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Audio File to Midi Converters

AlanB

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Vientiane, Laos
Hello - Has anyone had any experience using MP3 (or WAV) to MIDI conversion software and then plugging it into a score editor to get a printout of the charts.

I have had a lot of success downloading MIDI files, putting them into NoteWorthy and getting the score (at least something I can work with to quickly orchestrate each instrument part).

The thing is, I would like to do this with any song I like and not rely of the web to find a midi file of the song to download.

Any advice would be much appreciated.
Cheers,
Alan
 
If you're talking about using a full audio mix to create a MIDI file, I think it's highly unlikely you will find anything that even attempts it.

There are a few audio-MIDI converters which can be used on single note (monophonic) parts but even in expensive, professional software programs, they are at best 'flakey'. It's probably going to be quicker and more accurate to transcribe it yourself.
 
Yes, very tricky! This one may be worth a look, converts WAV to MIDI. I downloaded the demo. Source (WAV) file must be mono and it seems fussy about other aspects of the original encoding. WAV fle that comes with demo is just a half dozen note sax rif (which of course it converts fine!). $89 to $129 depending on version. Couldn't try it with an ensemble WAV tonight, may try again tomorrow ... although don't hold out a lot of hope to meet requirement as originally posted.

Whoops, left out the link, its:

http://www.digital-ear.com/digital-ear/wav-to-midi.asp
 
Thanks Guys - this is what I thought. There is a bunch of software out there that claims to be able to convert polyphonic MP3 (or WAV) to MIDI. It seems very hit and miss. There is a lot of configuration required and you probably really need to know what your doing to even get a basic result from which you then have to do a lot of editing to get anything reasonable. I downloaded a couple trial versions and got rubbish results. I guess the reason I asked the above question is...if this is something that requires a lot of training and trial and error...but in the end you can get good results, I would be willing to put some time and effort into it. But if the software simply isn't up to it...I don't want to be wasting my time. Thanks again for your replies. I will check out your suggestions. Let me know if anyone does find one that works well....especially splitting up horn sections into individual lines...would be wonderful....but I doubt it's possible.
Cheers, Al
 
Hi Alan,

I think you would be better off spending your time learning to transcribe by hand and using your ears (as you appear to be doing with 'Our House'). If you do this regularly you will become very quick at it and be much more useful to your band in live/rehearsal situations as well. You really can train your ears with regular practice - you begin to spot harmonies/chords and voicings without even thinking about it after a while and you won't lose this ability due to any sudden lack of software support! ;o)

Also, have you looked at some software called Transcribe? It's $50 but is really valuable for this sort of work. You can slow down tracks but retain the same pitch, which is great for working out those fast runs. You can also use EQ presets to hone in on the frequencies/instruments you are working on. It will even attempt to tell you what chords are playing at any given moment (though again, you have to use your judgement as well).
 
Hi Alan,

I think you would be better off spending your time learning to transcribe by hand and using your ears (as you appear to be doing with 'Our House'). If you do this regularly you will become very quick at it and be much more useful to your band in live/rehearsal situations as well. You really can train your ears with regular practice - you begin to spot harmonies/chords and voicings without even thinking about it after a while and you won't lose this ability due to any sudden lack of software support! ;o)

Also, have you looked at some software called Transcribe? It's $50 but is really valuable for this sort of work. You can slow down tracks but retain the same pitch, which is great for working out those fast runs. You can also use EQ presets to hone in on the frequencies/instruments you are working on. It will even attempt to tell you what chords are playing at any given moment (though again, you have to use your judgement as well).

Thanks a lot for this advice and sorry for the slow reply. I have now bought Transcribe and find it very useful. It has replaced my AmazingSlowDowner. You are definitely right that transcribing by ear really helps your music, i have learn't so much in the last 2 or 3 months. The trouble is I have about 30 tunes to transcribe this summer for our horn section and, having a day-job, could use a little help to speed up the process. Having said that transcribing each piece by myself makes me really understand it inside out and back to front, which is important for the rest of the band.

On transcribe how do you isolate different instruments and how do you get chord notes or do you mean by the graph at the bottom?
Cheers
Alan
 
Thanks a lot for this advice and sorry for the slow reply. I have now bought Transcribe and find it very useful. It has replaced my AmazingSlowDowner. You are definitely right that transcribing by ear really helps your music, i have learn't so much in the last 2 or 3 months. The trouble is I have about 30 tunes to transcribe this summer for our horn section and, having a day-job, could use a little help to speed up the process. Having said that transcribing each piece by myself makes me really understand it inside out and back to front, which is important for the rest of the band.

On transcribe how do you isolate different instruments and how do you get chord notes or do you mean by the graph at the bottom?
Cheers
Alan
If you want heads and chords then you might consider getting Band in a Box. It costs about £99. Once you have it you have hundreds if not thousands of songs available to you to download in biab format.

Once downloaded you have the chord and melody sheets that you can print in the different tunings.
 
On transcribe how do you isolate different instruments and how do you get chord notes or do you mean by the graph at the bottom?
Cheers
Alan

I'm on a Mac here, so it may be slightly different if you're using a PC:
- Under the Windows menu, open the 'Audio Effects & Controls' window (or click the FX-EQ button at the top of the main transcribe audio window.
- On the EQ tab you should find a number of presets on the right side, or you can create/fine tune your own using the graphic EQ sliders. It depends on the complexity of the track how well this will work but it should help you to focus in on the part you a re most interested in.

- The chords 'guesser' is always active. Click on a beat in the audio window, where there is a chord change and you will see the guesses under the audio waveform on the right (just above the spectrum graph).

The most important thing I find is getting the bass note right, then if you can find the top/melody note as well then it rather narrows down the options for what the rest of the chord could be. Once you can do this and get a bit of experience behind you, you can transcribe by ear really quite quickly and get whole songs down in just minutes - especially if you are doing mostly pop music. It's writing them all out which takes the time. I sometimes still have to make a best guess if there is a dense part with several chord alterations but when you get to that stage it almost doesn't matter - it'll be close enough for the majority of punters!
 
Hmmm that is strange. I don't seem to have any pre-sets in the EQ tab, only the equaliser sliders. Also i don't have any chord guesser displaying. Do I have an old version ...7.05.0 ??
Al
 
Perhaps yes. Mine is version 7.51.0 on the Mac.

Can you save your own EQ settings though?
 
Ha....found it. I had an old version - cheers everyone.
Alan
 

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