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How can I convert an MP3 file to MIDI on Windows? Since MP3 is not losssless, is it possible to get MIDI out of a MP3 file?

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  • I don't think lossless or not has anything to do with recognizing notes to make a midi approximation. As long as compression artifacts don't completely distort things.
    – Peter Cordes
    Jun 5, 2015 at 19:55

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There are several tools out there. The free but rather dated AmazingMIDI which takes in .wav files and generates the corresponding MIDI. You can convert to .wav from .mp3 using Audacity or ffmpeg.

Then there are a few commercial products such as AthTek DigiBand, WidiSoft, and others.

Note that figuring the tune from the recording can be done only as an approximation, and the resulting accuracy depends on the sound profile of the audio content. So don't expect a 100% accuracy, you'll have to try several tools and find the one that yields the better result for your specific case.

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That is not possible because MIDI is not an audio file format. It's a description on how to create music. Think of a midi file as a sheet music for a piece of music, whereas an mp3 would be a recording of someone playing the piece. So in order to create a midi file from audio recordings, you'd need some kind of score recognition program, which - to my knowledge - doesn't exist. A quick google search brought up a website and some software claiming to do that, but I wouldn't trust any of them. You can try it if you really want to, but even if they work at all the results will most likely be terrible.

If you need a midi file for a given piece of music, try to find the original score / sheet music! It's quite easy to create a midi version if you have the sheets.

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  • The reason I needed this was that I couldn't find the music score/sheet but I could find an MP3 or MP4 file of the music.
    – qazwsx
    May 25, 2015 at 17:16
  • Why do you need that anyway? An alternative would be to ask someone with music production experience or someone who plays an instrument for help. Many of those will be able to transcribe the song manually, at least if it doesnt have to many layers of sound ...
    – MoritzLost
    May 25, 2015 at 17:24

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