What is the best audio to midi file converter?

[ddeez]

Im looking to load up an mp3 or wave file of a song (or even better a folder of them) and convert these songs to midi. I'm wondering does any program do this accurately? If so what is it? What does everyone recommend? Thanks much in advance!!

[osiris]

I've tried quite a few and have never found one able to do this precisely. Most require the sound file to be mono also. Your best bet would be to just find the midi file of the song. Ringtones are midi files also, FYI.

[ddeez]

damn no kidding thats a real disapointment. has anyone else had better luck? Also can anyone recommend a couple good sites for a huge archive of midi songs?

[opus_diaboli]

damn no kidding thats a real disapointment. has anyone else had better luck? Also can anyone recommend a couple good sites for a huge archive of midi songs?

You want to convert a whole song at once? Believe me, this is impossible. The best result so far is possible with Melodyne. The most expensive version can even handle polyphonic material, e.g. played piano chords. But a whole song - no. It might be possible for Melodyne Editor to dissect the different instruments if the arrangement is not too complex (which is, by the way, genius, no software so far was able to do that), but AFAIK you get a bunch of MIDI notes then without a clear assignment to the different instruments.

You should better spend some time in ear training.

[ddeez]

Thanks much for the response! Ok so melodyne is the way to go...it has a export to midi function I assume? Also does it naturally sense where the "1" is if you will? I.E. Does it know where the bar starts in a piece? Thanks so much in advance!!

[opus_diaboli]

Thanks much for the response! Ok so melodyne is the way to go...it has a export to midi function I assume? Also does it naturally sense where the "1" is if you will? I.E. Does it know where the bar starts in a piece? Thanks so much in advance!!

Yes, Melodyne can export analysed audio into MIDI. And, used as a plugin, you can synchronise it to the host tempo. I suggest to download a demo version to check if this is the right tool for you:

http://www.celemony.com/cms/index.php?i ... editor&L=0

Edit: you need to set up the right tempo. Melodyne doesn't take care of bar one or whatever. If the host tempo is correct, then you should be able to see it on your own.

[ddeez]

Great thanks so much I really appreciate the help. If anyone else wants to chime in feel free!

[justin3am]

I've tried using Melodyne for this kind of thing (just as an experiment) and even with DNA it can't handle converting a complete mix into midi. Anything with a lot of percussion seems to confuse it. The most complex signal I had any success with, was a recording of just piano and acoustic bass.

There really is no application that can accurately identify each instrument in a mix and convert the parts into midi. You'll have better luck tracking down a midi file for the song or transcribing it yourself.

[Tony Ostinato]

converting audio to midi is basically transcription, and ive always said computers will be driving before they are transcribing.

but now some computers are driving so it might not be as long.

i transcribe all the time, mainly for horn sections but also for all kinds of other things. the more you do it the better youll get at it until it comes pretty easily.

things like audio quality and mix quality, drums and guitars covering up the horns etc can make it pretty challenging but often you can kinda focus your ears thru the noise and clutter to hear what you want to hear, might be hard for a computer for awhile.

heres a couple i did, one of imogen heap "hide and seek":

http://soundcloud.com/tonyostinato/hide ... nyostinato

and one of weather report "a remark you made":

http://soundcloud.com/tonyostinato/a-re ... nato-cover

back in the day i used to have to use either a turntable or a cassette deck and it was a lot of picking up the needle and putting it back over and over and over.

nowadays with the computer you can just loop the section youre working on and chart it up and then move to the next section, soooo much easier.

but either way its slow going, but it can be a lot of fun.

[stanlea]

So in short, there is no magical "black box" taking audio and delivering a clean, usable midi file. But you can still find some useful tools to understand how the song is made.

Here, you can find a bunch of very handy tools :
http://www.sonicvisualiser.org/

But you have to learn and practice : software+ your ears

[chaibuka]

http://www.cool-midi.com/
http://www.mididb.com/
http://midiworld.com/files/upload/
http://www.hittrax.com.au/advsearch_H.asp

[Ranoka]

Im looking to load up an mp3 or wave file of a song (or even better a folder of them) and convert these songs to midi. I'm wondering does any program do this accurately? If so what is it? What does everyone recommend? Thanks much in advance!!

I've found converting to midi can work if it's with simple tones like sine waves, or whistling - so you could whistle the melody and convert that. I've tried mainly with Newtone that's in FL Studio (Basically Image Line's version of Melodyne I believe). You will probably have to manually slice and adjust stuff yourself, also I find I need to manually adjust the timing etc in the piano roll once I dump it. I don't think any tool will do all the work for you! You will get better results manually transcribing, but it's quite time consuming but also relaxing.

For going down the transcribing route, the thing I've found that helps is to use a Spectrogram like Wave Candy in FL Studio - which lets you adjust the scale to show the notes!

WaveCandySpectrogramScale.PNG

I also really like Photosounder Sprial, which gives a very intuitive way of visualising the notes a bit like a tuning tool. The video explains it very well:

[Blaster]

Technology has come a long way in 8 years. Still not perfect though.

[phaded]

I've found converting to midi can work if it's with simple tones like sine waves, or whistling - so you could whistle the melody and convert that. I've tried mainly with Newtone that's in FL Studio (Basically Image Line's version of Melodyne I believe). You will probably have to manually slice and adjust stuff yourself, also I


I also really like Photosounder Sprial, which gives a very intuitive way of visualising the notes a bit like a tuning tool. The video explains it very well:

Piggyback off this post:

If you can isolate individual instruments in a full mix (as best as feasible) with filtering or spectral processing *prior to* using a note to midi converter it will lead to cleaner results.

You can actually achieve such isolation with Photosounder's Photosounder!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=you ... AGZeJE03jM

[Distorted Horizon]

Spectral tools from Schwa and visually see the notes magically däng sähn wikki wikki