Audio to MIDI converter

[Neimenljivi]

Hey guys, does any of you know any good program which can automatically convert audio files (.mp3 or really any other audio file) to a midi one?

~N

[ramen07]

try this:
http://www.widisoft.com/mp3-to-midi.html

i'd offer to write something for you but i'm not sure i have the programming capabilities nor the time

[Neimenljivi]

I tried that one already, had no success
What I want to do is this: I want to transform mp3 in a good midi file, mostly to separate the instruments from one another. I don't care much about other instruments, I'd just need midi of guitar(s) (although bass would be nice too, and of course if I could get all instruments that'd be splendid, but I'd need each and every instrument separated from one another, not have all the tones in the song mixed together on a guitar track), as I want to import the midi to guitar pro (the program in which you can store tabs, notes, whatnot, and let it play them for you so you can see which notes you have to play) as it's a lot faster to learn tabs/notes through guitar pro than to listen each tone and try to match it with the one on guitar first, and then learn the sequences, times, etc.
So in other words - I want to either separate all instruments from the mix, or just isolate the guitar and be able to capture only the guitar tones in the midi of guitar (the midi has to be *.mid file)

~N

[ramen07]

I tried that one already, had no success
What I want to do is this: I want to transform mp3 in a good midi file, mostly to separate the instruments from one another. I don't care much about other instruments, I'd just need midi of guitar(s) (although bass would be nice too, and of course if I could get all instruments that'd be splendid, but I'd need each and every instrument separated from one another, not have all the tones in the song mixed together on a guitar track), as I want to import the midi to guitar pro (the program in which you can store tabs, notes, whatnot, and let it play them for you so you can see which notes you have to play) as it's a lot faster to learn tabs/notes through guitar pro than to listen each tone and try to match it with the one on guitar first, and then learn the sequences, times, etc.
So in other words - I want to either separate all instruments from the mix, or just isolate the guitar and be able to capture only the guitar tones in the midi of guitar (the midi has to be *.mid file)

~N

that's quite a chore as both a guitarist and programmer (just saw van halen live last friday!!), i know and understand the motivation, but the job itself is a bit of a pipe dream as of late. there are a few methods of isolating certain frequencies which may or may not work- ill give it a try and let you know. otherwise, slow it down to around 80% or 60% speed in audacity and go through the grueling process of tabbing.

ill be working on it...eventually

[Drought]

did some reading up on audio to midi conversion.
Problem here lays the audio needs to be rendered into tones.
There are only few tools who are able to do this, and from what I read the quality varies. (generally negative)
Simply because you have one file containing all types of sounds and the tool needs to recognise what it is it wants to render it to.

The more optimzed file you have (ie mp3, small etc), the more dificul the tool it will find to re-render the tunes to tones.

I read some positive responses about a tool called 'fruity loops' it seems to have an export to midi function.
Another one is called "midi tracker".


All in all, the most optimum results have been achieved by people compiling their own on simple synthesizers and saving the files as midi as oposed to rendering one from existing sounds.

[Neimenljivi]

Yeah I do realize it's probably a heck of a job, but it'd make life of us guitarists a lot more easier

Thanks for the explanation, Duck Dodgers, hopefully these two might have some better results than the ones I've already tried

~N

[Tek]

I have experience doing the opposite of what you want, IE mixing instrumentation vocals etc into an MP3

The problem you're going to have is that any program isolating single instrumentation will mean isolating the strongest frequency it operates in, and with it being mixed in with the rest of the instrumentation, to separate it from the rest will need low end & high end freq to be cut off. You'll probably end up with something around the mid range which sounds thin and hollow. Not sure if that will be a problem for what you want to use it for.

When sampling i sometimes use Fruity loops, it has sliceX which lets you isolate parts of a track and convert it into a seperate wave form, but this doesn't separate the individual instrumentation. It's mostly used for isolating kicks and snares. You could try and apply various filters, to isolate the frequency the instrument you want singled out operates in but since alot of melody & vocals share space in the mid range you might find it's not as singular as you need it.

For Bass guitars, you could try applying a low end pass filter to the waveform through fruity loops or any other DAW.

[Neimenljivi]

I figured that the frequency ranges of different instruments overlap each-other which is why you cannot isolate specific frequency for a specific instrument as, if there are other instruments in the song which play in that frequency range, those other instruments will be kept together.

I want to isolate the sound of an electric guitar, I don't really mind if the sound is not exactly the same, I just need the same tones which is what guitar pro needs when it imports the file to correctly transform it to guitar tabs.

All help very appreciated guys

~N

[Drought]

One of the fruity loops version 'out-there' contain large amoutns of samples of individual instruments, guitars as well.

Perhaps it is an idea to simply load an exisiting guitar, select a tone and export it as desired to .midi

[Neimenljivi]

I'm installing it now, should have some time to play with it tomorrow

~N

[Juliette]

Didn't Sibelius cover this?

[ramen07]

I figured that the frequency ranges of different instruments overlap each-other which is why you cannot isolate specific frequency for a specific instrument as, if there are other instruments in the song which play in that frequency range, those other instruments will be kept together.

The problem you're going to have is that any program isolating single instrumentation will mean isolating the strongest frequency it operates in, and with it being mixed in with the rest of the instrumentation, to separate it from the rest will need low end & high end freq to be cut off. You'll probably end up with something around the mid range which sounds thin and hollow. Not sure if that will be a problem for what you want to use it for.

I had in mind something like this:
http://openbookproject.net/py4fun/wave/wave.html

have yet to try it though. I'm not sure if the fourier analysis will select single instruments, but a bunch of frequencies resembling an instrument could possibly be put together