From Recess, October 30, 1998

Fun With Voice Recognition

By Tim Millington

Wildcat Canyon Software's Autoscore is a creative gem that will have software designers wondering "Why didn't I think of that?" The program's premise is reasonably simple - you sing, play the piano or even whistle into a microphone, and it translates the input into musical notes. Right before your eyes, semi-quavers and half-rests dance across the stave, demystifying the music-writing process for those of us that prefer to just sing along with the radio. And in an age of multi-CD-ROM extravaganza, it's refreshing to see a program that still crams good things onto a couple f floppies. On a campus that has a capella groups like a wild dog has fleas, Autoscore should be a big hit. All those enthusiastic singers with great musical ears but little formal musical training can soon be churning out sheet music to shame Beethoven.

But a caveat: The program's interface takes some getting used to. If you've never played a music file on your computer before, this program won't serve as the best introduction because getting started takes some trial and error. Better hope your a capella group has at least one tech-savvy member if you hope this program will make you the next Boyz II Men.

For those willing and able to become proficient in Autoscore, it offers a host of intriguing features. Sing a few notes into the mic, translate them into MIDI with a few mouse clicks and then you'll hear yourself eerily recaptured in classical guitar or moody sax. For the less silver-tongued, the program can attempt to fit your off-key notes to more conventional dos res and mis. And with multiple tracks and instrument settings, you almost have your own studio right on your desktop.

Autoscore reminds users that the days when computers were nothing more than glorified typewriters are far behind us.

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