Can you recommend a good MP3 to sheet music converter program that is accurate?
Hi again everyone. I apologize for asking lots of questions on the forum, but you all have helped me a LOT.
I am struggling to find a good program that will listen to an MP3 recording of a song, and convert it to reasonably accurate sheet music via AI. I've tried AnthemScore, AudioScore and one other, and they all are just not too accurate. They really struggle if there is more than one instrument, and mostly lose timing/tempo, with failure to properly identify measure bar lines (4/4, 6/8 breaks, etc.). The notes are frequently inserted only as 1/8th or 1/16th notes separated by rests, and the heck with beat.
What is the "best" MP3 to sheet music converter program out there that you all have used? I am willing of course to pay for it, if it is reasonably priced. Thanks so much in advance.
Comments
Could be worth a read:
https://windowsreport.com/automatically-transcribe-music/
But I think that humans probably do a better job than computer programs at present.
In reply to Could be worth a read: https… by yonah_ag
Thanks. I read this earlier today and tried the first 3 programs on the page. Unfortunately, as you suspected, the result was not great. I tried them out on an intermediate piano MP3 recording, and none of the three sheet music outputs were reasonably usable without a lot of editing. I can understand the challenge, but ...
Have any MuseScore users ever used an MP3 to sheet music converter that they liked? If so, I'd be grateful for your recommendation. Thanks
In reply to Thanks. I read this earlier… by fsgregs
Have you tried Melodyne?
Here's a conversion of polyphonic piano to MIDI: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvBYZPlitWE
In reply to Have you tried Melodyne?… by yonah_ag
Yonah:
I am looking for a program that will produce readable sheet music from an MP3 recording. I did not get the impression that Melodyne produces sheet music from its MIDI files. Apparently, MuseScore can, but I will need to investigate this more before I can reach a conclusion. I checked Melodyne and it is expensive ($700 for the studio version). I am not ready to spend that much, so ...
In reply to Yonah: I am looking for a… by fsgregs
MIDI to sheet music is trivial compared to polyphonic audio to MIDI. Musescore can open MIDI files and give you sheet music, as can just about every music notation app going.
Have a look at this
Meet Basic Pitch: Spotify’s Open Source Audio-to-MIDI Converter
https://engineering.atspotify.com/2022/06/meet-basic-pitch/
https://basicpitch.spotify.com/
In reply to Have a look at this Meet… by graffesmusic
Thank you for the tip. Bob below tested Basic Pitch out and did not find it useful for creating good sheet music (see below). I appreciate your effort though.
Frank,
I spent the better part of yesterday trying out many of the converter programs. Including Basic Pitch, Transcriber, and Amazing Midi. Basic Pitch produced the closest sounding midi. But the notation was unusable, Completely. Even though playback was not too bad. It seems to me that these programs are meant to produce a file that is used in a DAW, and can be manipulated there. Not in notation software.
For testing, I used a simple four part fugue that I wrote for piano. The wav. file was clean and without any effects.
Transcriber produces a midi but you can't save or download it.
Amazing midi hasn't been supported since 2003. There are no instructions on how to use it.
In reply to Frank, I spent the better… by bobjp
Bob:
Thank you for your kind efforts in checking those programs out. It is most disappointing that they convert a music file into a spectrogram, then identify on the spectrogram those areas that appear to be 1st harmonic notes, and write them down as sheet music, only to lose most all of the timing/tempo/beat. I can understand it, but ...
I will keep looking. Someday, one of these programs will break out and really work. In the meantime, I will restrict myself to less complex pieces.
We are a very long ways away from this being viable AI technology. Check back in a decade or two. Right now, human ears are 10000000 times better. Myabe each year you can knock a zero off that...
In reply to We are a very long ways away… by Marc Sabatella
Marc: Thanks. You are right I guess. The original software that started this thread is called "Anthemscore". It produced a reasonable score of sheet music out of an MP3 recording, but its timing/beat was non-existent and I would have had to redo the entire song manually, changing all the 1/16th notes to 1/8 or 1/4 notes, moving notes extensively to match 4/4 time, etc. I can listen to a song and write each of the notes manually, and I do that to some extent with every song I put onto MuseScore (over 55 to date), but at my age, ... it is getting so tiring!
In reply to Marc: Thanks. You are… by fsgregs
I’m not sure what courses or lessons you’ve taken in music theory or aural skills, but time spent working on those skills should pay off ten fold. If there is a community college where you could take an ear training course, I recommend it!
In reply to I’m not sure what courses or… by Marc Sabatella
Marc: I agree with you. Fortunately, I am quite good at ear training. I have over 50 songs now on MuseScore and all of them have ratings of 4.5 to 5, in part because I can hear and record notes just fine and the songs reflect it. As an example, listen to this particular song from Hans Zimmer I did: https://musescore.com/user/725791/scores/8686890. All the notes I identified purely by ear (no sheet music was available).
I thought help from a computer to convert MP3 recordings to a good starting set of sheet music would be worthy to buy. I now see that such a program does not yet exist, so it is back to listening only.
In reply to Marc: I agree with you. … by fsgregs
Hello, how much would you charge to convert an mp3 I wrote in to a score? I wrote it in college using Sibelius and then converted it to an audio file to upload to Youtube but then I lost the MIDI file and I haven't been able to replicate it yet.
In reply to We are a very long ways away… by Marc Sabatella
Agree. Try to get violin part from this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmLwlKSJa8c.
I can do it by ear and transcribe into Sibelius by hand but I've tried all the automatic systems I can locate. None that I've found can do it... AnthemScore comes close but no cigar...
:-)
In reply to Agree. Try to get violin… by Handy13
yonah_ag said
https://windowsreport.com/automatically-transcribe-music/
AudioScore Ultimate
NCH TwelveKeys
Akoff Music Composer
Melody Scanner
Soundslice
and
Melodyne
graffesmusic and bobjp said
Basic Pitch
Transcriber
Amazing Midi
I like
WIDI
Transcribe!
https://guitarians.com/g-chord-tell
Two ideas to try:
Instruments are picked out by lookng at the harmonic structure. This gets really messy in an ensemble. Some instruments are a lot worse, I suspect.
As a workflow you may need to bring it into a DAW that allows you to edit a "piano roll" midi and then you can move notes from one instrument to another. Check your work by having the mp3 as a track, then play it on one ear, and your corrected midi in the other ear.
Given how difficult a task this is even for someone who is musical, I'm amazed it works at all.
https://pianoconvert.latouchemusicale.com
Hey,
You can try PianoConvert, which is currently the most accurate software for transcribing polyphonic solo piano audio into scores and MIDI files (works with YouTube link or audio file): https://pianoconvert.latouchemusicale.com/
I've heard that they're going to extend use to instruments other than the piano soon, but I don't know more than that