Beat Mode gives it a rating of 6 out of 10 possible.
DECENT - worthwhile for some applications.

According to Innovative Music Systems Intelliscore Polyphonic is "the world's most advanced polyphonic music recognition system".

What exactly is Intelliscore Polyphonic? Well, in a nutshell Intelliscore Polyphonic is a stand alone PC software program that allows you to convert audio files or live performance into a midi file for use in midi sequencers and/or midi players. Intelliscore Polyphonic takes the audio input and translates it into midi notes and chords which can be analyzed and edited with complete flexibility in the midi domain.

Intelliscore Polyphonic version 4.0 has newly added features, such as the ability to be used in live performance mode converting live and on the fly into your sequencer. Control a MIDI-enabled instrument or your computer’s sound card in real-time while you play an acoustic instrument. Or use your voice. In conjunction with the included Hubi’s MIDI Loopback Device, you can record MIDI directly into a sequencer while you play your acoustic instrument or sing. Eliminate the need for costly hardware MIDI pickups! Use one of intelliScore's predefined instrument templates, or easily create your own. IntelliScore is the world’s only general purpose, real-time polyphonic music recognition software.

Intelliscore Polyphonic Version 4.0 now has MP3 support. You can now supply music to Intelliscore in the form of a wave file, MP3 file, or live audio. IntelliScore does all the work and converts this audio to MIDI data.

Intelliscore Polyphonic Version 4.0 has greater realism. With monophonic audio, IntelliScore Version 4.0 accurately tracks changes in volume and pitch while notes are being held, faithfully recreating effects such as pitch bend, vibrato, tremolo, and portamento, so MIDI performances are now more expressive.

Intelliscore Polyphonic Version 4.0 can now automatically determine tempo, notes per beat (timing resolution), meter, beats per chord, and measure synchronization. Achieve better recognition results with less effort. You no longer need to tap in the tempo! Easier recording. The new real-time record level meter helps you record your audio at the optimum level the first time. More accurate. IntelliScore’s new recognition algorithm results in near perfect accuracy with monophonic audio. Additionally, enhancements in intelliScore’s patented polyphonic recognition algorithm has resulted in a 30% increase in accuracy compared to previous versions with polyphonic audio. New optimizations result in recognition times up to three times faster than previous versions.

Uses for intelliScore include: Prerecorded music. Helps you figure out the notes present in prerecorded music, especially when you don't know (or don't remember) how to play it.

Analog instruments. Use your analog musical instrument as a realtime MIDI controller or record directly into sequencers. Effects such as pitch bend, vibrato, tremolo, and portamento are faithfully recreated when the audio is monophonic. Save the expense of MIDI pickups!

Do the impossible. Once your wav or MP3 files are converted into MIDI, you can do things that are impossible with audio files, such as changing individual notes and swapping instruments

Save space. Share ideas with other musicians via the Internet. MIDI files improve download time and save space compared to wav and MP3 files. Much more. Useful in instruction, analysis, and experimentation.

Intelliscore was pretty easy to install in our Pentium 4 1.7 Ghz machine with 256 RAM running Windows 98SE. During install it asked us to overwrite an existing file and we said no, and soon restarted and opened the program. The getting started guide helps in setting up options such as selecting your midi player. We set ours to use the QuickTime synthesizer.

After making the necessary settings we opened the New Project Wizard which guides you through the initial process of setting up Intelliscore to convert an audio file to midi. We selected our audio and accepted most of the settings in the wizard and clicked finish. It took about 4 minutes to convert our wave file to midi. One thing to note, Intelliscore did not open our 24 bit WAV file so we had to convert it to 16 bits in Sound Forge which it then accepted happily. So if you record in 24 bit like we do, you'll have an extra step to convert some of your files to 16 bit. If you use mp3s or 16 bit files that is not a concern.

Our first attempt yielded a super busy midi file that didn't really sound that good. In all fairness it was a mastered recording of a full band playing a busy rock song. I was hoping that I could use a few snips of that to use for creating loops. Unfortunately the notes were so cluttered it was difficult to edit in Cubase VST 5.

So I moved on to another tune, less busy, and let the wizard do it's thing. Once again - not even close. And not anywhere close to musical. We wish that Intelliscore would separate the instruments and put them on separate tracks (channels). Granted that's a lot to ask, but when you try to convert a complete performance with many instruments going at the same time, the results are a midi file with a zillion notes.

So the next try was NOT using the wizard and instead setting some of the options manually. A few more tests revealed that the results were much better. Not perfect, but useable. If you are willing to spend some extra time testing out how all the settings can change the results you can get some very good results with complete songs. We did notice the rendering time increase substantially though when we increased the "sensitivity". It went from a 4 minute render to 27 minutes for our 5 minute song.

So, next it was time to test a simple WAV file with just one instrument, a piano. Intelliscore handled this much better. We tried several settings with varying results, but when we loaded the midi file into Cubase to tweak it was much more useful. Not as many notes to clutter the playback. Very useable on single instruments or less "busy" songs.

Next was the the singing test. Instelliscore recommends singing with AAHS to improve recognition. I recorded a number of vocal takes and saved as wav files and then converted in IntelliScore It took some tweaking with the options but the results were pretty good. Definitely useable to base new songs on and use as a starting point for composing.

Next we took the included sample mp3 files and did a few conversions. Those resulted in much better midi files. The difference is that those files had solo piano performances and were therefor resulted in much more accurate midi files.

So... the Beat Mode verdict is that Intelliscore Polyphonic is a useful program that can get good results, however with some effort required (depends on the source material). Intelliscore can be utilized as a compositional aid for generating new ideas. We like to isolate little snips of midi and then run through the various presets on our synths. The resulting loops can be pretty unpredictable and can result in some great sounds. Also used in this manner it doesn't matter if you achieve 100% accuracy. For this application Intelliscore is very cool.

We would prefer that some of the advanced options and possible settings which are somewhat hidden away, would be available in the New Project wizard. It takes a little effort to find them. But in general it is very easy to get up and running and get useful results with Intelliscore. If you're looking for new ways to get new sounds and unexpected results you'll enjoy tinkering with Intelliscore and we recommend it. If you are expecting accurate translations of audio files with many instruments your results will vary based on your settings and the complexity of the source material.

Beat Mode gives Intelliscore Polyphonic a rating of 6 out of 10 possible. DECENT - worthwhile for some applications.

Beat Mode Product News - Intelliscore Polyphonic 4

Intelliscore Product Features & Info plus Demos available HERE.

Intelliscore review at Rocket Downloads