Extract midi info from audio file: magics or reality?

Discussion in 'Working with Sound' started by Highdom, Jul 4, 2017.

  1. Highdom

    Highdom Kapellmeister

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    I'll tell the truth...I love this website because I usually can ask whatever I want...with no limitations, just being curious and foolish.

    Does it exist something similar to a software which can extract midi chords/lead/bass notes from an audio file? Even if not a full midi, just some info about the chord progression (minor major aug dim add...) or the bassline is playing?
    A kind of "super" mixed in key?

    Thanks!
     
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  3. Cashmeere

    Cashmeere Guest

    Ableton and Melodyne can do this and I'm sure theres some others but they're the ones I know and use, melodyne is your best bet
     
  4. Oysters

    Oysters Audiosexual

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    In my experience Ableton's audio to midi (especially harmony) is like taking a complex midi file and dropping it by mistake on the kitchen floor. You can still see some of it but it is mostly nonsense.

    i agree with Cashmeere- Melodyne is a good at doing this. not perfect, but common sense can fix the errors
     
  5. sisyphus

    sisyphus Rock Star

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    it really depends on the source material. Ableton and melodyne can both work great under different circumstances. But if you have distorted material, lots of instruments, drums etc... it does some miracles, but it can't do all.
     
  6. freefeet12

    freefeet12 Rock Star

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    They all suck, as far as I know, on anything complex/dense/busy.
     
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  7. Cashmeere

    Cashmeere Guest

    With melodyne if you have a full song it will pick up the bass in that song pretty well but anything other than bass will be a bit of a mess, main chords can sometimes be worked out but won't be in full and melody is pretty bad but If you've got just a single loop from say a sample pack then it should pick it up just fine, it works by analysing the frequency spectrum and converting that info to notes so it entirely depends on what you're using and it's frequency content
     
  8. subGENRE

    subGENRE Audiosexual

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    hornet songkey can tell you chords and keys with bacic stuff, but I was able to fool it easily with progressions that used all inversions and slash chords. It never gets the key right.
    Hey I know you're just starting out and you're looking for the short cuts and the easy way. But now would be a good time to start learning some basic theory so you can develope your ear properly to hear these keys and chords by sounding them out in your head. And if you keep at a long enough it becomes second nature
     
  9. savadious

    savadious Ultrasonic

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    If you can seperate the instruments in the songs then you are in luck. The results can be equated to VOICE-TO-TEXT in your cel phone or computer. If it is slow and clear you will get good results. The more it hears at once then the worse your results are.

    That is simply the limitation of the world of technology today.

    If you have a SOLO then you can get good results.

    I personally use Cubase PRO for this thing you mention. Dumping all my WAV's recorded into the phone (humming or singing what I hear in my head before its gone) while on the subway into cubase then I have instant melody lines to finish working on.
     
    Last edited: Jul 5, 2017
  10. Highdom

    Highdom Kapellmeister

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    Man, I need to tell you the truth...I've studied the theory (even if i need to revise it :bleh:) and I usually come up with this type of thing but the problem is that sometimes I make small mistakes like inversions or 7th harmony. I was searching for some correction tools, to get a comparison and correct it.
    You really got us! I'd like also to use it to get midi from my recorded voice:rofl:
    Thanks, good idea using Melodyne in poliphonic mode!
    Any other ideas?

    Thanks for all the replies so far!
     
  11. Sylenth.Will.Fall

    Sylenth.Will.Fall Audiosexual

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    Does it exist? Yes!

    Is any of it of any use? Lets just say you would get more use from a Milk Chocolate Teapot! You may as well listen to an audio file and build the midi from scratch yourself!
     
  12. watercolours

    watercolours Noisemaker

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    Melodyne works very good, you always have to correct things if you have a full busy mix.Ableton can work also well, I did midi file from a quite busy and changing drum part and it was just perfect, really,
     
  13. Backtired

    Backtired Audiosexual

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    If I want to extract a melody or a bassline or whatever and analyze it, I usually use an EQ to filter out everything I don't need.
    For example, if the melody is playing mostly around a specific range 2-5 kHz, I'll cut everything else and then drop the file into Newtone (or any other softwares mentioned above really).
    Another thing I used to do was looking at the Parametric EQ 2 for the fundamentals, most of the time I could check the notes from the frequencies and recreate the melody.
     
  14. TW

    TW Guest

    Melodyne.

    In Sonar this feature is quite good implemented. Not sure but i think it is the best implemetation of such a feature in a daw at the moment. I dont use it often. But If i use it, it is fast and acurate (works with ara - melodyne for sure). And it is really drag and drop ;).

    watch
     
  15. Baxter

    Baxter Audiosexual

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    I remember back in the day of AKoff Music Composer, AmazingMIDI, DigitalEar, etc. In the beginning of Audio2MIDI conversion. That kinda sucked. Sometimes you got good results, when filtering and boosting tonal areas and other tricks.

    Today technology has advanced quickly and we're almost there. Melodyne does a beautiful job.
     
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