apollo scribe
building ai that helps musicians hear, write, and shape their ideas
Much of today's conversation around AI in music centers on generation: systems that can produce melodies, arrangements, and finished tracks with less and less human input. Apollo Scribe starts from a different goal. We are building tools that keep musicians at the center of the process by making the slow parts of transcription faster, clearer, and easier to work with.
from recording to notation
Apollo Scribe is a custom transformer model that takes a piano WAV recording and outputs a MIDI file. Instead of asking musicians to manually identify every pitch, rhythm, and entrance by ear, it creates a structured transcription that can become the starting point for sheet music, arrangement, study, or editing.
That matters because transcription is often where musical ideas get stuck. A performance may already exist as audio, but turning that performance into notation can take hours of careful listening. Apollo Scribe is designed to shorten that distance so musicians can spend more time interpreting, refining, and creating.
what a midi file contains
MIDI is not raw audio. It is a compact digital music format that describes performance information: which notes were played, when they started, how long they lasted, and how strongly they were struck. A WAV file captures the sound itself. A MIDI file captures the musical events behind that sound.
Because MIDI is structured, it can be opened in notation software, digital audio workstations, virtual instruments, and practice tools. Musicians can turn it into sheet music, adjust timing, correct notes, change tempo, assign new instrument sounds, or use it as the foundation for a larger arrangement.
augmenting the musician
Apollo Scribe is built around the idea that AI should support the musical workflow rather than replace the person doing the work. The model handles the first pass from piano audio to editable musical data. The musician still decides what the music means, how it should be notated, where it needs correction, and how it should ultimately be performed.
For teachers, students, composers, and performers, that first pass can be the difference between a recording that stays locked in an audio file and a piece that can be studied, shared, arranged, and played again.
The goal is simple: make the path from piano performance to playable, editable music feel less like clerical work and more like creation.