How to input audio in computer as a midi file

[jchoy]

Hi. I am teaching piano part-time and in order to retain students' demands, I need to motivate them with new songs to learn and play at any time. And I failed my ear test when I took my piano teacher's exam. It took me days, sometimes weeks to listen to the students' wanted pieces on cassettes to come up with only the RH treble clef (melody) !

I am printing music (midi) files with MusicTime and have a sound card 16 bit Zoltrix audio 3200 player I think. Tried to download the audio 3200 v.1 & 2 user manual but http 404 error. There must be a way to input audio from my cassette recorder/CD player into Zoltrix audio 3200 player in midi format. I only have a 486/dx/33 running window 3.1 before and now windows95 so don't think I want to deal with .wav or mp3 or .au files (too big). Once I have the song (All I need is treble and bass clefs, just treble melody is good enough) in midi format. In MusicTime, I can import a midi format file and get scores out of it inside MusicTime which I can print, play on the piano and simplify for my students. This would be a real time saver for me and most wonderful thing that happen to me this year if I can do that after almost 10 years' teaching ! Don't think I need all the bells and whistles of Finale 2002, MusicTime has been serving me very well and I have a legal copy. May be I can do that already with Zoltrix audio 3200 player but I couldn't find the manual !

Have asked allexpert.com and got referred to Finale 2002 but I think Allison Zhang's internet multi-media file said I could use shareware utilities to convert back in 1995...Sorry don't expect much from PC mechanic forum but you guys are so energetic and helpful last time on my 486 questions......

[audiyoda]

Hi jchoy,

Sorry, but there is no way to take those tapes and input them into a computer as MIDI. MIDI is basically an instruction set -- a bunch of notes in a pattern. What you have on tape is going to be recorded to your computer hardrive as a music file (.wav, .mp3, .aif.....).

What you need is a MIDI keyboard hooked up to your computer -- that would allow you to 'record' their playing as MIDI data. The biggest problem you have there is very few MIDI keyboards (except professional rigs) have the feel of a piano.

-Craig

[jchoy]

Thanks for your reply Craig. I found the Audio 3200 software\hardware guide of Zoltrix. They are big and good. I read it before but never installed it properly just use MusicTime to print scores. Audio 3200 can record .wav .vox soundblaster files. I have a copy of Allison Zhang's internet mutli-media document in which she said I can convert from .wav or .vox to midi I think I read it somewhere there. Once I have a midi file, I will be home free. I import the midi file to MusicTime and it will produce scores for me up to 16 clefs and I can just edit out percussions and get base and treble clefs. I am still runing only dx/33 and a 250 Meg drive. I have 2 large used drives and an intel dx2/66 486 chip. I know what I need to do now. I have a pretty good sound card 16 bits from Zoltrix on the 486 currently not activated. Thank you very much for your kindness in responsing. Hope we can share more often. I am only interested in letting the computer print the melody out for me as opposed to me guessing with my poor ear. This is what computer is good at. A pity many people just use it for games and emails only. Music multi-media applications are computer's greatest strength, I think.

[audiyoda]

jchoy,

Let me reiterate: There is no way to convert a .wav file to MIDI. The basis is totally different. MIDI is a simple instruction set that tells the on-board synthesizer built into your sound card what notes to playback at what volume and at what tempo. A .wav (or .vox, .mp3, .aif.....) is a recorded file. It's an exact digital version of what you have recorded to tape -- it cannot include the basic MIDI instruction set for playback.

Is this the Allison Zhang document you are refering to: http://www.lib.rochester.edu/multimed/contents.htm Here is a quote from the music chapter refering to MIDI and then to a .WAV file:

MIDI stands for Music Instrument Digital Interface. It's a standard for transmitting musical information between electronic instruments and computers. MIDI is only able to produce music from sound boards, which means that you cannot expect to hear human voice or the noise of dog bark from the MIDI files. However, the size of a MIDI file is small, and it does not take much disk space. The quality of music is very good. If you are a starter to play computer music, the MIDI file is the first music format you should try. A MIDI file has an extension .mid or .midi. WAV This is an extension for Wave Form Audio File Format. WAV is also called RIFF WAVE format. It is a Microsoft Windows 3.1 sound standard. WAV files are sound data - digital representation of an analog signal, which are different from MIDI files that contain no sound data but lists of commands for MIDI devices. Therefore, WAV files are huge data files that take great amount of disk space. You need one megabyte disk space to play music for only one minute. A WAV file has an extension .wav.

No where in that document does she say any digitally recorded file (.wav or otherwise) can be converted to MIDI. Take my word for it -- I've been in audio production too long to not have found a way to do what you want. If there was a way to take a digital recording and easily transfer it to MIDI, that would make my days (and nights) much shorter.

-Craig

[glc]

http://www.pluto.dti.ne.jp/~araki/amazingmidi/

The problem I see is trying to work with wav files on a 486 - remember 1 meg a minute.

