How to convert MP3 to MIDI on your Mac

What converts well, and what doesn't

"MP3 to MIDI" can mean three different jobs, and each needs a different tool.

• One note at a time (a vocal, a bass line, a lead synth): converts well in almost any tool, free ones included.
• One instrument playing chords (a piano, a guitar): needs a converter that hears several notes at once. Basic Pitch, Ableton's Convert Harmony and Melodyne editor do. Expect to fix a few notes.
• A whole song (drums, bass, chords and vocals together): most converters write every sound they hear as notes. You get hundreds of short, wrong ones. Split out the part first, or take only the chords.

Drums are a case of their own: Ableton Live can turn a beat into kick, snare and hi-hat notes.

The audio to MIDI converters, compared

• Basic Pitch by Spotify

  One instrument at a time, chords included: a vocal, a bass line, a piano or guitar part

  Free and open source, in your web browser

• Logic Pro (Flex Pitch)

  One note at a time: a vocal, a bass line, a lead

  Built in. Logic Pro is $199.99, or part of Apple Creator Studio

• Ableton Live (Convert to MIDI)

  A melody, a chord part, or a beat as kick, snare and hi-hat

  Live 12 Standard and Suite, not Intro

• Melodyne

  One instrument, down to the notes inside its chords

  MIDI export from assistant ($249). Notes inside chords need editor ($399)

• NeuralNote 2

  Whole mixes, with the notes sorted by instrument (new in October 2026)

  Free plugin for Apple silicon Macs. Its model is for non-commercial use only

• DOT

  The chords of anything your Mac plays, as block chords

  3 chord MIDI files free, then $49 once. macOS 14.4 or later

1. Free, in your browser: Basic Pitch

Basic Pitch is Spotify's free, open-source audio to MIDI converter. It hears several notes at once, catches pitch bends, and works on almost any instrument, voice included. It works best on one instrument at a time, Spotify says.

1. Open basicpitch.spotify.com.
2. Drop in your file (MP3, WAV and others), or press Record and sing or hum the idea.
3. Set MIDI File Tempo to the song's tempo, so the MIDI matches your session. Our BPM finder gives you the number.
4. Clean it up before you download. Narrow Minimum Pitch and Maximum Pitch to the part's range. If stray notes show up, move Model Confidence Threshold toward Fewer Notes.
5. Click Download MIDI and drag the file onto an instrument track.

There's nothing to install, and it's quick. On a full mix it does what every converter does: it writes down every instrument at once.

2. In Logic Pro: Flex Pitch

Logic can make MIDI from any audio region with Flex Pitch on. Apple says it works best on monophonic material, and that chords may come out wrong.

1. Double-click the audio region to open the Audio Track Editor.
2. Click the Show/Hide Flex button, then choose Flex Pitch from the Flex Mode menu.
3. Fix the audio first: timing, missed notes, notes at the wrong pitch.
4. In the Audio Track Editor's menu bar, choose Edit › Create MIDI Track from Flex Pitch Data.
5. A new instrument track appears under the audio. Pick a sound for it from the Library.

3. In Ableton Live: Convert to New MIDI Track

Select an audio clip, right-click it (or open the Create menu), and pick one of three:

• Convert Melody to New MIDI Track for one note at a time: singing, whistling, a solo guitar line. The new track plays a synth.
• Convert Harmony to New MIDI Track for chords, like a piano or guitar part. The new track plays a piano.
• Convert Drums to New MIDI Track for beats. It looks for the kick, snare and hi-hat, and loads a Drum Rack.

These come with Live 12 Standard and Suite, not Intro. Ableton's manual asks for isolated instruments with clear attacks. If the result is off, move the clip's transient markers and convert again: Live places the notes from them.

4. Only want the chords? Record them with DOT

Often you don't need every note. You need the four chords under a hook from a YouTube video or a synth's preset demo, to play with your own sounds. Converting the whole song gives you hundreds of notes to clean up. DOT gives you just the chords.

