MP3 to MIDI

If you've ever improvised at the piano, recorded a practice session, or found a performance you'd like to study, you've probably wished you could edit the notes instead of working with a fixed audio recording.

That's where Audio to MIDI conversion comes in. Rather than treating your recording as a waveform, our proprietary transcription model identifies the individual notes that were played, their pitch, timing, duration, and dynamics, and recreates the performance as MIDI data. For solo piano this is surprisingly challenging: notes overlap, the sustain pedal blurs harmonies together, and expressive timing rarely follows a strict tempo. Ivory was built specifically for piano transcription from the ground up, and it focuses on producing editable MIDI that stays faithful to the original performance while remaining easy to refine.

What is Audio to MIDI conversion?

An Audio to MIDI converter analyzes a recording and reconstructs the performance as musical note data. Unlike an MP3 or WAV file, MIDI is a file format that doesn't contain sound; instead, it stores a small set of instructions completely describing the performance:

• which notes were played
• when each note starts
• how long it lasts
• how hard it was played (velocity)

Because MIDI represents the music rather than the recording itself, you can edit individual notes, change tempo, transpose passages, assign different virtual instruments, or import the performance directly into your DAW or notation software. For pianists, MIDI often serves as the bridge between a recorded performance and a finished arrangement, score, or production.

Supported inputs

Ivory accepts several types of input depending on how your music is stored:

• MP3, WAV, FLAC, and other common audio formats
• Piano performances from YouTube, TikTok or Instagram via direct link
• Existing MIDI files that you want to clean up, edit, or convert into notation

After transcription, you can review every detected note before exporting.

How MP3 to MIDI conversion works

Although the process feels simple; just upload a recording and download MIDI; accurate piano transcription involves several independent stages of processing, and several engineering challenges that come along with each of them.

1. 1. Upload your recording Start with a piano recording from your computer or phone, or paste a YouTube URL. No preprocessing is required.
2. 2. Automatic transcription Ivory analyzes the recording and estimates every note in the performance, including pitch, onset, duration, and velocity. Because the model is trained specifically on solo piano, it can recognize overlapping notes, large chords, fast passages, and expressive timing or dynamics better than many general-purpose audio-to-MIDI tools. Just like humans, these models have a better understanding when they learn to understand a specific instrument rather than trying to handle every possible instrument equally well.
3. 3. Review the result Every transcription can be inspected in Ivory's editor. Instead of accepting an automatic result blindly, you can correct individual notes, adjust tricky timings, split passages between hands, and clean up the performance before exporting. Ivory aims to be much faster than building a MIDI file manually from scratch!
4. 4. ExportOnce you're happy with the transcription, you can export it in the format that fits your workflow. Depending on your project, you can generate:
   • Standard MIDI
   • MusicXML
   • PDF sheet music

Why piano is one of the hardest instruments to convert

Many audio-to-MIDI converters perform reasonably well on monophonic instruments like vocals or flute but struggle with piano. There are a few good reasons for this, one of the biggest being that piano is a very complex instrument! A pianist may play ten or more simultaneous notes while the sustain pedal causes harmonies to overlap for several seconds; add expressive rubato, tricky timings, repeated notes, and changing dynamics, and separating one note from another becomes significantly more difficult.

That's why generic converters often produce missing notes, merged chords, or inaccurate rhythms. Ivory focuses specifically on solo piano transcription, letting the model capture the details that matter the most to pianists rather than trying to handle every possible instrument equally well.

Why use Ivory?

Who uses MP3 to MIDI conversion?

Converting recordings into MIDI is useful in a wide range of musical workflows.

• Composers capture improvisations before developing them into larger works.
• Songwriters turn quick voice memos or rehearsal recordings into arrangements.
• Teachers prepare exercises, annotate performances, and create practice material.
• Students analyze performances by slowing them down, editing passages, or generating sheet music.
• Producers import piano performances into their DAW to layer instruments, quantize timing, or build complete productions.

MP3 to MIDI vs. transcribing by ear

Learning music by ear is an important skill, but producing a complete MIDI transcription manually can take hours for even moderately difficult pieces. An AI transcription provides a starting point instead of a finished product.

Rather than entering every note individually, you begin with a transcription that's already close to the original performance, and a few minutes of editing is often enough to produce a clean MIDI file suitable for production, notation, or further arrangement. For many musicians, that saves far more time than either manual transcription or generic audio-to-MIDI software that requires extensive cleanup.

Frequently asked questions

Convert your first piano recording

Upload an MP3, WAV file, or YouTube link and turn your piano performance into editable MIDI in minutes. Review the transcription, make any adjustments you want, and export it as MIDI, MusicXML, or sheet music.