The short answer: this tool converts audio into MIDI. It does not read sheet music — a photo, a PDF, a scanned score, or a MusicXML file — there is no notation OCR here. If what you hold is a score on paper (or a score file), the step from notation to MIDI is a score-reading job, not an audio-analysis job. What this tool does give you is the audio→MIDI half: make the piece audible — play it, or export the score to audio — and drop that in. It returns a MIDI built to the real spec: format 1, 2 tracks, TPQ 480, up to 6 notes per frame, velocity reaching 127 at −2.22 dBFS, plus a CSV you can diff note-by-note. So the honest path from a score to a MIDI is: score → (render/play to audio) → (this tool) → MIDI. We cover the last arrow; turning the notation into sound is the step before it.
1. What this tool actually does
It takes sound — MP3, WAV, FLAC, OGG, M4A, or the audio pulled from a video — and returns a MIDI file plus a CSV. The detection runs on the real implementation constants, so the result is checkable:
- Readable pitch range: 55 Hz (A1) to 1800 Hz (A6). A part outside that window is not detected — a very low pedal note or a high piccolo will not come through.
- Polyphony: up to 6 simultaneous notes per frame in polyphonic mode; mono mode follows one pitch at a time.
- Velocity: from loudness, hitting 127 at −2.22 dBFS; the CSV carries 4-decimal timestamps so you can verify each note.
- Output format: standard format-1 MIDI, 2 tracks, TPQ 480 — openable anywhere. That is the file a DAW or notation app reads.
On 11 known-answer clips it measured 86.7% recall / 91.5% precision. That is the audio→MIDI step, which is the half this tool owns.
2. What this tool does NOT do
Stated plainly, because “sheet music to MIDI” implies an input this site does not accept:
- No score reading. It cannot look at a PDF, a photo of a page, or a MusicXML file and pull the notes out. There is no OCR of notation here — it only hears audio.
- No PDF/MusicXML input. The upload box takes audio. A
.pdfor.xmlscore dropped in will not be read as notation. - No interpretation of intent. Even from audio, it detects pitches and timing; it does not decide how a human would finger or voice the part. That judgment is yours, or your notation app's.
This is the boundary, said on the page rather than promised as a feature it lacks.
3. The honest path from a score to a MIDI
If your real goal is “MIDI from this piece of music,” and all you have is the score, here is the route that works:
| Path | You do | This tool does | Another tool does |
|---|---|---|---|
| A. You can perform it | Record yourself playing the score | Yes — audio → MIDI + CSV | — |
| B. You have the score as audio | Export the score to WAV/MP3 (DAW render) | Yes — audio → MIDI + CSV | DAW renders score → audio |
| C. You have MusicXML/MIDI already | Open the file | No — not a score reader | Notation app reads it directly |
Paths A and B both end at this tool's door with an audio file. Path C never reaches here — if the score is already digital notation, the notation app already has what it needs. The point: get the piece into sound, and this converter handles the sound-to-MIDI half.
4. When to use this tool vs skip it
| Your situation | Use this tool | Use something else |
|---|---|---|
| You have audio of the piece | Yes — exactly what it does | — |
You have a .mid / MusicXML, want audio | No — audio out not supported | A synthesizer / DAW render |
| You have a photo/PDF score, want MIDI | No — reads audio, not scores | A score-to-MIDI tool that reads notation |
| You have a score, can play/record it | Yes — record, then audio → MIDI | — |
| You want to verify the MIDI is correct | Yes — the CSV gives 4-decimal timestamps | — |
5. "Music score to MIDI", "convert sheet music to MIDI", and the "converter" phrasing
Short answer: all three phrasings point at the same missing step — reading notation — and this tool does not read notation. Even on the workable route (render the score to audio, then convert), the exported file carries no score semantics at all: we parsed our own writer's output and found 0 key-signature (FF 59), 0 track-name, 0 lyric, 0 text, 0 instrument and 0 program-change events. The only meta events present are tempo (FF 51), 4/4 time signature (FF 58) and end-of-track (FF 2F).
