Convert audio DRUM track to MIDI???

[jwarv]

I tried the subject matter and it yielded crazy results. Obviously,it's only for notes and even then, it's not always the most accurate. But I have some fully mixed drum tracks made up of audio samples I don't really care for. And the thought of matching hit for hit with new samples and thereby doing the thing all over again is not on my list of favorite things to do. It would be nice to be able to convert it into MIDI and change out the samples with EZDrummer or some other plugin. Has anyone else tried that or am I asking for too much?

[cactus-head]

I don't like to NOT post some kind of suggestion or solution but his is a tough one. Because in general drum sounds aren't pitched and may have all kinds of weird harmonics, it would be hard to map a live drum track to MIDI notes.

Maybe this - try the free demo from Jam Origin (MIDI Guitar 2). I suggest this because this software is excellent at converting audio to MIDI and the free demo will give you a pretty good idea on the probability of this succes converting lilve drums to midi. This will allow you to transfer polyphonic audio.

See what your drum track yields in MIDI. If you can discern or get a fairly decent idea of what MIDI notes correspond to the drums in the audio track you converted, you can map those notes in Omni Sampler and attach specific drum samples.

Since the MIDI notes created from the conversion are likely not to be any kind of standard MIDI drum mapping, you would probably have to create a custom drum mapping in EZ drummer that matched your conversion.

[jwarv]

Thanks. I see what you mean.

One thing I didn't try was to pull the created MIDI notes from the conversion to see if they could be placed in the respective "notes". In other words, drag all the hits that landed on say a cymbal or some other point on the piano roll, that looks like they should have been the snare pattern into the snare assignment of the piano roll and see if it matches the snare of the original audio.

I think at the end of the day I'm probably going to end up replaying the whole thing since any other workaround might be more work.

[cactus-head]

I was thinking of the "dragging the note to the right pitch scenario" too, but that seemd like a lot of extra work.

If you convert the audio, you could use MIDI-OX to automatically remap specific pitches as opposed to the entire key. Say every MIDI D4 you want to actually play a F#3, you could do that mapping in MIDI-OX.

[GovernmentMule]

I tried the subject matter and it yielded crazy results. Obviously,it's only for notes and even then, it's not always the most accurate. But I have some fully mixed drum tracks made up of audio samples I don't really care for. And the thought of matching hit for hit with new samples and thereby doing the thing all over again is not on my list of favorite things to do. It would be nice to be able to convert it into MIDI and change out the samples with EZDrummer or some other plugin. Has anyone else tried that or am I asking for too much?

I've been trying this for a long time. I started out on hardware recorders before coming over to a DAW and had acquired a lot of drum loop libraries and have been trying to convert to midi for a long time. It's doable, but how good it comes out depends on the loop and how busy it is.
This is the best product I have tried so far, it's called DrumsSSX by Fuse Audio Labs.

https://fuseaudiolabs.de/#/pages/product?id=300867907

It is actually made for remixing the components(snare, kick, etc. ) of the drum loop. The secret is to get the components separated from each other and then you can either have it resampled or you can have a program detect the beat or hit and change it to midi.

Here is a video demo of the program, notice how it separates the components.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXtSTReZDqY

So after making new audio clips with the separated drums, you can change the hit over to midi. Check out page 132, 133, and 134 in the Mixcraft 9 manual to check out how you can slice the new audio loop and then you can have that create a midi loop.

There are some other programs out there also, I know Cakewalk has a program called Drum Replacer, and also another one is called Groove Extractor. I had Groove Extractor at one time but it got mixed results depending on how complicated the drumming was.
Some people also get results from Melodyne, but you have to have a top version (expensive ) of the program to do it and I never got real good results out of them freaking little blobs and moving them to the right pitch. With any program or method you most likely will still will have to go in and clean the new midi loop in the midi editor.

Good luck.

[jwarv]

A lot to digest. Thanks!

[comedians]

and don't forget Melodyne will only successfully process mono (single) notation

[jwarv]

and don't forget Melodyne will only successfully process mono (single) notation

True, but isn't there a polyphonic mode?

[Mark Bliss]

There is in the higher level versions.

But I doubt it would work very well for what you are discussing.
I dont know that there is any reliable way that would be worth the trouble. (or expense)

[jwarv]

There is in the higher level versions.

But I doubt it would work very well for what you are discussing.
I dont know that there is any reliable way that would be worth the trouble. (or expense)

Yeah I hear that. All the hoops I'm jumping through would be better spent working on a new track. In fact, a large part of it is just a repeating loop. So, I may be making more of it than necessary.