PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Off-Topic Audio To Midi Software

Just playing with searches today and discovered this type of software exists. I had heard of similar software over the years, but the conclusion was that the technology is not here yet to remove vocals, etc. from an audio file. I thought the same would be true to convert from audio to midi, but apparently there are a number of different programs out there alleging that it can be done. Some are quite expensive in the hundreds of dollars. Some are free to try but have limitations as to saving, etc..

Just curious if any one is using or has tried any of these "polyphonic" conversion programs. FWIW

Stan

Google "Melodyne" and do a forum search here too. The basic version does single notes but the full version is supposed to do multitracks.

Bob

"Melodyne" from Celemony, and its various incarnations, is the leader of the pack.

It costs some serious money, but it works. You get what you pay for in this instance.


--Mac

Do you think the basic version could convert a monophonic bassline accurately to midi? The reason I ask is I always wanted to be able to play a bassline and look at the notation of what I played (as a way to help learn to read better and to help my playing). Also I could then easily create a midi style with my own 'style' of bass playing.

Even though the basic version of Melodyne is very powerful it will not convert audio to midi if I understand correctly from their Q&A's. You will need the Editor edition. You can go to Celemony's site and download the trial version of Editor and see if it will do what you want.

Steve

Thanks for the info. I had heard that Melodyne costs some serious $$ as Mac points out. It is tempting to play with for 30 days though....Hmmmmmm.

@pwarren....Yes, please let us know how it worked for you, if you try it.

Stan

I have Melodyne Editor. It is a groundbreaking technology, to be able to edit audio within chords, and it didn't cost so much at Guitar Center. I'm not sure how this program relates to this thread, however.

The trial version does give you a complete idea of the program, but you may have to seriously adjust the buffers on your soundcard to make it work, as I did.

Matt is right about the new Melodyne technology. It is awesome. It tears chords apart and lets you play with them and convert the polyphonic recording to MIDI if you want. Getting Melodyne to take a polyphonic recording of ONE instrument and convert to MIDI is one thing, taking a recording of multiple instruments and doing the same thing is problematic at best.

Melodyne's latest technology is called Direct Note Access (DNA). DNA makes Melodyne polyphonic so that it can identify separate notes and place them as "blobs" on its timeline. The technology works pretty well if you have a recording of a single instrument that is playing chords. It attempts to identify the separate notes that make up the chord and places them on the timeline. Even in this most ideal situation of an audio recording of a single instrument it isn't 100% accurate and the software guesses at some notes. You as the user have to go in and verify the guesses and other wise help the software out to get the best results. After you have it verified, you can convert the audio to MIDI. The program is great as an audio program for correcting missed notes and out of tune instruments. You can even change the key from major to minor, or change the key up or down for the whole performance.

The notion that this is a multi-track or multi instrument program is probably true in the strictest sense of the word but believe me, unless there is some version of Melodyne that I haven’t used with some new multi-track technology, getting it to efficiently split out the individual instruments for you is going to be no easy task if you can do it at all. Melodyne can identify individual notes in an audio recording but if it identifies a middle C, it can't tell you if that middle C is being played by a guitar, a piano, a trombone, or a percussive instrument tuned to that note. So the software is going to give you that entire jumble of notes and you are pretty much going to have to tell Melodyne what the significance of each note is. The only way that I could see to do it would be to select one instrument at a time and delete every note that it didn't play, leaving only that instrument standing, then convert that to MIDI. Then you would have to do the same for every individual instrument. Sounds like quite a task to me. I’ve read several posts on the forum in the past that people believe that it can be done, but I don’t think I’ve read a single post where someone said that he or she has actually done it.

Audio-to-MIDI with software instruments or with direct MIDI output is only available in Melodyne studio which is by far the most expensive flavor of Melodyne. In Melodyne editor and Melodyne assistant, audio notes can be converted to MIDI and saved as a Standard MIDI File. This Standard MIDI File can be imported to a MIDI track in your DAW to make it trigger a hardware or software instrument. The most basic version of Melodyne, Melodyne Essentials, has no MIDI capabilities at all. Of the entire line , only Melodyne Editor has the the DNA technology.

A little time spent googling will yield prices signifantly lower than buying direct from Celemony.

I wasted a bunch of hours yesterday looking at various music software. I had no idea that there are literally thousands of programs out there for various purposes. I had been thinking of changing my notation pgm (sibelius 4) for some time. This page has some pretty good reviews:

http://music-notation-software-review.toptenreviews.com/

I downloaded a couple and didn't like them as well as what I have already. More features doesn't always equal a better pgm to me. The cheaper ones have limitations from their "deluxe" ones and the trial demos don't have all the features that would enable a complete evaluation, IMO. I remember when Noteworthy was free and now it's $50. I couldn't get my usb keyboard to work in some of the pgms. I'm just mentioning this as an example of what is probably true for other types of software such as daw's. I know that it takes time to develop a pgm as I've taken some computer science classes, but some of the limited function pgms are way over priced, IMO. Others are feature heavy because they try to be all things to all people. I had been working with Sibelius before I had even heard of biab/rb. It has all the features that you really need in a notation pgm....once you find them. Mine doesn't have a mixer or render to audio, but I have those in other software. As to printed sheet music, I like biab the best. I'm still learning notation entry with it though and I'm actually progressing with it.

Anyway, it's been a good educational experience to me. I guess it was something that I just had to get out of my system. The free trials do help in quickly determining whether a pgm might not be something you want. Although Melodyne may be state-of-the-art, I'm going to pass on it for now. I guess the main lesson I've learned regarding new music software is, be receptive to innovation, but proceed with caution. Oh yeah...and "The grass is always greener...(ad nauseum).

Stan

Thanks to retake and jazzman etc. I'll try the Editor trial version as soon as I get a chance. If it works well for me I'll post the results.

I see your point Mac. Maybe that isn't the best way to get better at sight reading. It might help with confirming that I've got things right though and, more importantly, it might let me make some pattern files of my playing.

It's worth a try with the demo version anyway.