Audiveris online: use Audiveris without installing it

The short answer

There is no official Audiveris web app. To use it without installing anything, you need a service that runs it for you. Musaica is a free online sheet music reader that does exactly that: it sends your upload through Audiveris on our servers, displays the recognised score in your browser and plays it back. If you need to correct recognition, batch-process files or get MusicXML for free, the desktop app is still the better choice.

What Audiveris is

Audiveris is an open-source optical music recognition (OMR) program. It reads printed notation from PDFs and images and outputs MusicXML (.mxl). It runs on Windows, macOS and Linux, is licensed under the AGPL, and was at version 5.11 at the time of writing. It is developed by the Audiveris project and its contributors, and it is the recognition engine behind Musaica, and behind MuseScore's PDF import. We are grateful for their work; if you find it useful, the project's GitHub page is the place to report issues or contribute.

How Musaica uses Audiveris

1. You upload a PDF, PNG or JPEG (up to 50 MB) in your browser.
2. Musaica runs Audiveris on its servers to recognise the staves, notes, rests, clefs and time signatures, and stores the result as MusicXML.
3. The score is engraved in your browser with OpenSheetMusicDisplay and played back with sampled instruments, with a cursor that follows the music.

Because it is the same engine, recognition quality is broadly what you would get running Audiveris yourself. What Musaica adds is everything around it: no install, a playable score, and practice tools.

We chose to build on Audiveris because it is open, well established and handles a wide range of printed notation. Building on an open engine also means anyone can see how recognition works, and improvements made by the project can reach everyone who uses it. You can read more about how Musaica is put together on the about page.

Audiveris desktop vs Musaica at a glance

When the Audiveris desktop app is better

• You want the MusicXML file, free. Audiveris exports .mxl at no cost. In Musaica, MusicXML export is part of the paid plan. If a file is all you need, install Audiveris.
• You need to fix recognition errors. Audiveris includes an editor for correcting what it recognised before export. Musaica plays what was recognised and has no editor.
• You have a lot of files. Batch processing a folder of scans is far more practical on your own machine.
• You want full control or offline use. Running it locally means your files never leave your computer, and you can tune it as you like.

When Musaica is the easier route

• You cannot or do not want to install software, for example on a school laptop, a Chromebook or a phone.
• You want to hear the music, not just get a file. See sheet music to audio.
• You want to practise with it. Slow passages down, loop bars, use the rhythm counter or check your intonation with the intonation trainer.
• You want a particular sound. Musaica plays piano, guitar, violin, oud, tanbur, kanun, ney and duduk.

A workflow that uses both

Hosted and desktop Audiveris are not either-or. A practical pattern looks like this:

1. Hear it first in Musaica. Upload the page and listen. If it sounds right, you can practise straight away.
2. If it needs fixing, open the same file in Audiveris desktop. Correct the recognition in its editor and export .mxl.
3. Finish in a notation editor if needed. Open the MusicXML in a program such as MuseScore to adjust layout, add markings or transpose.

That keeps the quick listening step in the browser and the detailed correction work where the tools for it live. If you are new to the file format, what is MusicXML explains what .mxl files contain and which programs open them.

Getting good results from Audiveris, either way

Audiveris does best on clean, printed notation. A flat, evenly lit scan at around 300 DPI makes a bigger difference than anything else. Handwriting, very dense orchestral pages and blurry photos recognise less well, and lyrics and chord symbols may be dropped. See scanning sheet music for the best results and how optical music recognition works.

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