Track2MIDI is a utility that converts audio tracks into MIDI format. This tool is useful for musicians and producers who want to extract note information from recorded audio for use in digital audio workstations (DAWs) or other music production software.
The Challenge
Converting audio to MIDI is a non-trivial problem that involves:
- Pitch detection from complex audio signals
- Note onset and offset detection
- Handling polyphonic content (multiple notes at once)
- Dealing with noise and artifacts in real recordings
How It Works
The conversion process involves several signal processing steps:
- Audio Analysis: The input audio is analyzed to extract frequency content over time
- Pitch Detection: Fundamental frequencies are identified and mapped to musical notes
- Timing Extraction: Note starts, durations, and velocities are determined
- MIDI Generation: The extracted information is encoded into standard MIDI format
Use Cases
This tool is particularly useful for:
- Transcribing melodies from recordings
- Creating MIDI backing tracks from audio references
- Extracting drum patterns for remixing
- Learning songs by converting them to editable MIDI
Built with Python
Python’s rich ecosystem of audio processing libraries made it the natural choice for this project. The flexibility of Python allows for rapid experimentation with different algorithms and approaches to the conversion problem.
Find the project on GitHub.