WAV to MIDI Converter

Record a melody, upload the WAV and get back a .mid file in which the pitches and timing are notes you can edit, play with any instrument or open as sheet music.

or drop MP3, WAV, M4A … files here ·

Max 95 MB per file· Up to 20 files· Deleted after 30 minutes

Output

Convert to

Files are processed on our servers and deleted after 30 minutes.

How to use this tool

1
Add the WAV take
Upload one or more .wav recordings, up to 20 files at 95 MB each. A clean take of a single voice or instrument transcribes best.
2
Keep MIDI selected
Convert to is already set to MIDI (transcribed notes). Use Start at and End at to skip a count-in or the silence after the last note.
3
Convert and import
Press Convert to MIDI (transcribed notes), download the .mid file and drag it onto a software-instrument track in your DAW, or open it in notation software.

How WAV to MIDI transcription works

A WAV file is a stream of samples, 44,100 or 48,000 numbers per second that trace the shape of a sound wave. MIDI holds none of that. A Standard MIDI File is a list of instructions along the lines of: note 60 starts on beat one with velocity 90 and stops half a beat later. Going from one to the other is transcription rather than re-encoding, because something has to work out which notes were played.

Transcription software follows the fundamental frequency of the audio over time, rounds each steady pitch to the nearest semitone and marks a new note wherever the level jumps. The loudness at each start becomes the note's velocity. What you get back is a melody line that you can assign to a piano, synth or string patch, transpose, quantize or turn into notation.

The people who need this are mostly musicians working from their own recordings: songwriters who sang an idea into a phone, guitarists turning a riff into notes, producers doubling a recorded bass line with a synth. If you only have an MP3 of a finished song, convert MP3 to MIDI explains what to expect from a full mix.

WAV to MIDI: the numbers inside a MIDI file

note numbers, 0 to 127, with middle C at 60: 128
channels on one MIDI port: 16
velocity of a sounding note: 1–127
year the MIDI 1.0 specification was published: 1983

Recording a WAV that transcribes cleanly

Do	Don't
Record one voice or one instrument per file	Upload a full mix with drums, bass and chords playing together
Leave a moment of silence before the first note	Expect strummed chords to come back as tidy, separate notes
Separate repeated notes with a tiny gap so each one has its own start	Leave distortion, chorus or heavy pitch correction on the track
Bounce the take dry, with reverb and delay switched off	Let the metronome click bleed into the microphone
Tune the instrument first, since pitches between semitones get rounded	Count on vibrato and slides surviving; they settle on the nearest steady notes

What a MIDI file keeps and what it drops

Standard MIDI File (.mid)SMF · .midi file · MIDI sequence: A file format from the MIDI Manufacturers Association, published in 1988, that stores timed MIDI events such as note on, note off, velocity, tempo and program changes in one or more tracks. It contains no audio: the synth, app or DAW that plays it supplies the sound, which is why the same file sounds different on every device.

WAV

Waveform Audio File

WAV is an audio container created by Microsoft and IBM in 1991, usually holding uncompressed PCM audio. It preserves full quality, which makes it standard for recording, editing, sound effects and mastering. A minute of CD-quality stereo takes about 10 MB, so files are large. Every operating system, editor and most players open WAV, though metadata support is limited.

Compression: Lossless
Transparency: –
Animation: –
Introduced: 1991 · Microsoft and IBM

WAV converter

MIDI

MIDI file

A MIDI file (.mid or .midi) stores musical instructions rather than recorded sound, following the Standard MIDI File format published in 1988. It lists notes, timing, velocity, instruments and controller changes, so files are tiny and fully editable. How it sounds depends entirely on the synthesizer or instrument plugin that plays it. MIDI is used in DAWs, notation software, keyboards and karaoke, but it cannot store vocals or real recordings.

Compression: –
Transparency: –
Animation: –
Introduced: 1988 · MIDI Manufacturers Association

MIDI converter

WAV is what a DAW or field recorder writes when you capture a melody, but editing the notes, swapping the instrument or printing a score needs them as MIDI events; transcription turns a recorded take into notes a sequencer can work with.

WAV to MIDI questions

Can a WAV of a full band be turned into MIDI?

You will get a file, but expect a messy one. Pitch tracking follows the most prominent line, so chords, bass and drums playing together blur into stray notes. Split the mix into stems first and convert the vocal or lead stem on its own.

Why does my MIDI contain lots of tiny extra notes?

Breath noise, string squeaks, reverb tails and the scoop at the start of a sung note can each register as a short note. Select and delete very short notes in your DAW's piano roll, then quantize. A drier, cleaner take reduces them at the source.

Will the MIDI line up with my project's tempo?

A WAV carries no tempo or bar lines, so the notes keep the real timing of the performance rather than snapping to your song's grid. Expect to set the project tempo, align the first downbeat and quantize in your DAW after importing.

Which programs open the .mid file?

Every major DAW imports Standard MIDI Files, including GarageBand, Logic Pro, Ableton Live, FL Studio, Cubase and Reaper. Notation programs such as MuseScore open it as a score. To hear the notes rendered as audio, run the result through MIDI to MP3.

Can I hum a tune and get a MIDI melody back?

Yes, and it is one of the best uses. Hum or sing on a syllable such as da so each note has a clear start, keep the volume steady and record somewhere quiet. If your phone saves the recording as M4A rather than WAV, upload it as it is; the converter accepts both.