This news was originally published on Music Dish.

Giving You Two Times as Much as the Competition with Polyphonic Conversion

Joe Kohler, the President of Innovative Music Systems (IMS) is quite proud of his company's products. You see, they make music recognition software. Now, that in itself is not a feat - many other companies have created music recognition software. Monophonic music recognition software, that is. And while there are even companies who have polyphonic products on the market, Mr. Kohler says, "They just don't meet the needs of professional musicians." We'll tell you why later.

Innovative Music Systems recently announced the release of an improved version of its existing Intelliscore software, version 3.0. The Florida based company began approximately two years ago, existing mostly in R&D mode, developing the Intelliscore product and applying for a patent for the technology behind it, which they expect to be approved in about 3 months. There are two versions of Intelliscore - a monophonic version and a polyphonic version. "The purpose of the monophonic version was to provide a more economical version for those who didn't need all of the polyphonic features, such as singers or people who play a solo instrument. But both products are based on the same underlying engine" said Mr. Kohler.

Users of the Intelliscore product start by introducing a WAV files into the computer. Intelliscore has a Wizard that helps to provide more accurate results in doing so. The file goes through the recognition process and produces an initial MIDI file. Now, it's important to note that the Intelliscore software doesn't decode the WAV file into a completed MIDI file. Per Mr. Kohler, "Once the initial MIDI file is produced, there are many things you can do with it - just play it back, notate it, or edit it. When it's in a MIDI format, you can do a lot of things that you can't do with it in WAV form - you can transpose it or reassign the instruments or edit it any way you want to."

The company's number one competitor of its monophonic product is Autoscore. When asked about competitors for its polyphonic products, Mr. Kohler said, "Our polyphonic product doesn't really have competitors right now, although there are other polyphonic products out there. The MIDI files that are produced by our competitors cannot be edited. If you tried to notate them, the music would not line up with the bars and the notes. Additionally, we provide the best customer service in the business - we respond to each and every email and phone call within 24 hours." Now, I can't speak for the customer service, but one visit to Innovative Music Systems's website shows that they really want to make things easy for consumers. They not only tell you what the product can do, they tell you what it can't do. After all, honesty is the best policy. Currently, it cannot differentiate one instrument from another, and since it recognizes only instruments with a strong pitch, it does not recognize most drums and percussion. According to the website, "Intelliscore is designed to link with your favorite MIDI editing software. However, you cannot use IntelliScore as a real-time MIDI controller; that is, you can't play notes on an analog instrument into a microphone and generate MIDI at the same time." But the company is addressing these and other issues. "Intelliscore is constantly evolving. We are working on several things right now that have never been done before to make the product even better."

Skeptical? Try it before you buy it. If you're interested in the monophonic product, you can listen to Peter Tchaikovsky's "Dance of the Swans" or Maurice Ravel's "Bolero" or even Johann Strauss' "The Blue Danube Waltz" in MP3, then compare it to a WAV file of the same song in an unedited Intelliscore MIDI file. For polyphonic enthusiasts, sample Ludwig van Beethoven's "Fur Elise" or Edward Elgar's "Pomp and Circumstance."

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