How can we help?

Anyone can sign up. Go to scorestarling.com/login and continue with Google or Apple, or choose Create an account to use your email and a password. You can also ask for a one-time sign-in code by email. Every piece starts with a free 30-second preview, and every account gets 100 free credits each month, 50 a month from 2027 (pricing).

Open the workspace and choose New score. Use Choose a file or drop audio, video, a PDF/picture or a score file. You can also press Record, paste a supported link, or choose Paste ABC or MusicXML to type or paste notation. For a recording choose what is playing: one instrument or voice, solo piano, or a band. More options holds the tempo and how the score is shown: Staff, Staff and TAB, Jianpu or Jianpu 1=C. Choose Create score, then check it against the recording or the page. A quick listen may start before you choose Create score; nothing is kept until then.

Yes. Paste or drop a link to a video or song on YouTube, Bilibili, TikTok, SoundCloud and many other sites (short share links work too), or to the file itself, such as an MP3, a video file or a PDF of sheet music, up to 95 MB. Only the sound is fetched, and from a long video only its first six and a half minutes. Dropbox and Google Drive share links work when the file is shared publicly. Spotify and Apple Music encrypt their music, so they can’t be used, and some sites (Douyin and Xiaohongshu among them) may not let our server download a video: then save it and drop the file instead. In ChatGPT or Claude, paste the link in the chat.

Yes: PDF, PNG/JPEG/WebP/TIFF/GIF, MusicXML/MXL, MIDI, ABC and Guitar Pro (.gp, .gpx, .gp3–.gp5, with their TAB). Clean printed staff music reads best. PDFs are limited to 12 pages, pictures to 60 megapixels, and notation playback to ten minutes. Password-protected PDFs are refused; a MIDI file’s drum tracks get a drum staff, and repeats play once. Paste ABC/MusicXML in the workspace, or ask a connected assistant to create a score from text. An assistant that can see images can attempt a photo or jianpu reading; it still needs source comparison. All input limits.

One instrument or voice suits singing and a single instrument. Solo piano reads both hands, chords and the sustain pedal. Both use 10 credits a piece. When a recording has chords, the workspace asks whether it’s solo piano. Band or several instruments writes every instrument on its own staff and uses credits; you see the price before it starts. The tempo is found from the recording unless you set it. For a band you can also choose a time signature, one fixed tempo or alignment to the beat when you check its instruments; the finished score says what was applied.

Record one instrument or voice, close to the microphone, with little reverb or background noise. The tempo is detected; if you know it, set the BPM before transcribing so the notation lines up with the beat. An instrument tuned away from A440 is retuned before it is read. Busy mixes and several instruments at once make the first draft harder to read. Treat the result as a first draft: listen to it beside the original and correct what you hear. Recording tips

No. A WAV, AIFF or FLAC file is kept as a high-quality MP3 (320 kbps) once it arrives; in our tests every option reads that copy as accurately as the original. MP3, M4A and other compressed files are kept as you sent them.

Open the task from your library. If it offers Try again, use that instead of uploading another copy. A band transcription marked Needs review keeps its credits on hold: contact support with the job ID before trying again, or use Recover the result if it is offered. An interrupted call can already have succeeded, so inspect the status first.

Open Score settings → Recording and choose what is playing, even the same choice as before. It makes a new score from the stored recording, keeps the first score and its notation choice, and finds the tempo again. It is unavailable for sheet music, notation text or a recording no longer stored. It uses credits like a new score, with the price shown before it starts.

One instrument or voice now writes a melody as one line on one staff, and a chord part on one staff with its notes kept. An older score keeps its earlier layout. For a single-part recording, open Score settings → Layout and choose One melody line, One staff (chords kept), or Two staves for a piano sound. Two staves splits only a wide range, so a narrow line can stay on one staff. You can also choose the shortest note value. Apply layout rewrites the notes from your recording. One melody line also mutes the extra notes; check what it kept, and use Undo to bring them back. It is intended for one instrument or voice.

A free account can have one score in progress at a time, and an account with Plus five. Every piece covers the first six minutes and starts with a free 30-second preview; an account can start about 10 free previews a day, at most 3 of them a band or Starling Refine. Scores from Plus and from accounts that bought a credit pack in the last 90 days go first in the queue; free scores still run after them, and one that has waited ten minutes joins them in order of arrival. Seeing the whole piece uses 10 credits, and a band 30 credits a minute, with the exact price shown first (how credits work). Uploads can be up to 95 MB. Opening your own score file is free; notation text has a separate limit of 60 new scores per 24 hours. Editing, previews and downloads do not start another transcription.

In Staff notation, click or drag across notes to select them; double-click selects a bar. On a phone, tap, or hold and drag. Use the notation palette for pitch, accidentals, duration and dots, or the quick edits for dynamics and velocity. Top, Side and Follow placement is remembered in this browser. Add comments on a passage in the comments sidebar. In a supporting chat panel, the selection card instead takes your request for the assistant. Numbered notation is read-only; return to Staff to edit.

Yes. Undo and Redo sit above the score, also on Cmd/Ctrl+Z and Shift+Cmd/Ctrl+Z. Every change is saved as a new version, so nothing you did earlier is lost.

Yes, in the score’s settings: key, clef, time signature, pickup bars, beaming, transposition by interval, title and credits.

