Drop an audio file here, or click to choose
WAV · MP3 · OGG · M4A · FLAC
Follows a single melodic line — best for voice, whistle, solo instrument.
Raise it to pick up quieter notes, lower it to drop noise.
Written into the MIDI tempo map.
Shorter notes are dropped.
Uses the BPM above. Turn this on to line notes up with the grid.
0 notes detected
Source audio
Detected notes — piano roll
A browser page or an installed plugin: which one you actually need
Both routes end in the same place — a note list you can edit — and the conversion is not what separates them. What separates them is where your audio already is, and how much you are willing to install to reach it. If the audio is a file, the page in front of you is the shorter path: drop it, look at the notes, take the .mid. If the audio is already sitting on a track inside your DAW and you would rather not export it first, something installed on that track is the shorter path.
| what you have in front of you | this page is enough | installing something is worth it |
|---|---|---|
| an audio file on disk | yes — drop it, read the notes, download the .mid | not for a one-off; it starts to pay off if you convert files all day |
| audio already on a DAW track | yes, but you export the clip first | yes — the notes can land in the session without an export step |
| a machine you do not own | yes — there is nothing to install and nothing to uninstall | usually not: installs and licences tend not to travel well |
| a session with no connection | the conversion itself needs none, but the page still has to load once | yes — nothing has to be fetched at all |
Where the audio goes is the part worth checking, and it is measurable rather than a promise. Measured on 11 October 2026, in Chrome, on this page: from the moment the file was selected to the moment the notes appeared, exactly one request left the browser — the site's own analytics ping — and no request carried any part of the audio. A plugin that converts locally never has a file to send in the first place, because it reads the track it is placed on. Either way the analysis happens on the machine you are sitting at; that is the property to check for, and it is checkable in both directions.
What "plugin" means in this phrase
When people write audio to MIDI plugin, they usually mean one of two different things, and the two are not interchangeable. The first is an insert you put on a track inside a DAW — the thing usually sold as an audio to MIDI VST plugin — which reads whatever that track is playing and writes notes from it. The second is a standalone application that does the same job in its own window, outside the DAW. One phrase covers both, which is why two people can type it and mean two different workflows.
This page is neither. It is the same conversion without the install: no licence to keep track of, no plugin folder to scan, and nothing left behind if you decide you did not need it. What it does not give you is the one thing an insert is genuinely better at — reading audio that is already on a DAW track, without exporting it first.
Two more uses of the phrase are worth pulling apart, because each points somewhere different. A voice to MIDI plugin is named after what you feed it rather than where it runs: the source is a sung or hummed line, so its closest relatives are the microphone and vocal pages, not the instrument ones. And one level up from all of these sits the whole shelf of MIDI plugins — arpeggiators, chord helpers, note editors — where turning audio into MIDI is a single item among many rather than the category itself. If that shelf is what you are browsing, the conversion question is only the first one you have to answer.
How to tell what a plugin will actually do, without trusting the name
Searching for the best audio to MIDI plugin returns lists of names, and a list of names is not evidence. Three questions do more work than any ranking, and none of them requires a product name:
- Does it convert with the connection switched off? If a sign-in or a server round-trip has to happen before the notes appear, the analysis is not happening on your machine.
- Does it read the track you put it on, or does it ask you for a file? An insert reads the track it sits on. If it wants a file dropped into a window, it is a standalone app wearing a plugin shell — that is fine, but plan for the export step.
- What comes out — a file or a track? A file means you drag it in yourself. A track means the notes are already in the session.
Those three answers describe the workflow, and the workflow is the part you can check before installing anything. They say nothing about how good the transcription is, which is a separate question and only answerable by running a clip whose notes you already know.
Where "free" fits in
What a plugin's price usually buys is not the conversion itself but the work around it: a piano roll, quantising, routing into other instruments, a licence you can move between machines. That is why a free audio to MIDI plugin can be exactly right for one person and the wrong tool for another, and why the question worth asking before you install anything is not what it costs but what happens after the notes appear.
The converter on this page is free in the boring sense as well: no account, no watermark, and nothing to install in the first place. If all you need is the notes out of a file, there is no purchase decision to make — drop the file, check the piano roll, take the .mid.
Questions about the plugin route
Do I need an audio to MIDI plugin at all?
Only if your audio is already on a DAW track and you want the notes to appear there without an export step. If the audio is a file, the converter above does the same job with nothing to install — drop it, look at the notes, download the .mid.
How is this page different from the converter on the front page?
The converter is the same one. What is different is the question being answered. The front page answers "how do I turn this file into MIDI"; this page answers "should I be installing something instead". If you already know you just want the file converted, the front page is the shorter read.
Does my audio get uploaded when I convert here?
No. We watched the network on this page while converting a 4.0-second WAV: one request left the browser during the conversion, it was the site's own analytics ping, and it carried no audio. The file is read by the page and analysed in the tab.
Will this page work with no internet connection?
The conversion itself needs no connection — the analysis runs in the tab. But the page has to load at least once, so a browser that has never opened it will not get that far offline. An installed tool has no such step, which is the honest advantage of installing one.
Which plugin do you recommend?
None, and that is deliberate: this page does not name or rank products. Names go stale, prices change, and a list of names tells you nothing about whether the analysis runs on your machine — which is what the three checks above are for.
Is there an audio to MIDI VST plugin?
This converter is a web page, not a VST, so there is nothing to load into your DAW's plug-in rack. You open it in a browser instead of inserting it on a track. When you want the MIDI inside your project, export the .mid it produces and import that onto a track — the notes arrive as ordinary MIDI you can edit. The analysis runs in the browser, so the tool works without a DAW entirely, and there is no plug-in to register or update.
Is there a real-time audio to MIDI VST?
No. This converter works on a file you load, not on a live audio stream passing through your DAW, so it is not a real-time VST. You load a recording, it analyses the whole thing, and it returns a .mid — the conversion is offline and file-to-file, not an effect on the monitor signal. If you need notes from live playing as you record, you would use your DAW's own capture or a dedicated real-time tool; this page is for converting audio you already have.
Related guides
- Convert a file right now — the front page is this same converter with no plugin question attached.
- How many notes a converter can hold at once — the polyphonic ceiling, and the harmonic rule behind it.
- Ableton audio to MIDI — when the converter built into Live is enough, and when to export instead.
- Logic Pro audio to MIDI — what the built-in capture holds and what it drops.
- How accurate a conversion really is — measured on clips whose notes were known in advance.
- FL Studio audio to MIDI — What every DAW's capture shares, and when to export
- MIDI converter — What is actually inside a MIDI file
- Clean up a converted MIDI — The 5 passes that turn a raw export into a usable part