Real-Time Guitar Transcription

Converts guitar audio to tabs in real-time using Basic Pitch + tuttut.

Architecture

• Audio → MIDI: Basic Pitch (Spotify's audio-to-MIDI model)
• MIDI → Guitar Tabs: tuttut (HMM + Viterbi algorithm for optimal fingering)

Files

• guitar_transcribe_tuttut.py - Main real-time transcription script
• RUN_TUTTUT.sh - Launch script
• requirements_tuttut.txt - Python dependencies
• tuttut/ - tuttut library (cloned submodule)

Setup

# Install Python 3.11
brew install [email protected]

# Create virtual environment
python3.11 -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate

# Install dependencies
pip install -r requirements_tuttut.txt
pip install --no-deps tuttut
pip install mido networkx matplotlib

Usage

./RUN_TUTTUT.sh

Play your guitar - notes will accumulate in a single tab display.

How It Works

1. Captures audio from microphone
2. Detects phrases (silence-separated)
3. Converts audio → MIDI using Basic Pitch
4. Accumulates MIDI notes
5. Uses tuttut's HMM+Viterbi to find optimal fingering positions
6. Displays single accumulating guitar tab

Notes

• tuttut chooses string positions based on playability (minimal hand movement)
• May not match exact strings you played, but will be a playable version
• Tab updates after each phrase (detected by silence)