Converting Audio to Midi - having problems

[Roy Slough]

Hi, New to cakewake (If you forget the brief use I did in the mid 90s)  Trying to covert an audio track to Midi so I can assign new sounds (It's a drum track)

I followed the instructions on a tutorial = Hold down Ctrl, drag audio to midi track.  There was a dialogue box saying analysing audio, converting etc. but when it finished there was nothing in the midi track.

I guess there will be further questions once I get some data in the track of how to assign output to VST sounds, but until I can see some midi data I believe I am chasing shadows.

I have used midi tracks in an old editor back in 2008 but that was on a different computer (Windows 7)

I am using a Windows 11 laptop  

[Glenn Stanton]

the drag to a MIDI track should produce something - usually the Melodyne (which is doing the work) may popup with information about the type (like drums use percussive algorithm).

[mettelus]

Was there a MIDI clip created in the track? It is possible the notes created are out of the visibility range, so if there is a clip "without notes" expand the size of the MIDI track, or even double click it to open it in the Piano Roll View 

[Roy Slough]

16 hours ago, mettelus said:

Was there a MIDI clip created in the track? It is possible the notes created are out of the visibility range, so if there is a clip "without notes" expand the size of the MIDI track, or even double click it to open it in the Piano Roll View 

Thanks for the advise so far - I have repeated the operation but still without result.

Here are some screenshots to show my process (I was not able to capture an image of the messages "analysing Audio" etc. but they appeared over the time stamp (top right) 

Any further thoughts as to what I am doing wrong?

[treesha]

Sometimes when using melodyne as a region fx, it will process the audio but nothing will show up in it. When that happens, i close the melodyne window and click on the clip and melodyne will open again with the blobs showing, hopefully. Maybe dragging to a midi track might similarly result in an empty melodyne? I've also had to use different algorithms to get a result like melodic vs percussive on occasion. 

[John Vere]

You need a license for Melodyne for this to work now. This changed when Melodyne 5 came out and Cakewalk no longer includes the basic version of Melodyne. Only a demo for a month. 
You don’t hold CTRL you hold Shift to keep it aligned. 

[Roy Slough]

1 hour ago, treesha said:

Sometimes when using melodyne as a region fx, it will process the audio but nothing will show up in it. When that happens, i close the melodyne window and click on the clip and melodyne will open again with the blobs showing, hopefully. Maybe dragging to a midi track might similarly result in an empty melodyne? I've also had to use different algorithms to get a result like melodic vs percussive on occasion. 

Thanks Treesha,  I have had an interesting investigation into melodyne and it definitely something I want to ply with. However, I cannot find any view for melodyne in my cakewalk. Probably because I have not added the plug in or something. OR it is there and I can't see it.

So is having Meoldyne installed/added as a plug in essential in this audio to midi conversion process? 

[Roy Slough]

33 minutes ago, John Vere said:

You need a license for Melodyne for this to work now. This changed when Melodyne 5 came out and Cakewalk no longer includes the basic version of Melodyne. Only a demo for a month. 
You don’t hold CTRL you hold Shift to keep it aligned. 

Thanks John,  So the "select algorithm" dialogue box and the processing info in the time signature area is all a red herring and it wasn't doing it at all?

Is there another way to replace the drum sounds I have?

Thanks

[Canopus]

1 hour ago, Roy Slough said:

Is there another way to replace the drum sounds I have?

If you only want to replace the recorded drum sounds, I think the obvious solution would be to use Cakewalk’s built-in Drum Replacer.

Edited March 28 by Canopus

[John Vere]

27 minutes ago, Canopus said:

If you only want to replace the recorded drum sounds, I think the obvious solution would be to use Cakewalk’s built-in Drum Replacer.

This.  Melodyne Audio to midi makes a huge mess of a drum track. It's useless for that. I only use it for Bass. 

I used to have a tutorial for it but it didn't get very many views so I took it down. 

For sure spend some time in the manual but depending on the recording it most defiantly will extract kick and snare. The rest is to complicated so I never bothered.

The one trick people are not aware of is once you apply the regional effect to the track and it is still active, You can drag and drop that track to a VST instrument drum track ( or a midi track)  and it will convert it to midi. The built in sounds in Drum replacer are terrible. 

It all gets tricky in the case of a multi track drum recording of a real kit. You can use drum replacer to convert the snare and kick, but you can't really move those midi notes around much because of the leakage into the overheads and other mikes will still be out of time. So you  sort of  have to edit the audio tracks anyhow if there's timing issues.  