DOT is a Mac recorder for producers. It records whatever your Mac is playing and finds each clip's key, its tempo, and a chord for every half bar. The chords save as a standard MIDI file.

1. Play the song. Open the MP3 in QuickTime Player or Music, or play the video in Safari.
2. In DOT, pick that app as the source (or leave it on All Mac audio) and press ⌘R.
3. Press ⌘R again to stop. The clip lands trimmed, with its key, tempo and chords.
4. Press ⌘E and choose Save chords as MIDI.
5. Drag the .mid file onto an instrument track and pick your own sound.

The file holds block chords on the beat, at the clip's tempo, with a bass note under each one. A marker names every chord, for DAWs that show markers. DOT names major, minor, seventh and diminished chords; a Cm9 comes out as Cm7.

It doesn't write the melody, the bass line or the drums. Use one of the converters above for those. A drum loop or speech gets no chords at all.

“I try the chords on a piano, a few Serum presets or Analog Lab presets, and I find out quickly whether a good vocal melody starts coming to me.”

Kai Williams, music artist and creator of DOT

Why a full song turns into a mess of notes

A converter hears everything at once: the bass, the chords, the vocal, the overtones of each, and the hiss of the cymbals. It writes all of it down as notes. Ableton's manual says it plainly: if other instruments are in the clip, "their notes will be detected as well." Notes that swell in slowly can be missed.

Four things help:

1. Split the part out first. Logic Pro's Stem Splitter pulls vocals, drums, bass, guitar, piano and other parts out of a mix. Control-click the region and choose Processing › Stem Splitter (Apple silicon Macs). Live 12 Suite has had Stem Separation since Live 12.3. Convert the stem, not the mix.
2. Use WAV or AIFF if you have it. Ableton's manual warns that MP3s can convert unpredictably unless they're at a high bitrate.
3. Try a model made for full mixes. NeuralNote 2 came out on 4 October 2026. It transcribes a whole mix and sorts the notes by instrument. It's new, so judge it on your own songs, and note that its model is licensed for non-commercial use only.
4. Take only the chords. If the chords are what you're after, DOT gives you those and nothing else.

“I’ve never converted a whole song to MIDI. But I sometimes convert loops I find on Splice and use them as a starting point.”

Kai Williams, music artist and creator of DOT

Other tools worth knowing

• Melodyne (Celemony) shows the notes of a recording as blobs you can edit. Its editor and studio editions use DNA, which reaches the single notes inside chords from a piano or a guitar. Assistant, editor and studio export the notes as a MIDI file. It runs on its own or as a plugin, with a 30-day free trial.
• NeuralNote is a free plugin (AU, VST3 and a standalone app). Version 2 runs on Apple silicon Macs and keeps your audio on your Mac. You drag the MIDI into your session, one track per instrument. Its model is a 210 MB to 2.7 GB download, depending on the size you pick. Version 1, still on GitHub, used Basic Pitch.
• AnthemScore 6 turns audio into sheet music or MIDI on macOS 11 or later. MIDI export needs the Professional edition ($39 once). The free trial transcribes the first 30 seconds of each song.
• Logic Pro's Chord ID finds the chords in an audio region and writes them on the Chord track. Session Players then play along with them.

Questions

Sources

• Basic Pitch and About Basic Pitch, Spotify
• Basic Pitch on GitHub and Meet Basic Pitch, Spotify Engineering, 1 June 2022
• Create MIDI from audio using Flex Pitch, Apple
• Extract vocal and instrumental stems with Stem Splitter, Apple
• Logic Pro, Apple
• Converting audio to MIDI, Ableton Live 12 manual
• Compare Live editions, Ableton
• Melodyne 5 editions and technical matters, Celemony
• NeuralNote and NeuralNote on GitHub, Damien Ronssin
• AnthemScore and download, Lunaverus