Guide to Using ScoreTracker Studio
The studio is where a PDF and a recording become a score-follow video. It’s a four-step path — Files, Crop, Sync, Export — and everything runs in your browser, so nothing is ever uploaded. This guide walks the whole flow and then covers the controls that make the result feel polished.
The four steps
1. Files
Open the studio and bring in two things:
- A PDF of the score — engraved or cleanly scanned pages work best.
- A recording of the piece — MP3, WAV, or M4A.
ScoreTracker reads the score locally and gets it ready to slice. That pair of files is your project; you can re-export it as many times as you like for a single credit.
2. Crop
Each page is scanned and split into systems — the individual lines of music — with titles, page numbers, and margins discarded automatically. Skim the detected lines and adjust any that look off: include a line that was missed, or exclude something that isn’t music.
Clean, straight scans usually need no edits at all. Skewed or low-contrast pages are where a quick include/exclude pass pays off — fix them here rather than re-importing.
If a scan is faint or grayed, the contrast slider (in the video-style options, below) can clean it up so the systems read crisply in the final video.
3. Sync
Play the recording and place a line at the start of each system as it begins. A few controls make this painless:
- Space places a line at the current playhead — keep your eyes on the score and tap in rhythm.
- K toggles play/pause without reaching for the mouse.
- The go-to-start transport button jumps the playhead back to the beginning so you can take another pass.
- Drop the playback speed to
0.5×for fast passages — the timing you tap is stored against the real audio, so it stays exact at full speed. Speeds run from0.5×to2×. - Use the zoom control on the timeline to spread the waveform out and place lines precisely, then zoom back out to see the whole piece.
Re-syncing is free forever once a project is unlocked, so tweak freely.
4. Export
A calm camera follows the music line to line with a progress mark under the active system. Export free in 720p with a watermark, or spend a credit for a clean master in 1080p or 4K.
Before you render, set the title-page timing: the intro and outro seconds control how long the title page holds at the start and end of the video.
Make it look the way you want
The video-style options shape how the finished video moves and reads:
- Motion — choose how the score advances:
- Scroll glides continuously line to line.
- Page holds a page and turns to the next.
- Book lays out two pages side by side and turns like a score on a stand.
- Highlight color — the accent on the active system and progress mark.
- Paper background — render against cream, white, or black.
- Contrast slider — darken faint ink and clean up scanned pages so every note stays legible.
Keyboard shortcuts at a glance
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
Space | Place a line at the playhead |
K | Play / pause |
These live in the Sync step, where they save the most time.
When you get stuck
Every studio screen has a help panel — the ? button in the bottom-right corner. It explains the controls for whatever step you’re on, so you rarely have to leave the page to find an answer. Still stuck? Contact support and a real person will help.
A clean-result checklist
- Trim silence from the very start of your recording so the first line lands on the downbeat.
- Fix mis-detected systems in Crop, not by re-importing.
- Slow playback to
0.5×for dense passages while syncing. - Nudge the contrast slider up for faint scans.
- Pick the motion style that suits the piece — Book for full scores, Scroll for single lines.
Ready? Open the studio and build your next one.