Choose a jianpu in More options when making a score, or later with Staff | Jianpu in the player under the score. Press Jianpu again to choose 1 = the song’s key (movable do), 1 = C (fixed do, where each black key keeps its flat) or Melody only (the top line). The score remembers this in the workspace and chat panel, and Download’s PDF is the view you chose. Numbered notation is read-only from the last saved revision; edit in Staff and wait for saving to finish. Supported lyrics, repeats/endings, grace notes, dynamics and key/meter changes are carried over. Voices on a staff are combined; lyrics/structure follow the leading part. Triplets and groups of five and seven are written under an arc with their number. Score playback still plays repeats once. Jianpu details.

Choose Staff and TAB in More options when making a score, or press TAB in the player under the score; it is there for a guitar, bass or ukulele part, or a score with one part. Press TAB again to choose TAB only. In Score settings, under Guitar TAB, set the tuning, a capo up to the 12th fret and how strings are chosen: Lowest frets, as notation apps write TAB, or Fewest hand shifts; with several parts, choose the part at the top of Score settings first. Select a note to move it to another string at the same pitch or to type a fret; Alt (Option on a Mac) and Shift with the up or down arrow moves it a string. A note no string can play as written turns red. The playing stays the same unless you type a fret. The PDF prints the TAB, TAB as text under More formats writes it for a message or a forum post, and MusicXML carries the TAB staff with Plus or a credit pack. Bends, slides and hammer-ons aren’t written. How strings and frets are chosen.

It leaves your score list and waits under Trash. Restore it to keep editing and to get new download links. Moving a score to the trash doesn’t refund credits already used.

PDF to print or read from a tablet: it is the score as you are viewing it, staff, TAB or jianpu, with page numbers. On a free account every PDF page has a small footer line, “Made with ScoreStarling”. MusicXML to keep editing in MuseScore, Dorico, Sibelius or Finale, and MIDI for a DAW: both come with Plus or a credit pack (see below). Guitar Pro (.gp5) opens in Guitar Pro and MuseScore with guitar, bass and ukulele parts as TAB, and comes with Plus or a pack too; for a score without them it is under More formats. MP3 to hear the score. All parts gives every instrument at once, a folder each in one ZIP; on a free account each part comes as a PDF with the footer line, and with Plus or a pack its MusicXML and MIDI too. Under More formats are WAV audio; Images of the pages (SVG and PNG), with the footer line on a free account; TAB as text for a guitar, bass or ukulele part, with the same footer line; and ABC text, which comes with Plus or a pack like MusicXML. MusicXML vs MIDI vs PDF

Downloads follow your account, not the score. A free account downloads PDFs, page images, MP3 and WAV, with a small footer line on the pages. With Plus, or once you have bought a credit pack, every format downloads, MusicXML, MXL, MIDI, Guitar Pro, ABC and MEI included, without the footer line. A score you opened from your own file always downloads in its original format. A 30-second preview can’t be downloaded until you pay for the whole piece. Downloads and credits

MIDI and rendered audio need every note linked to the performance. The PDF is always available for exchanging the score, and MusicXML with Plus or a credit pack.

Export that version again from the score. There’s no need to transcribe the audio again.

ScoreStarling’s own AI assistant, built into the workspace. Open Starling to start from a recording, video, link or score file and talk it through; each score opens as a panel in the chat. Or open a score and choose Starling: there Starling sees the bars you select and where playback is, and changes the score in place. Your chats are saved to your account, one per score beside a score, and all of them on Starling’s page.

Notes Starling changed are marked on the staff, and its reply ends with Undo, which takes back everything that reply changed. An arrangement, such as an easier version or a part for another instrument, is made as a new score, so the original stays as it was. Starling asks before it starts anything that costs more than a reply.

About 1–5 credits a reply, by how much it does, and never more than 10. A transcription, a band or a refine Starling starts for you uses its own price, after you agree. Starling needs an account.

Through MCP. Add the server https://mcp.scorestarling.com/mcp in your client, sign in to ScoreStarling and allow access; no API key is needed. The MCP guide has the steps for ChatGPT, Claude, Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, VS Code and more. Then attach a recording and ask for sheet music, or ask to open ScoreStarling and choose the file in its panel. These integrations are still in testing.

WebMCP Beta needs a browser exposing the native API and an agent able to call this tab’s tools. Open the signed-in workspace and keep the tab open; the page registers tools automatically when supported. They share your session and the workspace’s ownership/revision checks. Ask for previews of agent suggestions and inspect changes before applying. Ordinary chats and remote MCP connections do not automatically access browser tools. Browser setup, examples and permission limits.

Check which account you signed in with, then disconnect ScoreStarling in your assistant and connect again. If it still fails, contact us as described below.

Claude sends attachments from its code sandbox, which blocks outside connections unless you allow them. The MCP guide shows the settings. Or skip it: choose the file in the ScoreStarling panel, or upload it in the workspace.

On the sign-in page choose Forgot password?, then use the code or the link in the email to choose a new password. Each code works once and expires in ten minutes; check your spam folder too.

Your Google identity, email and basic profile, which identify your account; your profile picture appears in the account menu. We don’t request access to Gmail, Google Drive or contacts.

Only your account. An MCP client reaches your projects only after you allow it in the consent step, and only your own. If you tick “Let our team listen to this recording” when rating a score, our team may play that one recording and read its score. The privacy policy covers storage and analytics.

Every account has an invitation link, scorestarling.com/r/ followed by your code, on its Share page. When a friend joins with it and finishes a first transcription of a recording, you both get 100 credits, valid 30 days; up to five friends earn rewards. Invitations are for new accounts that have not made a score yet. A beta code gives 300 credits, valid 30 days, and each account can use one: open its link, or enter it on the Share page under “Have a code?”. Every account also gets 100 free credits each month, 50 a month from 2027. Where credits come from

Email support from the address you sign in with and say what you’d like deleted. We may ask for information that confirms you own the account.