[Liberator]

Does anybody know of a program to convert an MP3 to a MIDI file?

[Galemp]

That's not possible; you'd have to play it yourself on a MIDI set, or find someone else's conversion.

If it's a mainstream pop song you might be able to find it on Albino Black Sheep.

[Liberator]

What about from WAV?

[Galemp]

Nope. MIDI is an entirely different audio encoding technique, that actually records the keypresses of the musical instrument. As a result MIDIs will sound different on every sound card, but they're very versitile and easy to record with musical instruments that plug directly into your computer instead of recording through microphones.

[Styxx]

Actually, there are programs that try to approximate a MIDI from a wave file. I used some of them to make ringtones for my cell phone a while ago, but I can't remember the name of the program. You'll still have to do some adjustments yourself, but the program does most of the work. I remember finding it through a simple google search for wave to midi converter or something.

[IceFire]

Its still not like saving a MP3 and saying "oh please convert this file magically to MIDI format".

MIDI is a programmable sound engine if you will...the instruments are defined by the system playing it which essentially gives it programmed data and basic notation like notes, rests, time signatures, tempo, etc.  Thats why MIDI sounds different depending on where you play it...the device has the sounds in it rather than the device decoding sounds present in the file.  Thats also why MIDI files are a few hundred KB on average rather than several megabytes.

[Styxx]

That's why I said "try to approximate" instead of "convert".

[Flaser]

A midi is like a sheet music.

A wav or its derivates are stuffing the whole orchestra onto the HD.

[01010]

Oddly enough I used one the other day. Can't remember where I got it from but it's called WIDI. Though it's not particularly good.

[Flipside]

Wav to MIDI converters only work with single instrument recordings, otherwise you just get a mess. All it does it fin what frequency the note is at and converts that to the correct Midi note.

Flipside

[Stealth]

Yeah a MIDI is different from other audio files... it's compiled, i think would be a good word to explain it, because MIDIs are made up only of notes.  That's why MIDIs sound so simple compared to regular audio files (ex: WMA, MP3, WAV, etc.)... because they're extremely different.


One of the programs I use (more than any) is "Audio Converter"... the name may throw you off, but this is a very powerful little program, lets you convert between over a dozen different formats, with many options:

www.e-soft.co.uk