Automatic Transcription of Monophonic Audio to MIDI

Abstract This paper presents an automatic system for transcription of mono-phonic audio signals into the MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) repre-sentation. The system incorporates two separate algorithms in order to extract the necessary musical information from the audio signal. The detection of the fundamental frequency is based on a pattern recognition method applied on the constant Q spectral transform. The onset detection is achieved by a sequential algorithm based on computing a statistical distance measure between two autore-gressive models. The results of both algorithms are combined by heuristic rules eliminating the transcription errors in a natural manner. The method is suitable for rapid musical passages, able to deal with various musical sounds, and applicable within a wide range of MIDI frequencies.