[treesha]

2 hours ago, Roy Slough said:

Thanks Treesha,  I have had an interesting investigation into melodyne and it definitely something I want to ply with. However, I cannot find any view for melodyne in my cakewalk. Probably because I have not added the plug in or something. OR it is there and I can't see it.

So is having Meoldyne installed/added as a plug in essential in this audio to midi conversion process? 

From what John (who knows his stuff) says melodyne is only included for a month. It is an amazing program worth having !

Re. replacing drum sounds...Looking at your drum track in the image, it looks pretty simple, maybe mostly kick and snare? If you dont like the drum replacer sounds, you could find a kick or snare sample you like to use and cut and paste a match on a new track to match your drum phrase if its very basic, matching the notes positions, then groove loop or paste the measure or measures thru the entire new track. I have done this before, its not too bad if simple and the drum notes are on beats. 

[Roy Slough]

OK thanks for all the advice and info.  Basically I am re-mixing a track for my ex lead singer from the 90s

I suspect the drum track is a simple loop of kick & snare and is constant tempo throughout.  He has said he wants to improve the drum track as part of the process and I will probably re-record the bass guitar also (As I was the bass player)

I found this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7D3wZldUJw 
which has shown me a technique to make sure the tempo matches the track, then I can add replacement drums in a new Midi track, in the knowledge it will remain in time.

Then in the future I might try Melodyne as it look impressive. but baby steps first.

I will also investigate the drum replacer feature but as the drums need improvement (Pattern, fills etc.) this is again a future option if I start to work with my old drummer.

So thanks for all the help - let's consider this thread closed although I will look to see if you have any more helpful comments.

[Starship Krupa]

14 hours ago, John Vere said:

You need a license for Melodyne for this to work now. This changed when Melodyne 5 came out and Cakewalk no longer includes the basic version of Melodyne. Only a demo for a month. 

Are you 100% sure about needing a registered version of Melodyne for this to work?

My understanding was that although CbB doesn't come with a license for Melodyne Essentials (as SONAR did), only a 30-day demo, the monophonic audio-to-MIDI conversion feature still works after the demo has expired. None of the other Melodyne features will work, only this one.

The Cakewalk Reference Guide makes no reference to needing a registered version of Melodyne for this to work.

I can't test this, because I do have licenses for Melodyne Essentials.

Anyway, I agree that Drum Replacer is a better option for replacing drum sounds.

[John Vere]

You could be right but I also don’t think I have a way to test it as my older computers all came with Melodyne 4 which doesn’t seem  to expire. 

I was to understand this changed when 5 came out and I guess Melodyne very basic version stopped being free. But I do think it’s called Melodyne Player remains. So possibly it still does the converting. 
 Lots of the DAWS I’m testing do ARA audio to midi conversion. My test computer doesn’t have  Melodyne Studio 5 installed. All the software on that computer is free stuff. But that’s also where I installed Home Studio. 
I know HS always did audio to midi. 
I do have one Laptop that is W7 and CbB I use for live shows that I could try it on. 

[Roy Slough]

11 minutes ago, John Vere said:

You could be right but I also don’t think I have a way to test it as my older computers all came with Melodyne 4 which doesn’t seem  to expire. 

I was to understand this changed when 5 came out and I guess Melodyne very basic version stopped being free. But I do think it’s called Melodyne Player remains. So possibly it still does the converting. 
 Lots of the DAWS I’m testing do ARA audio to midi conversion. My test computer doesn’t have  Melodyne Studio 5 installed. All the software on that computer is free stuff. But that’s also where I installed Home Studio. 
I know HS always did audio to midi. 
I do have one Laptop that is W7 and CbB I use for live shows that I could try it on. 

Thanks John,  Right now I am swamped with info and I am struggling with the basic config.  When I chose to download the Cakewalk Bandlab it said it would not run on my Win 7 Machines so I decided to use my Win 11 Laptop. Maybe a wrong decision as my desktop has soundcards etc.  But the Win 11 has SSD drives and a faster processor so maybe correct decision.

Anyway, I installed and during the process I was offered several Additional options in small windows which appeared simultaneously. (very similar to the checking VST window which appear when I start Cakewalk (Should I call it CbB? as many quote this) I chose some which I thought relevant and ignored others as I assumed I could go back and add later, but now I cannot find any of these again.

With that thought I have directed towards "drum replacer" I can't find any reference to this in the menus of CbB and the only online documentation says it should be installed with CbB????  what do I do = How can I check and once checked how to rectify?

It seems many things are add-ons to CbB = possibly run as plugins, but as a novice it is hard to discriminate between built in stuff & plugins.

I would be grateful for any advice you have OR online documentation or Videos that could help . I do have some knowledge of tracks, tempos etc. from my processing of audio with Audacity and another midi editor from 10 years ago.

