Convert Audio Drums To Midi

[Virgil Gardiner]

Justwondered if it were possible using an app or some online website to convert a drum track in audio form into a midi track. I realise that both are completly different but I want really to capture the rythmn of the track. As a project I must produce something simular to the original and figured if it was made midi I could have more creative input.

You might tell me that this is impossible, then I am still glad I asked.

NG: Noise gate

Noise gates are usually used to get rid off the background noise below a given threshold, but the effect does not stop there and can be used in a creative way. Take a drums loop, set the threshold to taste and activate the MIDI note generation. Connect FAC Envolver to your favourite synthesizer and select your favourite sound. The initial loop will be cut giving room to the synthesizer responding to the note generated in sync.

TG: Trigger gate

Trigger gate or trance gate instantly provides rhythm to anything passed through. The input audio is muted in sync according a pre configured sequence of On/Off gates. What makes the fx outstanding is the use of the MIDI note output combination as described in the noise gate example.

@Toastedghost said:

Just wondered if it were possible using an app or some online website to convert a drum track in audio form into a midi track. I realise that both are completly different but I want really to capture the rythmn of the track. As a project I must produce something simular to the original and figured if it was made midi I could have more creative input.

You might tell me that this is impossible, then I am still glad I asked.

Some slicers will let you export midi of the slices that recreates the rhythm. ReSlice can do that as can Auditors slicing tool. I have not been able to figure out how to export corresponding midi from Neon, but maybe it is possible. BeatMaker 3 can do this also I think.

If your drum track includes multiple percussion instruments (snare, bass, cymbals, toms), I believe you need a "drum replacement" app. I've seen them advertised for desktops. They're not cheap though. But you might find one you can use. See for example this article.

What are the steps to export the corresponding MIDI file. I see a command that puts the MIDI into the clipboard -- and I just discovered that I can go to the Files app and paste it as a file into a folder -- but is there a way to save the slice MIDI as a file from within Neon Editor. It seems like there must be a way that I am not figuring out. It would be nice if it exported it into the folder with the slices.

@wim said:

You could run the track through Koala's stem separator first, to try to get a drum track to slice up. There's a standalone app called Let's Unmix (I think), that does basically the same thing.

Yes, but if you then slice the drum track with an app like Auditor, you can get a MIDI file that has the timing, with one note for each slice. Once you determine which slices go with which drum sounds, it's just a matter of rearranging the midi notes to play the sounds on any app that you want to.

Auditor and Neon , mentioned up-thread, also slice by transients and generate MIDI (also mentioned up thread). OP is hoping to find something even more automated that will handle separating out each instrument.

All you need to do is duplicate the track you want to convert to MIDI and add the FX called JS: Audio to MIDI Drum Trigger. Inside you will find different parameters to adjust how the trigger reacts to the audio that is being fed in.

A quick start on how to use this is to go from bottom left to right. Use the filter parameters and threshold parameters to get the most accurate markings. The red waveform is the filtered signal and the blue is the original signal. You can add or get rid of markings by right-clicking on it.

Once you are happy with the markings, you can set the MIDI mode to Trigger, set the MIDI note that you want and you can even include the velocity range based on Peak or RMS. Click on Create and this will create a new track below your processed track with all of the MIDI.

The quickest and easiest way would be to highlight the note and use the up and down arrows on the key board to move the notes to the same note , there maybe something that could be done in the logical editor .

OR

As i mentioned in the previous post , now you have this midi track , in cubase highlight the track and event and render in place then you can open the left panel , choose Variaudio , click the arrow in variaudio , move down to Extract midi and you will then have your midi how you expect it to be

What is the best, most elegant way to convert a multi tracked drum recording to MIDI, either wholly or partially (e.g., kick and snare), such that it could then be used to trigger a drum VSTi like BFD3 or Superior etc.?

This doesn't directly answer that question because as Max noted nothing usually works very well when the drums aren't tracked individually. This won't be useful to you now, but maybe later................find a decent drummer and let him or her play the parts in using almost any midi drum controller. The better ones yield better resolutions.........but an old Alesis or Yamaha midi kit works in a pinch. Drummer>midi>vst>simples. You can tap in beats using any midi keyboard as well.

Cakewalk has a drum replacer feature that works pretty well. Might save someone the trouble of a total retake or audio to midi conversion. There are nice drum specific plugins that can change the whole character of a kit. If the audio is tight you could always drop in or create midi loops.

I have v-drums and I normally play them and record the MIDI to trigger BFD3, but I want to get real drums for the fun factor. Banging on mesh or rubber is like kissing your girlfriend through a screen door. I've recorded other drummers here before, they brought their own drums and it came out fine. But I just want to keep open an option to use multisampled drums to provide variety so not every song is the same sound.

Maybe its a feature of Cakewalk that uses Melodyne and not something that is available in other DAWs that only have Melodyne Essential? Just a guess. I raise this possibility because I had used the feature in Cakewalk several times before someone in the forum mentioned it uses Melodyne. When I drag an audio file (mp3, wav, etc.) to a midi track there is no sign that it is using Melodyne. So, to me, I just thought it was functionality built into Cakewalk.

I guess I can't comment because I have the editor version and Cakewalk sees that version. Going by the versions page in Melodyne it shouldn't work using Melodyne essential. If it does, great! I won't tell anyone

I used drum replacer several times and was really impressed. There are stand alone programs that do similar that aren't inexpensive..so to get it for free in CbB is a savings if one intends to use that technology.

Note: Melodyne essential and Melodyne assistant only support monophonic audio data. If the audio source contains polyphonic material, the resulting MIDI conversion will be monophonic. Polyphonic audio-to-MIDI conversion is only supported in Melodyne editor.

So far I have only used variations of this method: "Drag an audio file from the Browser and drop it on a MIDI or Instrument track" although I have also dragged *.mp3, *.wav, and *.other files from a third-party file browser. I have too many things to do at the present, but that page you cited makes me wonder (1) what I can do with the other methods and (2) if the results will be different from the transparent method I have been using. So, thanks for leading me to the other options; I will put them on my to-do list to try.

I have the paid-for Essentials, will try it out. Obviously a highly isolated kick or snare should work better. Overheads would probably be difficult if not impossible with a monophonic algorithm. Re. Drum Replacer, I think that is a simple canned sample and not the multi-sampled 256 velocity layers full monty like you get with BFD3. Doesn't sound very sexy....

Many drummers are picky, picky, picky about their drums and may feel uncomfortable with you taping triggers to their drums. One way around that is to mount several triggers to several drum heads. Then you can offer to provide your drum heads for the recording session so both the acoustic and midi can be captured.

I second BFD3. It's a wonderful program. You could use something like Waves Scheps 73 which has an M/S setting and a dedicated drums overhead setting to "stereoize" the track. I never liked polishing a turd though unless it's some really good wax and you can't tell

Something I recently tried that worked well with regard to drums I'll share here just in case it's useful. This works best with music that uses strict drum patterns. Put a patch point on your metronome channel and tie it to an audio track. Arm said audio track. Record metronome. Now add drum replacer to that track. You now have a half decent kick drum in perfect time. Alternatively drag recorded metronome track into a midi track using Melodyne. Now you can trigger anything with it. Add something like Boz Sasquatch if you are into rattling windows three blocks away. Just sayin' Way faster than programming a sequencer IMO.

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