a lot of production.

Gah! All this time I've been using a mix of Finale Reader and MuseScore! How long has Finale Notepad 2008 been available for free for?

[Sengin]

...a while. It's for free so that people who don't have finale can look at the music created by those who do.

[Moseph]

Gah! All this time I've been using a mix of Finale Reader and MuseScore! How long has Finale Notepad 2008 been available for free for?
Since 2007. But Notepad 2009 isn't free, so the official site probably isn't distributing Notepad 2008 anymore. You may have to hunt around.

[SciRe]

People have already mentioned Finale and Sibelius, which are great but will cost you a fair amount of money.

Hunt down noteworthy composer through google. Similar program (though not quite as good) You can get a free demo for a pretty long time as I recall. And I don't think buying the actualy program was very pricey either. Though I'll forewarn you its been a number of year since i used it. So I may not be exactly right.

[DrumUltimA]

for 15 bucks an hour I will be your sheet music creator :D

[Nearly]

Finale Notepad 2008 was FREE and allows you to write sheet-music for up to 8 instruments at a time. I followed a link at ninsheetmusic.net . Aside from that the others are expensive.

[Abadoss]

Finale Notepad 2008 was FREE...

When they came out with Finale Reader, they stopped giving out Finale Notepad for free.

[Caster13]

When they came out with Finale Reader, they stopped giving out Finale Notepad for free.

I just downloaded and installed Finale Notepad 2008 without spending a dime.

[zircon]

It's not officially distributed anymore, though.