Converting mp3/wav to midi.

[[wcip]Angel]

Not being able to find a midi-version of Ennio Morricone's "Extacy of gold" from the film "The good, the bad and the ugly", I decided to put some effort into finding out whether it was possible to convert an mp3 or a wav-file to midi-format.

Is it feasible?

edit: If you're wondering why on earth I would want Extacy of gold in midi, it's because I want it as a ringtone for my Nokia 3510i cellular phone.

[--Pete]

Hi,

Wave files like .wav and .mp3 are digitized representations of the waveforms of the sound. The difference between those various formats is in primarily how they are compressed. Midi files do not contain a representation of the actual sounds. Instead they contain instructions for generating those sounds. To go from the instructions (midi) to the representation (wav, mp3) is quite easy -- simply "play" the midi file and capture the output. I don't think you can go the other way except through human intervention. Kind of like generating a recipe from the meal.

A couple of sites that give more info are:

http://www.phonescoop.com/glossary/term.php?gid=114
http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,...i212600,00.html

--Pete

[Yrrek]

It is possible, I haven't been able to find it on a quick search, but there is a program you can download and will convert from mp3 or wav to midi. I can't recall the name, but try broad searches. :) Sorry I'm not much of a help, I have to run. Good luck!

[Kartoffelsalat]

Can you post a link to the .wav file so I can poke it a bit? I seem to remember doing this once, but have no idea how I did it.

[--Pete]

Hi,

However, http://www.hitsquad.com/smm/news/9903_101/ seems to indicate that it can only be done in the simplest of cases. Even that is somewhat amazing. From the discussion in the forum on that site, it sounds like a wave file containing a single voice can (sometimes, somewhat) be converted. Good luck.

--Pete

[Quark]

I think the best thing to do is find the sheet music and write it in yourself. I had alot of fun trying that with my sister's Samsung earlier this year (the program I found to do it in the phone's native format was, shall we say, lacking).

[[wcip]Angel]

Thanks for the replies everybody.

I *would* sit down and write the whole thing (I've got the programme for it) but I don't have the sheet music. (If I *had*, I would've gone to my conductor and demanded we play it.)

I've spent some time searching the web for the score, but I just can't seem to find it.

Kartoffelsalat. I'll convert the mp3 to wav and upload it tonight.

[[wcip]Angel]

Can you post a link to the .wav file so I can poke it a bit?  I seem to remember doing this once, but have no idea how I did it.

Here is the URL to the wav-file.

Whatever you can do..

[Kartoffelsalat]

I got it to be a midi file by opening it in windows media player and saving it as a .mid. The computer recognizes it as a midi, but it sounds just like it did as a .wav, so I have my doubts. I can't get the midi version to upload, but maybe you could give this a shot and see if it works for you. Good luck.

[Guest]

That is not a midi file, that is a wave file with a changed file extension - good programs will look in the file not the file extension for how to play it though.

As for how to do it - why do it? I know nothing about music making, but from what I understand, if you've got a good ear, you should be able to convert from what you hear (by hand, of course) to sheet music?!?


[Edit] *read reason* Ooooh. Well, you could look around for music forums and ask if someone would bother converting (re-creating is a better word) it?

[[wcip]Angel]

I think the word you're looking for is "arranging" .

Well, I play the drums, meaning I do *not* have a musical ear.

I can play notes, but I can't understand or interpret tones.

If I had even the slightest resemblance of that ability, I'd pluck down in front of my PC and arrange the whole song, just for the fun of it, but sadly, I cannot.

[Nystul]

Is this the same as track 1 of S&M, or are you looking for a different arrangement? I think I can pick out at least the melody line, and perhaps more. To get you anything better than a text file with note letters and values though, I'd need to find the relevant software.

By the way, what tempo is that lick in your sig played at? And are those single strokes or what?

[[wcip]Angel]

It's 9*32-triplets in 60, so it's quite misleading ;) (Although still hard to play, seeing as you have to start the drum roll with your left hand, or your triplets with your left hand to get your drum roll to land on your right.) The piece is called "Symphony of marches" by Gilbert Vinter. I'll be playing it in Bergen, Norway on Friday 13th February, in the second section of the Norwegian National Championship for Brass, immediately followed by the intense binging of a dangerous high amount of alcohol. :)




About the song:

It's the same song from S&M, but not the same track. The S&M-version is shorter. Of course, I need this for a ring tone, so I don't need the whole 3-minute song, obviously.

I can do the snare drum myself. All I need is the melody and background stuff. (Yes, I'm laughing now too.)

"Background stuff; oh you mean the rest of the song?"

Yes, that would be an accurate assumption :P


For an easy-to-use programme, you should try "Studio XP 2003". It's so easy, even *I* managed to get it working.

Of course, if you're more familiar with Finale2004, or some other programme, I won't stop you from trying something else. :)

(And I'd be eternally grateful if you'd manage to do *anything*. There's really no pressure. Getting Extacy down on paper is one of my life goals, and it wouldn't be much of a goal if I already achieved it at age 21, now would it? :) )

[Nystul]

It's 9*32-triplets in 60, so it's quite misleading

Ah that's not so bad. My school of thought is that no tempo should ever be allowed to go slower than 90, and any string of notes that needs more than two flags on them should be double stroked :)

I can do the snare drum myself. All I need is the melody and background stuff. (Yes, I'm laughing now too.)


Hah! The individual parts here are mostly very simple, but there are a lot of them. I guess that's typical of orchestral music :P What I will try for is a functional bass line, the melody and the echoing countermelodies, and maybe a few things in the midrange if they are really prominent. Some of the things that happen in the midrange are hard to distinguish.

Found some shareware/demo that will be good enough to get the job done. No promises or timetables.

[[wcip]Angel]

Ah that's not so bad.  My school of thought is that no tempo should ever be allowed to go slower than 90

Well, the conductor is conducting at double speed if that helps

(no?)

:P

Found some shareware/demo that will be good enough to get the job done.  No promises or timetables.

Of course not. If you manage to do *anything*, I'll be both impressed and thankful, and if you don't get to do anything; hey at least you replied to my thread :)

[channel1]

It's not really amazing, in fact it's pretty common.

I've done 'puter work for a few professional music studios. There are tools for doing the conversion, but the average user won't want to pay the bucks for them. Cheapest I'm aware of is about a thousand bucks.

One thing I saw that is really cool is a midi microphone. Sing into it, pipe it through the synth, and you "sing" like a guitar, or whatever instrument you set the synth to. Perfect for those air-guitar players out there. :)

-rcv-

[Kartoffelsalat]

I found a free .wav to midi converter called WIDI. I converted it to a .mid, and it sounds horrible. There's really just too much going on in that piece to make it decent. I'd show you what I got, but I have an unregistered version, and I can't save it. But I suppose if you got a simplified version and payed to register, you could get it to work.

[Kartoffelsalat]

I found this on-line: Linky
It kinda cuts short on the end, but I doubt you'll have a two-minute ringtone anywhoo.

It's on my host due to hotlinking issues. Much luck.

[[wcip]Angel]

Thank you very much for the midi and the wav->midi-programme. I'll check out the progamme first, but if I can't get it to work, I'll see if I can fix the notes on the midi which were a tad off.

I really appreciate your help. Thanks a bunch!