SOFTWARE TO COPY MP3 TO MUSIC NOTATION??

[sixchannel]

Can anyone advise what is out there?
Like with BIAB where you can input a tune as mp3,wav etc and it will work the chords out for you and input them into BIAB, is there anything like it where you can input your tune on mp3 etc and it give you either the musical notation or tab directly from it?
cheers
ian

[93strat]

Hi Ian.
Try this link.
Cheers Alex

www.freebyte.com/music_software/

[John Haldane]

Hi Ian
Would be interested in what piece of software you went for.
Cheers
John H

[zager]

Hi Ian, I looked into this a few years ago myself without success. As far as Im aware, there is nothing that will convert an mp3 file into notation or tab accurately. A few make an attempt at it but the result are not good. Unless things have changed recently i would think its still the same. Regards Tony

[garystrat]

Hi Ian

To the best of my knowledge the audio needs to be in MIDI format to produced either accurate TAB or notation.

Seventhstring Software "Transcribe", is not really what you are looking for, but it may be of help in analysing a file. They do a trial period so you can see if its of any use:

www.seventhstring.com/

Another which probably gets much closer is "Capo", but this is Mac OS based and requires some experience on the users part to generate TAB. It may well be worth looking at their website to get some idea of what is possible, as they give a reasonable idea of how it works:

supermegaultragroovy.com/products/Capo/

Gary

[fenderbullits]

Hi

I don't know if it works with mp3 but Band in a Box will give you the chords to songs from Cd hope this helps.



regards

Martin

[shadfan4]

There is nothing available that will produce notation from an mp3 file, assuming you mean a complete track?

Gary, may be pedantic, but midi is not audio but simply data.

The only software I know of and have used is Celemony Melodyne Studio, this will show individual notes on a stave from a single mono track.

Celemony have now released a version that will pick out individual notes from chords but still only single tracks.

This software's prime function is for pitch correction.

Mike.

[tonybiker]

Hi.

It is possible to extract instrument data from a sound file, if that's mp3 or audio, you can then save this as data as a midi file. Once you have the midi data you can get the tab from that using something like guitar pro which opens up any midi file, if that's a single track, for example lead guitar or Multiple tracks, bass, drums piano and so on.

The software is made by 'Itelli Score' but it is not a simple case of converting the sound to data (midi) it is a bit more in-depth than that and it is a bit hands on, but it does work and if the audio is 4 instruments like The Shadows, then the job is not that difficult, the down side it's expensive at around £100.

I have previously used their software to extract a single drum track from an audio mp3 and it gave me the information I needed in the form of a full drum midi file.

For those who don't understand what midi is, and Mike did touch on this.

AUDIO, if that's from mps, WAV etc is SOUND, it is not data as such.

If you load audio into your recording software it would look like this:



MIDI, is DATA not sound. In a simple explanation they are triggers where you can apply virtual instruments to make the sound. Once you have this data, you can then use this to trigger whatever virtual instrument you want.

This is what a midi file looks like loaded into the same recording software. You can see dots and dash's, this is the midi data or triggers. Each dash or dot will contain basic data like length of note, key etc.



The problem has always been how to extract the audio and turn it into midi data so it can be used. Something I never thought was possible.

What it will not do is give you the exact playing position, which is no different than a normal midi anyway, but it will give you the correct key and the right number of notes, so for example you may find all the notes are on the first two strings once the midi file is loaded into Guitar Pro. However, once you have this information you can simply work through the 'suggested' tab data given and change the playing position.

I have tried a number of other options and all failed, but Intelli Score does work, but like I said, it's not cheap and you do need a good understanding of midi and audio processing.

Instructional movie here. Admin, please don't delete this link, it is on youtube for instruction by the company who wants to sell it, which is good for them and great for the guy's here who thought it was impossible to extract audio and make a midi file and then print off the tab from it.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=oThtBBItsj8

If anyone is interested in buying it, I have a voucher for $10 off, but it expires on the 26 September, so the first PM can have the discount.