| On the page | In the file | Measured on this engine |
|---|---|---|
| Key signature | No FF 59 event | 0 written, even after detecting an 8-note C-major scale |
| Lyrics, expression text, staff names | No FF 05, FF 01 or FF 03 events | 0 of each in a four-note export |
| Time signature | One FF 58, 4/4 | Fixed; the separate tempo event carries the BPM you entered |
| Separate voices or staves | 1 note track, 1 channel | A two-voice score still exports 2 tracks total: 1 meta track, 1 note track |
| Slurs, bends, vibrato | No pitch-bend events | A 440→494 Hz glide returns 3 stepped pitches and 0 bend events |
| Notes | 0x90 / 0x80 pairs | 4 onsets at 0.0000, 0.4992, 0.9985 and 1.4977 s on the 11.610 ms grid |
That gap is structural, not a missing feature. The detector estimates a fundamental from an FFT at 22050 Hz / 2048 samples / 256 hop; below roughly 181 Hz (near F#3) one semitone is narrower than a single 10.77 Hz FFT bin. A score already states its pitches exactly, so sending it through sound and back discards that precision and then re-measures it.
Three ways to decide where to go:
- Stay here if you can make the score audible: a clean four-note phrase returns all 4 onsets, the 0.5 s beat landing at 0.4992 s — under 1 ms off.
- Use a score-reading tool if you hold a PDF, photo or MusicXML: this writer emits 0 key-signature and 0 lyric events, so it cannot round-trip the notation layer you would start from.
- Use a DAW or notation app if you need separate parts: the output is always 1 note track on 1 channel, and the file structure is identical whether the notes came from a recording, a hand-entered grid or a score.
Where a dedicated score workflow differs
Optical music recognition works on images and MusicXML and can preserve staves, lyrics and key signatures; a browser pitch detector works on waveforms and preserves none of them by design. If your input is already digital notation, the MIDI-to-score boundary is the other direction to check, and what audio to sheet music actually measures explains why a transcription is not an engraving.
Questions
Can this tool read my sheet music PDF and make MIDI?
No. It converts audio to MIDI; it does not read notation. To get MIDI from a score, either play/record it and upload the audio, or export the score to audio in your notation app and upload that.
Why doesn't it just scan the notes?
Because the job here is detecting pitches and timing from sound. Reading notation — recognizing noteheads, stems, clefs, key — is a separate OCR step a score-reading tool does. We convert the audio you give us, not the picture of the score.
I have the score as a MIDI already. Do I need this?
No. If it is already a .mid or MusicXML, your notation app already has it — open it there. This tool is for turning sound into MIDI.
What if I record myself playing the score?
That is the cleanest route: the recording is audio, drop it in, and you get a MIDI plus a CSV you can check note-by-note. Polyphonic mode holds up to 6 notes per frame; the readable range is 55–1800 Hz.
Is the MIDI accurate enough to trust?
On 11 known-answer clips it measured 86.7% recall / 91.5% precision. The CSV lets you audit every note against your DAW before you rely on it, so misses are caught, not assumed away.
This page states the boundary honestly: this tool converts audio to MIDI and does not read sheet music. If you can make the piece audible, try the audio→MIDI step on the home page — drop a file, get a MIDI and a CSV, nothing uploaded.
Related guides
- MIDI converterWhat is actually inside a MIDI file
- Clean up a converted MIDIThe 5 passes that turn a raw export into a usable part
- MIDI to sheet musicWhat this tool covers, and where the score comes from
- Audio to sheet musicWhere a chord's notes actually land, measured
- MP3 to sheet musicWhether the codec moves anything the page would show
- MIDI to MP3What this tool covers, and what a synth does instead
- MIDI to WAVWhy the Play button is a synth but not an export
- MIDI to OGGTwo steps, and only one of them changes the sound