OctavoOpen the app

Private preview

Your choir's sheet music, read and ready to edit.

Upload a PDF or photos of your octavos; get back a score you can fix in minutes, with the original page right beside it. Or write a new one.

The editor: a hymn being fixed, with the scanned page in a window that follows the cursor
1

Upload

A PDF or phone photos of the pages. Go do something else: you get an email when it's read.

2

Answer a few questions

Where the reading isn't sure (a smudged lyric, a bar that doesn't add up), it shows you that spot of the page and asks.

3

Fix the rest beside the scan

A score editor with MuseScore's keys. The page you scanned follows your cursor, so checking a bar is a glance.

4

Take it with you

MusicXML for MuseScore, Sibelius, Dorico or Finale; MIDI for rehearsal tracks; a PDF to print.

What it's good at

Made for choirs

Lyrics under every part, verses, dynamics, hairpins, chord symbols, divisi and voices, and a piano reduction underneath.

Checks itself against the page

Lyrics are spelled from the page's own text. Low notes are checked against the ledger lines in the scan. Bars that don't add up are flagged, not guessed.

Lines of music like your page

The score breaks where your original does, so each line sits level with the scan you're checking it against.

Write music too

Start a new score from a template, play notes in from a MIDI keyboard, add text, repeats, endings and ornaments, and print.

How well it reads

Measured on real choir pages it never trained on. No reader is perfect, which is why the questions and the editor are there.

Lyric syllables wrong, 5-page piano-vocal score

0.4%ours

11.4% PhotoScore 2020

25.8% Flat

Lower is better. Against the corrected score (corrected by hand, starting from our reading, so it may favor us slightly). Ours before any proofreading.

Notes right, same score (pitch, F1)

97.0%ours

97.3% Flat

70.4% PhotoScore 2020

Higher is better. Voice, right hand and left hand averaged; every reader's notes lined up with the corrected score the same way.

Notes read wrong, 10 choir pages

7.5%ours

42.5% homr 0.7

48.9% Audiveris 5.11

Lower is better. Symbol error rate against hand-made answer keys for 10 choir pages none of them trained on; every reader's MusicXML scored the same way.

Lyric syllables wrong, same 10 pages

13.8%ours

36.4% Audiveris 5.11

Lower is better. homr and oemer don't read lyrics at all.

Next to the others

From each maker's own pages, October 2026. Where they don't say, neither do we.

ProductRuns onPriceFreeLyricsDynamicsChord symbolsScan beside the editorAsks about doubtful spots
OctavoWeb5¢ a page, MusicXML included, no subscription100 pages✓Yes✓Yes✓Yes✓Yes✓Yes
SoundsliceWeb$5/month for 100 pages a month2 pages a month✓Yes✓Yes✓Yes✓Yes✓Yes
FlatWeb, desktop, mobile17–33¢ a page, plus $9.99/month to download MusicXMLNot stated✓Yes✓Yes✓YesNot statedNot statedNot statedNot stated
PhotoScore Ultimate 2020Windows, MacAbout $249 onceLite comes with Sibelius✓Yes✓YesNot statedNot stated✓Yes—No
ScanScore 3Windows, Mac$9–$79 a yearLimited trial✓YesPartlyPartly✓YesNot statedNot statedNot statedNot stated
PlayScore 2Phone, tablet, Windows$6.99/month or $59.99/yearOne-page scores✓Yes✓YesPartlyPartly—No—No
AudiverisWindows, Mac, LinuxFree, open sourceFree✓YesNot statedNot statedPartlyPartly✓YesNot statedNot stated

Price

Free while it's in preview. After that: the first 100 pages free, then $5 for each 100 pages you need. No subscription; pages don't expire.

Your pages and your corrections help the reader get better: we keep them to train it, and never share or publish your scores.

Read a score