Tony

[George Lewis]

Hi Tony (and all),
Intelliscore is amazing and very ambitious.
Your success in extracting a drum track is very interesting.
Did you try with lead guitar parts ?

I used an evaluation copy recently, hoping it would be an easy way to create archival "reminder" tabs for fiddly bits of tunes where my now limited cranial capacity doesn't remember how it was done after a few months, unless played regularly. ;D

Intelliscore certainly created midi tracks but the lead line was pretty much unusable because of myriads of false notes, harmonic notes, double stops, bends, echo notes etc. The effort to clean this up was way more than just transcribing manually.
I then tried recording only the lead ... no echo, no effects, no bending or fancy stuff and just single notes. This was marginally better but again not really worth the effort.
I didn't try using an acoustic which might work better.

Since PC based tuners are readily available one would think a bit of software to record and show at least what notes were played and convert to midi notes would be possible. I suspect the harmonics and complexities of a stringed instrument like the guitar makes this tricky to achieve. ??

regards
George

[tonybiker]

Hi George.

The drum track was not that difficult, and it's a decent drum track I am always after due to the hours it takes making it up.

It is impossible to apply accurate bends, pre-bends, hammer on/off etc to midi, and you are correct when you reverse the process that if the audio contains it, the midi data can be difficult to understand and about as clear as mud.

I did find that once the software isolates an instrument, say lead guitar, if you suggest another instrument like a piano, bass guitar then the midi data can become clearer. Echo/delay gives you a longer tail on the midi because it looks at it as a sustained note rather than an effect and some bends are taken as another note.

What you are left with you need to clean up, and this is where you need to be hands on. I use Mixcraft 5 which allows you to magnify the midi and edit to suit. I find it faster though to simply write out the full midi manually for some lead guitar.

For these drums I used this audio:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzQ1pNfbe3Q

I extracted the drums which you can hear in the original are covered in reverb. The software did suggest part of the drum track as a bass guitar, so you just have to work though the data and isolate parts of it.

I ended up with 14 tracks of midi data, a lot to work with, although some parts were useless.

This is the full BT. I am sure you will agree that the drums are far superior than the original but it took a while to clean it up and there was a bit of guess work with what was what, kick, toms, bass etc. But if you know about drums the battle is not as difficult. A simple task of copy and paste such as the longer intro which is what I wanted on the BT, and I just selected the virtual instruments. Parts missing I made up. You need to apply each drum part, toms, cymbal, kick, snare etc. You can not just select a full drum kit and expect it to recodnise it.

www.4shared.com/audio/ZNbhlhnN/LOCH_LOMOND_BT_V6_2.html


The end result was a full BT, although the bass and over driven parts I had to do myself.

Tony

[George Lewis]

Hi Tony,
We seem to have hi-jacked Ian's thread ... he's such a nice bloke hope he doesn't mind.
Thanks for the more detailed info. Great rock version of Loch Lomond and the BT turned out excellently, though obviously thanks to a lot of hard work. Are Were you intending to do an instro version of the tune ?
regards
George

[tonybiker]

Hi George.

Ian won't mind, I am sure it will cover his questions anyway, or I hope it does.

I make BT's for mostly live work but 'Chrissouthamton' has been given the BT and tab and should have it recorded for the weekend. I will be recording it at some point, but that when i go to Grimsby again and use Clivea's CS strat, ever since I have played and recorded London Kid on his strat mine sounds like a banjo!

I am hopeful this will turn outb to be a great track. I will be sharing the tab as well as the BT with members.

Tony

[rogerbayliss]

Try this link for a review of several audio to MIDI converters one of which is FREE

www.skytopia.com/project/articles/mp3-to-midi.html

[roymattblack]

There's a prog called GUITAR PRO 4 which is designed for creating guitar tabs and scores.
There are lots of places where you can download freebie versions.
Make sure it's Guitar pro 4 and NOT Guitar Tracks pro 4. GTP 4 is a full recording/effects suite - brilliant - I use it, but it isn't the one you want.
Roy.