Midi Converters

Noviceman

Hi,

A friend of mine who knows nothing about computers has asked me who knows nothing about music production to help him out. I wasn't able to help, so I'm here to ask the experts. Basically he has this electric piano that he plays tunes on, he does this for a living. This piano also has a hard drive and a floppy drive and he has midi files stored on the piano, which he can speed up slow down, manipulate basically, which is I guess the idea of midi files. He uses this feature if someone asks him to play a song that he doesn't know, like a DJ would.

So, his problem is trying to convert songs from cd to midi files. I downloaded some midi converters, one from my music tools and another and I converted the song from the cd, but it sounded completely different, I choose the accordian option because that's what he wanted and also grand piano option, but they sound a lot different to the original. There is a lot of options in the midi converters that I don't have a clue what they are. What I would like to do is convert a song to a midi file and keep it so that when it plays it sounds almost identical to the original.

Anyone any ideas on this?

PaulBrewer

Noviceman wrote: »

o convert songs from cd to midi files.

As in play a music CD and have it turned into a Midi file ?

Noviceman

PaulBrewer wrote: »

As in play a music CD and have it turned into a Midi file ?

well, convert a track from a cd into a midi file, the software i used allows to me choose a cda file and convert to a midi file

Anima

Hmm never really heard of that. How I imagine it would work is that it can detect notes of a track and form a midi score from this. When you go to play back that score though, it will use MIDI sounds from your PC which will sound terrible. I dunno how the software would distinguish between an accordian and a piano either or even two guitars playing at the same time. Sounds like bollacks to me.

PaulBrewer

Anima wrote: »

Sounds like bollacks to me.

Indeed -

but perhaps we're understanding.

Please explain what you're at in depth an detail Novice!

Noviceman

yeah, that's exactly what happens, the pc somehow makes the midi file and it does sound brutle.... so am i fighting a losing battle here, is this not possible?

Neurojazz

The current converters available are rubbish unfortunately - BUT, there are sites where you would be able to get the songs for piano that he wants.

I would recommend going to a quality sheet music shop, they deal with the distributors that sell the floppies with music on for midi use.

Hope that helps - if you have trouble finding a sheet music shop, shout here again and i'll have a look around for you.

madtheory

That kind of converting is not going to work, the technology doesn't yet exist! You're better off googling for MIDI files of the tracks in question. Or buying them from someone like www.comtracks.co.uk who are excellent.

JonathanAnon

I agree with madtheory above. I have downloaded a few WAV/MP3 -> Midi converters. They usually work ok for single notes, but they cannot create a professional MIDI file from an MP3 file.

Aside from downloading the MIDI files, he should also consider hooking up to a MIDI sequencer (like Cubase VST or Cakewalk), and edit his own MIDI files. You can pull down pretty good MIDI files free from google searches, but I usually find that you need to change keys, pull out fades, remove instrumental bits etc etc and you will need a MIDI sequencer to do this.

If he's good on the keys, it wouldnt be a huge leap for him to create his own MIDI files from scratch either. Just a matter of getting proficient with the software.

Noviceman

thanks for all the replies, at least now I know it's not going to work this particular route, which is what I suspected. I will have a look for midi files on the net, so if I find these on the net, these would have been created manually, correct?

As for his proficiency on the keyboard, i'm not sure, he said he had someone else create a midi file for some other song and he has it stored on the hard drive, so I'd imagine he's not very proficient, but I'll pass on your tips and hopefully some midi files if I can find them