How it works
How music becomes a score
Bring music in whatever form you have it. Check the score against the original, fix what you hear, and take it out in the form you need.
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Add a recordingWAV · MP3 · FLAC · M4A · OGG · AIFFOpens the workspaceIvoice-memo.m4a0:42 Record
Bring the music
Drop in a recording, a video, a PDF or photo of sheet music, or a MIDI, MusicXML or ABC file. You can also record in the browser or paste a song link. For a recording, say what is playing, or let ScoreStarling listen and suggest.
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II
Compare it by ear
The score plays in time with your recording: slide between the two and loop a bar until it sounds right. From sheet music, check the notes against the page.
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III
Make it yours and send it on
Click a note to change it, transpose for your voice or instrument, or ask your assistant and hear a preview first. Then download sheet music, guitar TAB, numbered notation, MIDI, MusicXML or audio.
For recordings
Tell it what is playing
ScoreStarling listens to your recording first and suggests one of three choices. You can always pick another.
One instrument or voice
Singing, a guitar line, a violin or a flute, written on one staff. A part that plays chords keeps its chords. Works best when that instrument is clear and on its own.
Free, up to five minutes a piece.
Solo piano
Both hands and the sustain pedal, with the beat, bar lines, pickup and time signature worked out for you.
Free, up to five minutes a piece.
A band or several instruments
Every instrument written out on its own staff, ready to print as separate parts. It uses credits, and you see the price before it starts.
40 credits a minute, up to five minutes a piece. Every account gets 100 free credits a month. Pricing
Not happy with the result? Transcribe the same recording again with another choice from Score settings → Recording. You get a second score and keep the first.
For written music
A page, a file or notes as text
No recording needed. Sheet music and score files become the same playable, editable score, for free.
- PDF and pictures
- Printed staff music from a PDF or an image (PNG, JPEG, WebP, TIFF or GIF). Clear, straight scans read best. Up to 12 PDF pages; you are told about any page that could not be read.
- Score files
- MusicXML (.musicxml, .xml, .mxl), MIDI and ABC. MusicXML keeps the notation as written; MIDI is written out as notation for you, without drum tracks.
- Text
- Paste ABC or MusicXML in the workspace, or ask your AI assistant to write the music and create the score. Up to ten minutes of music and 32 parts.
- Photos and jianpu
- For a phone photo, handwritten music, a jianpu page or a lead sheet, ask an AI assistant that can read images to write it out for you. Check uncertain notes against the page.
Staff, TAB and numbered notation
Read the notation that suits you
Read any score as staff notation or as numbered notation (jianpu), either 1=key or fixed-do 1=C, or just the melody, and a guitar, bass or ukulele part with TAB under the staff. The PDF you download follows the view you chose.
- Editing
- You edit on the staff; numbered notation shows the latest saved version. Switch back to Staff to change notes.
- Melody or chords
- For a single-part recording, Score settings → Layout rewrites the notes as one melody line, one staff with chords, or two staves for piano, without transcribing again.
- Printing
- Download numbered notation as a PDF of every part, or of the melody alone. In a minor key, 1= follows the relative major.
- Guitar TAB
- Guitar, bass and ukulele parts show TAB under the staff or TAB alone, in standard or another tuning, with a capo up to the 12th fret. Each note goes to its lowest fret, as notation apps write TAB, or Fewest hand shifts keeps your hand in one position; move a note to another string or type a fret. The PDF prints the TAB, TAB as text pastes into a message, and MusicXML carries the TAB staff. Bends, slides and hammer-ons aren’t written. Audio to guitar tab
- What carries over
- Lyrics, repeats and endings, grace notes, dynamics, slurs, and key and time changes. Several voices on one staff become chords, and tuplets of 3, 5 and 7 are written with their number under an arc.
Specifications
The details in full
What goes in, what comes out, and what to expect today.
- Input
- Audio (WAV, MP3, FLAC, M4A, OGG, AIFF), video, or a recording made in the browser. Public file links, Dropbox and Google Drive share links, and links from YouTube, Bilibili, TikTok, Instagram, SoundCloud and many other sites, when the site allows the download; private, DRM or subscription media is not supported. Sheet music and score files are described above.
- Length
- Uploads up to 100 MiB. A voice, one instrument, solo piano or a band: the first five minutes of the recording. A longer recording is cut at that point; split long pieces at a bar line. Sheet music and score files: up to ten minutes of music.
- Best results
- A clear recording where the part you want stands out, and the choice that matches it. For sheet music, a sharp, straight scan. Check the result against the original: no transcription gets every note right.
- Tempo and meter
- The tempo is detected for you, or set it yourself before transcribing. Solo piano also works out the time signature, bar lines and pickup; a band recording finds its time signature or uses the one you choose; a voice or one instrument starts in 4/4, which you can change. For a voice, one instrument or piano, a recording tuned a little sharp or flat is brought to A440 first.
- Listening
- The score and the original recording in sync, with a crossfade between them, looped passages and 128 instrument sounds. Scores from sheet music or files play back with those sounds.
- Editing
- Pitch, length, rests, chords, dynamics and instrument sound; key, clef, time signature, pickup, beaming, titles and transposition. Double or halve note values and the tempo together without changing how it sounds.
- History
- Undo, redo, saved versions, comments on a passage and previews of a change before you apply it. Edits save in the background; transcription, storage and audio rendering need a connection.
- Export
- Free: PDF, page images, separate parts, numbered notation PDFs, TAB as text, MP3 and WAV, with a small footer line, “Made with ScoreStarling · scorestarling.com”, on a free score’s pages and TAB text. MusicXML (.musicxml and .mxl), MIDI, ABC and MEI need the score unlocked: 15 credits, once, which also removes the footer. A band score paid with credits is already unlocked; Plus unlocks every score while you have it. Audio is the score played back, not an instrument separated from the recording.
- Assistants
- Connect ChatGPT, Claude and other AI assistants that support MCP; agents in your browser can use WebMCP (beta). Connect your assistant
- Access
- Public beta, open to everyone with Google or email sign-in. A voice, one instrument or solo piano, sheet music, editing and listening are free, up to three transcriptions a day. A band uses 40 credits a minute, and unlocking a score’s editable files uses 15. Every account gets 100 free credits a month; Plus and credit packs are on the pricing page. A free account can have one score in progress at a time, and Plus five.