Howdy all! Not sure if this is the right category. I'll get straight to it. I've been following YouTube creators, who showcase Synthesia, which is an app that utilizes falling notes and sheet music for learning piano in a similar guitar hero style. https://synthesiagame.com/ I enjoy using the app, but I would like to import my own music. This is where I need your help! Due to it's limitations, Synthesia requires imported music files to be converted into MIDI. I've never used it, therefore, I don't have any experience converting over to this format. I need some music software, but what should I get? I was wondering if anyone who uses Synthesia or audio conversion software regularly, would know how to best advise me on how to go about the situation. Any recommendations? I'm all ears! Thank you!
MIDI files are files with note and instrument information in them for MIDI-compliant hardware/software. Unlike common audio formats, (like .mp3, .wav, .ogg, etc.), there is no audio data within MIDI files whatsoever. This is why you always hear midis played through Windows Media Player through a horrible-sounding instrument bank. (You can also play midis through external midi-compliant hardware, or a program that uses a custom soundfont that bypasses the computer's own integrated MIDI instruments.) I'm a little confused as what you are asking with "convert", because you cannot transcribe a .wav or .mp3 to a midi file. (There are exceptions to that, but for the sake of this post, I'll keep it simple with a "no".) Synthesia? I've seen this program before, I thought that it only allowed you to open and play midi files? Am I mistaken? 🤔 If you want to play midi files in the program, you need to download a midi file from a website or download a program that allows you to make your own midi files. (I suggest checking out vgmusic.com It's my favorite website for midis from video games. I suggest you check it out if you are interested in a bit of nostalgia, haha)
This is what initially caught my eye, was the built-in support for iOS. At the main menu < settings < songs < iTunes File-Sharing. At first glance, I’m thinking okay cool, I can get some songs transferred I already bought from iTunes and drop them into Synthesia. However, after looking into downloading a separate song file through iTunes in MIDI format, I find out through the directions in the app, that iTunes can’t do what I need for the program. There are other formats, but MIDI isn’t available. All my music is in AAC. From the website: https://synthesia.app/support/guide/addSongs From within the app - Play a song < Get more songs - leads here; https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201301 So, it makes little to no sense to me, how to get songs I already paid for into usable form for the app to recognize and use. Otherwise, I will end up paying for some songs twice, which for obvious reasons I wish to avoid. So, from your understanding, it’s a solid no? There’s no workaround? Thank you! 👍
Nick, AAC is an audio file with audio information but not MIDI instrument or note information. You want MIDI files. I think you are approaching this the wrong way, as iTunes does not (from what I know) play MIDI files. iTunes is made for downloading music formats such as mp3 and aac files, not MIDI files.
As Joy has said, you cannot convert audio streams to MIDI data. The prominent options are transcribing the music to MIDI yourself (I would probably use MuseScore 3 for this, but there are a lot of options), or looking for fan-made MIDI's online. I have never heard of a record label or a musical artist releasing MIDI versions of their work, because you simply have a whole lot less control over what it sounds like. Considering that transcribing music takes a whole lot of time, that's probably not an option for you. In many cases fan-made MIDI's won't be too good, and I'm also not sure how common they are anymore. However, there might be another option! There are programs that attempt to reconstruct sheet music XML data from a pdf. You can then convert that to MIDI. However, considering that visual recognition for AI isn't too flawless yet, you'd probably still have to adjust some stuff in a music notation software (again I will recommend MuseScore 3). If you would like, you could pm me sheet music to a song you would like to have in MIDI form, and I'll see if I can figure out how to make it work. Audio streams to MIDI will always sound horrible, I think, but sheet music pdf to MIDI should be doable.
Thank you for your detailed responses! I learned something from this, which proves it was worth it and I’m grateful to ya both, for giving me some understanding and the clarity I was looking for. Thank you for the suggestion. I will have to explore my options to see if it’s something for me. Cheers 🍻
You're welcome! For my idea about converting sheet music, you would have to buy the sheet music to do it legally, I suppose, and I'm not sure how expensive that is. So this might not work out for you after all. But it was interesting to consider the options. And for well-known songs you should be able to find fan-made MIDIs online! But as I said, those often have mistakes in them, in my experience. I used to use fan-made MIDIs to learn music on piano myself, but at some point my skill in hearing pitches exceeded the average fan-made MIDI quality, so I started doing the arrangements myself.
