Is the bass right?

Someone wrote down the bass notes for the song "3 Gene" by ear. A computer then tried to check them by listening to just the bass track.

The computer and the written notes did not always match. But the bass track is muddy, so the computer often hears the wrong note, always a note that still fits the chord.

So a computer cannot settle this. Your ears can. Each row has a play button for the real bass, and two little speaker buttons that beep the two guesses. Listen, then decide which guess matches the real bass.

Tap ▶ real bass on any row. It plays the recording at that spot for about 1.6 s.

3 Gene — bass ear-check

The adjudicator. A machine cannot settle the disputed bass notes, so this page hands them to your ear.

My read: the tab is substantially right and I did not rewrite it. The low agreement scores come from a bass-pitch tracker fooled by harmonic bleed, not from wrong notes. This page lets you confirm that by ear and flag any beat that truly is wrong.
pyin agreement
0.665
July 7, monophonic tracker
HPS agreement
0.555
fundamental tracker, this pass
The two trackers agree
56%
with each other
Disputed beats
41
16 inside June-28 flags

Why a machine cannot settle it

Two independent pitch trackers were run on the separated bass stem: librosa.pyin (July 7) and a harmonic-product-spectrum fundamental tracker (this pass). They agree with each other only 56% of the time, and when they do agree the tab already matches them 80% of the time.

The tell: on every one of the 41 beats where both trackers gang up against the tab, the note they claim is a consonant chord tone of A major, the song's key. A tab is written A, the trackers hear C# or E. Written F#, they hear D. Real transcription mistakes scatter; harmonic bleed always lands on a chord tone. That pattern says the trackers are catching a partial or a bleeding guitar, so the written bass is the trustworthy fundamental.

Rewriting the notes to match the trackers would push the score to look perfect while making the file wrong. So the notes stand, and the call goes to your ear.

The 41 disputed beats — you decide

Each row: hear the real bass at that spot, then beep the two candidate pitches. Green is what the tab says, red is what both trackers say.

WhereTimeReal bassTab saysTrackers say
bar 9 · beat 0 0:23 tab A trackers C#
bar 12 · beat 0 0:31 tab E trackers F#
bar 16 · beat 0 0:42 tab F# trackers C#
bar 32 · beat 0 1:25 tab A trackers E
bar 32 · beat 1 1:25 tab A trackers D
bar 32 · beat 3 1:27 tab F# trackers D
bar 33 · beat 3 1:29 tab A trackers C#
bar 35 · beat 3 1:35 tab A trackers C#
bar 36 · beat 1 1:36 tab C# trackers D
bar 36 · beat 3 1:37 tab F# trackers D
bar 37 · beat 3 June-28 flagged 1:40 tab A trackers C#
bar 38 · beat 3 June-28 flagged 1:43 tab F# trackers D
bar 39 · beat 3 June-28 flagged 1:45 tab A trackers C#
bar 42 · beat 1 1:52 tab D trackers C#
bar 48 · beat 0 2:07 tab F# trackers C#
bar 48 · beat 1 2:08 tab D trackers D#
bar 56 · beat 0 2:29 tab A trackers E
bar 56 · beat 1 2:29 tab A trackers D
bar 56 · beat 3 2:31 tab F# trackers D
bar 57 · beat 3 2:33 tab A trackers C#
bar 58 · beat 1 2:35 tab C# trackers D
bar 59 · beat 3 2:39 tab A trackers C#
bar 60 · beat 1 June-28 flagged 2:40 tab C# trackers D
bar 60 · beat 3 June-28 flagged 2:41 tab F# trackers D
bar 61 · beat 3 June-28 flagged 2:44 tab A trackers C#
bar 62 · beat 3 June-28 flagged 2:47 tab F# trackers D
bar 63 · beat 3 June-28 flagged 2:49 tab A trackers C#
bar 64 · beat 3 June-28 flagged 2:52 tab F# trackers D
bar 65 · beat 3 June-28 flagged 2:55 tab A trackers C#
bar 66 · beat 3 June-28 flagged 2:57 tab F# trackers D
bar 69 · beat 2 3:05 tab D trackers F
bar 74 · beat 1 3:17 tab B trackers D#
bar 78 · beat 0 3:27 tab F# trackers A
bar 78 · beat 2 3:29 tab B trackers E
bar 82 · beat 0 3:38 tab F# trackers A
bar 84 · beat 1 June-28 flagged 3:44 tab F# trackers E
bar 89 · beat 0 3:57 tab D trackers D#
bar 92 · beat 0 June-28 flagged 4:05 tab E trackers F#
bar 95 · beat 1 June-28 flagged 4:13 tab A trackers D
bar 97 · beat 1 June-28 flagged 4:19 tab A trackers D
bar 99 · beat 1 June-28 flagged 4:24 tab A trackers D

To hear the whole transcription

The tab viewer plays every part with a moving cursor. Solo the Bass track there and play it against this stem: 3 Gene — tab + solo viewer. The clock-fix report with the full method is at 3 Gene — clock fix. Prior static report: report-static.html.

If your ear says a beat is genuinely wrong, tell me the bar and the note you hear, and I patch exactly those beats into a forward copy of the MIDI and GP. No blanket rewrite.