Convert Audio to MIDI for Free with Basic Pitch Website - Open Source - No Login Required
Tutorial | Jan 23, 2023
In this video, the polarity demonstrates how to use the open source website Basic Pitch to convert audio to MIDI. It is easy to use, does not require a login or payment, and does not upload or store audio. The speaker also shows how to adjust the BPM setting in the MIDI file. Finally, polarity recommend using the website as a free and open source alternative to the paid plug-in Samplab.
You can watch the Video on Youtube
What can you do with this tool? #
With the website, you can drag in WAV files or audio files and get a MIDI file back so you can convert audio to MIDI. You can also go to the GitHub page to download scripts and use it on the terminal as a Python script, or develop a GUI application for it. None of your audio is saved or stored, and you can use the website offline. You can also adjust the MIDI file tempo to match the BPM of the audio file, and it can recognize pitch bands from one note to the other.
Whats the benefit of the tool? #
The main benefit of this tool is that it is open source, free to use, and does not require users to upload any audio as it is processed within the web page. It also allows users to download scripts and use it on the terminal as a Python script or create a GUI application.
How can you use it? #
You can use Basic Pitch to convert audio files to MIDI files. Simply drag in a WAV or audio file, and the website will generate a MIDI file that you can then drag into a DAW such as Bitwig. You can also adjust the tempo and note recognition for more accurate results. The website is open source and does not require you to upload any audio, so it's perfect for offline use as well.
Transcription #
If you don't want to watch the Video, or search for a specific topic, here is the transcription of the video with links to video markers:
[00:00.000] Hey, folks, welcome back to another video.
[00:02.800] Today it's about this website here called Basic Pitch, and this website allows you to
[00:09.160] drag in WAV files, audio files, and you get a MIDI file back so you can convert audio
[00:17.600] to MIDI, right?
[00:20.600] And the good thing about this website is that it's first, it's open source, so you don't
[00:25.760] need to pay money, you don't need to log in, and you can just use this website here so
[00:31.840] you don't need to install anything.
[00:34.600] If you don't like this workflow, you can go to the GitHub page here because this is open
[00:40.760] source, it's developed by Spotify, and you can download here some scripts and can use
[00:46.720] it on the terminal as a Python script if you want to, or maybe you can develop a GUI application
[00:53.000] for it if you want to.
[00:55.160] For me, actually, the website is just fine, and the other benefit is that you actually
[01:02.680] don't upload anything to the website, so here's a note, none of your audio is saved or stored,
[01:09.920] it all stays on your machine.
[01:12.400] So it's basically processing within the web page, so you can use this also offline.
[01:17.160] If you load up here this web page and then you go offline with your laptop, it should
[01:21.320] work completely fine, so there's no audio upload whatsoever, and I want to demonstrate
[01:26.840] you in this video how this works and how good this works.
[01:31.480] So we have here some samples, and this is pretty easy, we have a lot of information
[01:37.680] you're already in the file name, so we know it's 1 out of 72 BPM, we know it's G minor,
[01:43.360] so it's not very hard to figure out what's happening in the file.
[01:52.240] Also the pattern of the melody is not very complicated, but it's fine for the demonstration,
[02:01.080] so just track this in, you can see it's already analyzing here the file within the website,
[02:07.600] and then we get here an overview what's happening, and it looks exactly like what we're hearing
[02:16.320] in the audio, and all you have to do now is basically click download, and it downloads
[02:21.240] here basically a file, and we have to stand here in my explorer, and all we have to do
[02:29.000] is drag this into here, and onto this track we have a Poly sender, and we can play this,
[02:39.960] but you can hear it's in the wrong speed setting, or it's the wrong BPM setting, and the thing
[02:48.160] about this is here, it doesn't recognize the BPM setting, but you can change this down
[02:53.680] here with the MIDI file tempo, so when you export this MIDI file, you can say it's 120
[02:59.560] BPM, what we know with this one is 172, right, something like this, and then you hit export,
[03:09.480] and then you drag this in, and it's different, you know, it's stretched out, so you can go
[03:15.440] into this example which is 120 BPM, select all this, and then drag this out here to four
[03:23.880] bars, one, two, three, four, right, so you get the same, yeah, result basically, but
[03:33.080] you can also type in 172 BPM, and then you export basically the MIDI file, and you get
[03:39.640] this here, so it sounds that it's actually the same thing, so maybe drag this in here
[03:50.320] to the second channel, loop this, so right, so we played the same rhythm, we played the
[04:04.920] same notes, it's completely clean, you don't need to clean up anything, but like I said
[04:11.000] in the beginning, this example is pretty easy, so it's a clear pattern, it's a clear note
[04:16.480] pitch, right, so it's not that hard actually to figure out for yourself on your own manually,
[04:24.000] so but I want to give you this as an example how this works here, and maybe we can do here
[04:29.560] another one, so this is heavily percussionistic, so it sounds more like some noise samples
[04:46.080] through a resonator or something like this, so it's pretty peaky, so we track this in
[04:51.480] here, and you can see there's no notes recognized, maybe this one on this one, right, so we can
[04:58.480] play around here down with the sliders a bit, because this gives you a lot of options, so
[05:05.720] we know it's 172 bpm, so we can dial this in here already, and you can see we can change
[05:11.040] your note documentation, modal, confidence threshold, so we can pull this down to get
[05:16.000] more notes, so maybe 0.15, so something like this, so there's already something happening,
[05:30.560] if you pull this down even more, you can see we can, a lot of noise you're already in,
[05:38.480] so 0.15 is perfectly nice, so download this, download MIDI, pull this in here, also sounds
[05:57.840] like it's exactly what we heard before here with this example, so you get all the notes
[06:13.600] from this example out here, perfectly fine, and you can build a scale from this, maybe
[06:19.800] you have some unusual scales in the sample, so you can build scales from this and completely
[06:25.840] base your track around a loop, or an audio loop you sampled from somewhere, and the good
[06:33.800] thing is that it also recognizes pitch bands, so I think there are also pitch band information
[06:39.680] in there if you pitch band from one note to the other, and you can also play around here
[06:46.280] with these notes and clean up your MIDI file before and before you drag it into Bitwig,
[06:52.840] so it's a very nice way of working with samples, would be nice to have this actually included
[06:58.480] in Bitwig, of course, but I think this is pretty nice also here to use so far, you can
[07:05.520] even record, hit record and then just work with that, and like I said the website is
[07:11.520] completely free, you don't need to log in or anything, and I get always here recommended
[07:16.840] this plug-in called Samplab, and it does basically the same thing, except that you have a plug-in,
[07:25.280] you load in a VST plug-in, and then you drag the sample into the VST plug-in window, and
[07:33.040] then you drag out the MIDI file, so it's kind of the same workflow, but here you have to
[07:38.360] log in, and I think it's also, it costs money, I don't know if the results are better or
[07:45.920] anything, in my opinion you get the same kind of results, here you can distinguish between
[07:54.800] drums and bass and vocals, instrumental and so on, so it's maybe a bit better, I don't
[08:01.160] know, so you have to, yeah, it's basically a decision you have to make, what kind of
[08:08.520] thing you like better, but this one works pretty well for me, and I want to recommend
[08:12.440] this because it's free, and it's open source, so you can build upon it if you want to, so
[08:18.320] I want to give a shout out to this website, the link is in the description below, try
[08:21.640] it out, and I think that's it for this video, thanks for watching, leave a like if you liked
[08:27.400] the video, and I'll see you in the next one, bye.