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Audio files contain actual sound recording while MIDI files are a type of computer program. Converting audio to midi is a nearly impossible task.
I would like to convert a .wmv file to a .mid file. All I want is the sound not the picture. I can't find any software to do this. Any ideas?
Ideas, yes. But not answers.
The problem is that there's a fundamental difference between .wmv files and .mid files - and I'm not even taking the video content into account.
They're so different that the conversion you're asking for is darned near impossible.
At least for today's computers.
I'll summarize it this way: what you're asking for is a program that can listen to a symphony and produce the sheet music that the musicians are playing from.
To the best of my knowledge that program doesn't exist.
Now, let me explain what I mean by that statement.
A .wmv file contains a recording of actual audio. Let's say it's a performance of a piano concerto; what the .wmv file contains is a recording of the sound that was produced when someone played that concerto on the piano.
Throw the video away and it's a recording of sound. Nothing more, nothing less.
In that respect, it's the same as a .mp3 file, a .wav file or any of a number of other audio formats.
A ".mid" file is very different.
A ".mid" file, short for MIDI which stands for Musical Instrument Digital Interface is most assuredly not a recording of audio. Rather, it's a series of instructions - not unlike a computer program.
For example a .mid file for our piano concerto might have instructions like:
Piano: A# quarter note
Piano: B quarter note
Piano: A# half note & C half note & E half note
Note: I am nowhere near being a musician - what I just wrote probably sounds awful.
In addition to my lack of musical skills, that "music" is also a gross over-simplification; MIDI is an incredibly complex and rich language for instruction what should be played when.
And therein lies the difference: MIDI is a series of instructions - notes to be played by what instrument and how.
It's not a recording of a performance; it's not sound; it's instructions.
Hence MIDI is a kind of sheet music for computers. When a computer "plays" a MIDI file, it also has to have a synthesizer of some sort - and Windows typically has a rudimentary one built in. As a result when instructed to play "Piano: A# quarter note", it uses the built in synthesizer to generate the sound of something that kind-of, sort-of sounds like a piano.
Converting a MIDI file to sound is relatively easy: you run it through a midi player which drives either a synthesizer, or some computer-enabled instruments that then play the instructions contained in the file. If you want an audio recording file like a .mp3, you simply record the performance in some way.
Converting audio to MIDI, on the other hand, is an enormous task. It really is like listening to our piano concerto and writing down as it goes the extremely detailed instructions that would have resulted in that performance.
And that's just a piano concerto - one instrument. Imagine trying to write down the sheet music from simply listening to a symphony. Or a rock song.
It's just not something that can be done today.
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