Does anyone know of a way to scan sheet music (or use a PDF sheet music file) and convert it into Midi so that I can get it into Audacity?
PS … I wasn’t sure what “category” to put this in. I hope I picked the right one.
Audacity doesn’t DO MIDI. That seems like a question for Google or ChatGPT.
Don’t you have a File > Import > Midi ?
It appears to be there on my system.
I believe they’re also called “Note Tracks.”
Maybe I wasn’t totally clear in my question. I’m not expecting Audacity itself to create the midi file. I just thought that there might be other users here who have been down this road before and could offer some advice on how they’ve started with sheet music (or a PDF) and eventually gotten it in to a midi (or note) track.
A quick search came up with Scanscore and Scan2Notes. Maybe one of those will help you.
With some good luck, some chat AI might do it with its standalone logic, not sure about it, but there are so many todays, and each time more powerful, and some have a premium variants that do things that the basic chats don’t, you might have one at your reach by now, worth checking.
Someone on the Rosegarden forum suggested “Audiveris”
I gave it a quick try and it seems to work. It outputs MusicXML and then that can be converted to Midi. At least it works well for a fairly simple score.
Warning: Don’t try the Audivers (dot) com site. It looks good, but when you click on the links it takes you to spam, gambling, and porn sites. There’s a warning about it on the Github page.
I was going to suggest that too.
It’s free, open source, and cross-platform (Windows / Mac / Linux).
One point worth noting though is that it does not output as MIDI. It outputs as musicxml. To convert to MIDI, use Audiveris to convert to musicxml, then you can use Denemo to convert from musicxml to MIDI.
Audacity only has very basic support for MIDI, and it’s rather buggy in most Audacity3.x versions. For playing MIDI files with Audacity, I’ve found Audacity 2.4.2 works best - it’s available from Old Audacity versions download if you don’t already have it (scroll way down the page to find it). If you want to do more than just playing the MIDI file, a dedicated “MIDI Sequencer” is probably your best bet (I use MusE but I think it’s Linux only).
WARNING
Avoid the site https://audiveris.com - it’s a scam site.
The correct site is: Audiveris Pages | Audiveris documentation
and the user handbook is: Audiveris Handbook | Audiveris Pages
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Hi,
I have been looking for the same thing also lately. Ex DJ here(late 70’s-80’s) looking to get in some remix/production EDM. Just pulled out a stored away Yamaha keyboard this past weekend, looking for the same setup. I came across this site, you might want to check it out. Visited the sites…all safe!
There all Android apps, so no scanner/printer needed. I’m still looking for one that uses a scanner on mine. I’ll be searching for more later the next few days, so I’ll report here if I find more.
Hope you find what your looking for.
EDIT: On the MuseScore…If you decide to download it(can also get PC program!), there 2 downloads…1 with MuseHub and 1 without. MuseHub can be a hassle if not needed. Made this mistake with Audacity, didn’t really need it, had to uninstall. Just a heads up!
That’s very helpful. I am actually using LillyPond to go from XML to Midi. If I understand the Denemo page, it looks like that’s a front-end to Lilypond. I have been using Frescobaldi as the front-end. No idea what their relative merits are. I just do the conversion with the command line.
I checked my Audacity version. One system has 2.4.2 and another has 3.4.2. It looks like those versions were just what was current in the linux repositories when I installed the individual systems. If I have trouble with the newer one I’ll see if I can backtrack to version 2.
Funny that rendering Midi got worse in newer versions. I had been using Rosegarden. Then I switched to Ardour because it also ran on Windows, which was used by some people I’m working with. But it turned out that they were more familiar with Audacity, so now I’ve been using that. The Midi is mostly just to put in some temporary tracks for missing instruments. I definitely doesn’t have to be production quality. But it needs to basically work. We’ll see how that goes.
Well…seems that you have been at this for some time. This is a first for me, just getting into it about 3 months ago. I just saw LilyPond this weekend from working with Hydrogen Drum Machine. I’ve been learning all the different drum patterns from all kinds of genres. Tried other drum programs, but really liking Hydrogen, more for the music person with musical knowledge. Not just banging out beats.
DAW’s…new to me also. Tried Audacity 1st, working with loops/samples, some simple audio editing EQ sound wise, VST’s. Then found out audacity can’t use VSTi’s…ok fine, pull out the ole keyboard, do MIDI…umm might look else where. Hopefully Audacity 4.0 will fix this issue.
Off to Ardour, 3 weeks battling with Hi_DPI issues. On a 56" 4k screen get tiny UI cursors. Switched to another pc, win7 42" 1080p, much better. Love open source, wish all would start using Qt UI’s instead of GTK porting to windows! Haven’t posted over at ardour forum yet…hate having 1st post complaining about something. I work with large screens because I also work with Blender 3D…ardour is suppose to link into blender in real time. Another test to work out.
I’m still on the search for sheet music programs, I’ll report any here.
Hey there,
Came across this site that lists 271 softwares, you might find something there.
How did the Audiveris program work out for you? Also Ardour released 9.5 today, looks like many improvements, midi, pianoroll and more.
Interesting site.
Audiveris (in conjunction with Lilypond) appears to be doing the job. I’m not scanning anything particularly complex. Just using it to create some temporary tracks for practicing with instruments that we don’t currently have available.