I have a bunch of tunes that I have collected, that are midi files. Is there a way to convert these to ABC format easily, and preferably at little or no cost?
Don't mean to be flippant, but you already have the software (auditory processing) and hardware (ears, hands, pencil and paper) to do this. Except for the pencil and paper, it's free, and the more you do it, the easier it becomes.
Midi to abc (or other notation) isn't always reliable though. The difficulty is that midi works on events that happen at a given time (can be down to miliseconds, I think) and the timings need not correspond to anything in conventional notation. A convertor tries to work out a "best fit" to notation but sometimes you can find the resulting notation is quite weird with all sorts of odd note lengths, etc.
It really depends on how the MIDIs were created.
I assume they use only one voice (instrument)?
Short answer is you can spend alot of energy & never get satisfactory results. If the MIDIs are particularly good I would go along with cheshire. Listen to the audio & transcribe it in notepad. Pencil & paper ~ that's cute puddy tat.
ABC is universal because it is so simple. It fairly easy to make an audio file from Abc. Going from the audio to any type notation of is not so simple.
It all comes back to using your own ears.
Midi tunes to ABC?
Midi tunes to ABC?
I have a bunch of tunes that I have collected, that are midi files. Is there a way to convert these to ABC format easily, and preferably at little or no cost?
# Posted on October 5th 2007 by GoatBasher
Re: Midi tunes to ABC?
Er, listen to them and transcribe them?
Don't mean to be flippant, but you already have the software (auditory processing) and hardware (ears, hands, pencil and paper) to do this. Except for the pencil and paper, it's free, and the more you do it, the easier it becomes.
# Posted on October 5th 2007 by Will Harmon
Re: Midi tunes to ABC?
You could try midi2abc which is in the abcmidi package see
http://abc.sourceforge.net/abcMIDI/
Also,try looking through the software list at the abc homepage
http://www.walshaw.plus.com/abc/software.html
Midi to abc (or other notation) isn't always reliable though. The difficulty is that midi works on events that happen at a given time (can be down to miliseconds, I think) and the timings need not correspond to anything in conventional notation. A convertor tries to work out a "best fit" to notation but sometimes you can find the resulting notation is quite weird with all sorts of odd note lengths, etc.
# Posted on October 5th 2007 by Jon Freeman
Re: Midi tunes to ABC?
It really depends on how the MIDIs were created.
I assume they use only one voice (instrument)?
Short answer is you can spend alot of energy & never get satisfactory results. If the MIDIs are particularly good I would go along with cheshire. Listen to the audio & transcribe it in notepad. Pencil & paper ~ that's cute puddy tat.
ABC is universal because it is so simple. It fairly easy to make an audio file from Abc. Going from the audio to any type notation of is not so simple.
It all comes back to using your own ears.
# Posted on October 6th 2007 by Ben Steen
Re: Midi tunes to ABC?
Sorry for the typos. Make that pencil, paper, & eraser.
# Posted on October 6th 2007 by Ben Steen