[Statica]

http://www.digital-ear.com/info.htm

[jchoy]

Originally posted by audiyoda jchoy, Let me reiterate: There is no way to convert a .wav file to MIDI. The basis is totally different. MIDI is a simple instruction set that tells the on-board synthesizer built into your sound card what notes to playback at what volume and at what tempo. A .wav (or .vox, .mp3, .aif.....) is a recorded file. It's an exact digital version of what you have recorded to tape -- it cannot include the basic MIDI instruction set for playback. Is this the Allison Zhang document you are refering to: http://www.lib.rochester.edu/multimed/contents.htm Here is a quote from the music chapter refering to MIDI and then to a .WAV file: No where in that document does she say any digitally recorded file (.wav or otherwise) can be converted to MIDI. Take my word for it -- I've been in audio production too long to not have found a way to do what you want. If there was a way to take a digital recording and easily transfer it to MIDI, that would make my days (and nights) much shorter. -Craig

Craig, you are correct, Allison didn't mention any .wav to .midi conversion - my mistakes..but the moderator of this forum has given me or all of us who cares about my question "a bar of gold" ! The answer seems to lie in Digital Ear. http://www.digital-ear.com take a look there to find gold. That might be my saviour from many wakeups in the morning humming a tune and quickly rushing to the piano to play it out and quickly write it down kind of non-sense. Finally, light in the tunnel ! Now the next step is to see if it will run on my old 486 horse. If not, I will get a loan to buy a used Pentium II then. I think it might barely run on a dx2/66.

[jchoy]

Originally posted by glc http://www.pluto.dti.ne.jp/~araki/amazingmidi/ The problem I see is trying to work with wav files on a 486 - remember 1 meg a minute.

Thank you for your posting glc. The last person has provided me gold info. please see www.digial-ear.com it can do exactly what I am looking for although it might not run that good or at all on a 486 dx2/66.

[jchoy]

Originally posted by Statica http://www.digital-ear.com/info.htm

Thanks a million for you help, statica ? forum moderator ? I hope it is affordable and probably very it-ffy on a 486 dx/33, I will upgrade to dx2/66 if it doesn't work. Thank you once again. I have asked Allexpert.com and hitsquat.com a few expert site forum and got back with Finale 2002 recommendation and tons of conversion utilites sites. But it really looks like your answer is the one that really counts !

[Statica]

Hi jchoy:

The prices are listed as $79.95 for the Digital Ear version and Digital Ear RealTime version as $119.95 (from: http://www.digital-ear.com/buy.htm)

The best bet for you at this time is to either email their support or join their forum http://www.digital-ear.com/forum.htm ; and ask them the queries you have before you spend money on it.

Good luck with it.

[audiyoda]

Can I add something here:

1) I've used Digital Ear and I can tell you -- it is not even close to precise. As long as the input file is perfectly on tune, Digital Ear is okay, but if there is any tonal ofset, it cannot handle it.

2) Digital Ear only works on a Solo Input. IE...voice, single instrument like a trumpet or sax. It will not work with a piano input which has multiple 'voices' or tambres. I quote from the web page:

Digital Ear can analyze a live or recorded solo performance (e.g. a singing voice, a saxophone solo, or any other musical instrument) and convert it into a standard MIDI file!

3) For all the hype AmazingMIDI throws out, I've tried this program as well and it just does not work. I've looked at their sample recording and noticed one thing -- it was not played by a person. It was recorded via a sequencer which triggered a synthesizer to make that recording. How do I know?-- I've recorded at least 200 solo piano recordings, both live and in studio, to know that no one can be that perfect in timing. I purchased that program for my studio last March and can testify it does not work.

I'm in no way trying to hinder your search for such a program -- but in my profession a program like that that would truley work would be gold. No more re-takes, no much punch ins, not more hassles. But they just don't work. So I can gurantee you no such program exists that can take a multitambral source like a piano and convert it's playback into MIDI.

-Craig

[waveman]

1) I've used Digital Ear and I can tell you -- it is not even close to precise. As long as the input file is perfectly on tune, Digital Ear is okay, but if there is any tonal ofset, it cannot handle it.

IMHO This is NOT true. Actually, Digital Ear's main strength is that it can handle pitch bends accurately. Perchaps you forgot to adjust the pitch wheel's range to +/- 12 semitones.

2) Digital Ear only works on a Solo Input. IE...voice, single instrument like a trumpet or sax. It will not work with a piano input which has multiple 'voices' or tambres. I quote from the web page:

This is true. I don't know any software that it can handle *reliably* polyphony.

[audiyoda]

Originally posted by waveman IMHO This is NOT true. Actually, Digital Ear's main strength is that it can handle pitch bends accurately. Perchaps you forgot to adjust the pitch wheel's range to +/- 12 semitones.

Digital Ear has difficulty with fluctuation in tone -- tremelo, vibrato and the like -- otherwise very quick pitch changes. It also has difficulty with guitar work where there's a lot of quick fret work or any and all hammering. The program's just not worth the price IMHO.

And as you said, there is no program that can handle polyphony well if at all -- and that's the entire point of this thread.

-Craig

[waveman]

Digital Ear's analysis window is 20ms-90ms this is
fast enough for many cases. In the newest version 4.01
that I just got it offers a 5ms(!) resolution which
can handle the fastest vibrato you can ever play.

(A normal vibrato is around 7Hz)

See the demo flute.mid at http://digital-ear.com/midi.htm
Or go directly:

http://digital-ear.com/flute.mid
http://digital-ear.com/flute.wav (this is the original .wav)

[juanito]

I have been working with MIDI since the days of Comodore Vic 20 and Atari and now do it on Win 98 and Mac and Linux and can tell you, with certainty that there is nothing out there that will make an accurate MIDI file from any type of audio file, unless it is simple, one note at a time.

Going back to your original question, I believe that either Band in a Box or Power Tracks Pro would be more helpful to your music teaching, in that they allow you to manualy enter notes and/or chords, one note at a time. Been using both since 8088 days; they will work well on a 486, but aren't free (reasonable though).

Juan