Thanks 

[Roy Slough]

1 hour ago, Roy Slough said:

Thanks John,  Right now I am swamped with info and I am struggling with the basic config.  When I chose to download the Cakewalk Bandlab it said it would not run on my Win 7 Machines so I decided to use my Win 11 Laptop. Maybe a wrong decision as my desktop has soundcards etc.  But the Win 11 has SSD drives and a faster processor so maybe correct decision.

Anyway, I installed and during the process I was offered several Additional options in small windows which appeared simultaneously. (very similar to the checking VST window which appear when I start Cakewalk (Should I call it CbB? as many quote this) I chose some which I thought relevant and ignored others as I assumed I could go back and add later, but now I cannot find any of these again.

With that thought I have directed towards "drum replacer" I can't find any reference to this in the menus of CbB and the only online documentation says it should be installed with CbB????  what do I do = How can I check and once checked how to rectify?

It seems many things are add-ons to CbB = possibly run as plugins, but as a novice it is hard to discriminate between built in stuff & plugins.

I would be grateful for any advice you have OR online documentation or Videos that could help . I do have some knowledge of tracks, tempos etc. from my processing of audio with Audacity and another midi editor from 10 years ago.

Thanks 

Some more on this = I have found Drum Replacer, it is a region FX found by right clicking on a track

[Roy Slough]

1 hour ago, Roy Slough said:

Thanks John,  Right now I am swamped with info and I am struggling with the basic config.  When I chose to download the Cakewalk Bandlab it said it would not run on my Win 7 Machines so I decided to use my Win 11 Laptop. Maybe a wrong decision as my desktop has soundcards etc.  But the Win 11 has SSD drives and a faster processor so maybe correct decision.

Anyway, I installed and during the process I was offered several Additional options in small windows which appeared simultaneously. (very similar to the checking VST window which appear when I start Cakewalk (Should I call it CbB? as many quote this) I chose some which I thought relevant and ignored others as I assumed I could go back and add later, but now I cannot find any of these again.

With that thought I have directed towards "drum replacer" I can't find any reference to this in the menus of CbB and the only online documentation says it should be installed with CbB????  what do I do = How can I check and once checked how to rectify?

It seems many things are add-ons to CbB = possibly run as plugins, but as a novice it is hard to discriminate between built in stuff & plugins.

I would be grateful for any advice you have OR online documentation or Videos that could help . I do have some knowledge of tracks, tempos etc. from my processing of audio with Audacity and another midi editor from 10 years ago.

Thanks 

Some more on this = I have found Drum Replacer, it is a region FX found by right clicking on a track Also Melodyne appears here and when I launch it I get a message about player only or activate (But activate just gives an error message)

Launching the player mode show something similar to things I have seen on YouTube tutorials.

THEREFORE Melodyne is installed as a player version, but the Click and drag method does not create any midi notes (drums) in the destination track

I am learning, slowly.....

Edited March 29 by Roy Slough
incomplete typing

[John Vere]

Instead of drums try a monophonic track like a Bass? But @Craig Anderton mentioned the other day that the Polyphonic separation works even if you don't have the Versions of Melodyne that support it in the editor. I think you can purchase Elements dirt cheap. It's most certainly worth it. I couldn't function with out Melodyne now. It goes on sale a lot. But what I did was started with elements and every year Black Friday sale,  took the discounted price upgrades and so now I have the full version and I think it worked out a lot cheaper that way. 

[Roy Slough]

8 minutes ago, John Vere said:

Instead of drums try a monophonic track like a Bass? But @Craig Anderton mentioned the other day that the Polyphonic separation works even if you don't have the Versions of Melodyne that support it in the editor. I think you can purchase Elements dirt cheap. It's most certainly worth it. I couldn't function with out Melodyne now. It goes on sale a lot. But what I did was started with elements and every year Black Friday sale,  took the discounted price upgrades and so now I have the full version and I think it worked out a lot cheaper that way. 

LOL Great minds think alike!!! I have been playing with bass instead of drums. The Melodyne player version shows notes but it has not analysed any note (all notes are A (which I know isn't correct) I will return to Melodyne later......

Meanwhile, On creating Midi from Audio neither bass nor drums, Mono or Stereo is successful. I see messages about analysing Audio etc. but no result. Also I have noticed if I Ctrl drag to another audio track a new "segement" appears in that track. (not sure if this is the correct term) Ctrl drag to a midi track creates no segment (see before and after Screenshots)

[Glenn Stanton]

if you're getting a single note, it's likely the percussive algorithm is being used which results in a single note. you'll want to switch to universal etc.