MelodyTrace

Audio to Sheet Music Converter

Upload a recording and get notation you can read, print, or import into MuseScore and Sibelius — with an editable MIDI step in between so you can fix wrong notes first.

AudioSheet Music
  • MP3 / WAV
  • MusicXML / PDF
  • Practice & teaching
Start converting

Conversion studio

Choose a format and add your track

Drop your track here or browse

MP3 or WAV · processed securely

Maximum file size: 50 MB

Result

Waiting

Your result shows up here

Pick a format and add a file on the left. The transcription lands here as a piano roll you can play, edit, and download.

  1. 01

    Add a file

    Drop in MP3, WAV, or MIDI

  2. 02

    Convert

    Pitch and timing detected for you

  3. 03

    Edit & export

    Fix notes, export MIDI or sheet music

How does audio become sheet music?

There's no direct audio-to-notation model — going straight from a waveform to engraved sheet music produces messy, unplayable results. MelodyTrace instead does it in two proven steps: transcribe your audio to MIDI notes with Basic Pitch, then engrave that MIDI into MusicXML or PDF notation with music21's notation engine, the same two-stage approach used by professional transcription software.

The advantage of the two-step path is the middle step is editable. Before anything gets engraved, you see the detected notes on a piano roll and can fix a wrong note, quantize sloppy timing, or delete a stray pitch — corrections that are far easier to make on a piano roll than by hand-editing a finished score.

How it works

01

Upload your recording

Drop an MP3 or WAV. A single clear melody or solo instrument transcribes most accurately. No account needed to convert and preview.

02

Fix the transcription on the piano roll

Play back the detected notes against your recording, correct anything wrong, and re-transcribe with adjusted sensitivity if needed — this is the step that determines how clean your sheet music will be.

03

Export MusicXML or PDF

Sign in to export notation: MusicXML for notation software, or a PDF you can print or share, laid out and quantized automatically.

Formats & limits

Input formats
Audio
Output
Sheet Music
File limits
50 MB · 10 min
Price
Free · no sign-up

Highlights

Fix notes before engraving

Review and correct the MIDI transcription on the piano roll first, so mistakes don’t carry through to your sheet music.

Standard notation formats

Export MusicXML for MuseScore, Sibelius, or Finale, or a PDF you can print directly.

Same engine as MIDI export

No separate tool to learn — sheet music is one export button away from any transcription on this site.

Getting readable sheet music, not just correct notes

  • Monophonic sources — a single voice, solo instrument, or isolated melody — engrave far more cleanly than a full mix; dense chords and overlapping parts often need manual cleanup either way.
  • Fix timing and stray notes on the piano roll before exporting — notation software makes the same fixes much more tedious once the score is engraved.
  • If note lengths look uneven in the export, raise the minimum note length and re-transcribe rather than fixing durations by hand in your notation app.
  • Treat the export as a first draft: even accurate MIDI can produce awkward beaming or rests that a quick pass in MuseScore or Sibelius cleans up.

Frequently asked questions

Can I convert audio straight to sheet music?

Not in a single step, and that's true of any tool claiming to do it, not just a limitation here — there is no model that reliably goes directly from a raw waveform to engraved notation, because engraving requires quantized, discrete note data that audio simply doesn't contain on its own. Every workable pipeline, including this one, actually runs two separate stages: first transcribing the audio into MIDI notes with pitch and timing detection, then engraving that MIDI into notation using a separate music-notation engine. MelodyTrace runs both stages for you automatically, but critically shows you the intermediate MIDI stage on an interactive piano roll before anything gets engraved, so you can catch and fix a wrong note or timing issue while it's still easy to edit, rather than after it's already locked into a formatted score.

What file do I get?

You get MusicXML, PDF, or both, depending on what you choose to export. MusicXML is the standard interchange format for notation, and it opens directly in MuseScore, Sibelius, Finale, Guitar Pro, and effectively every other notation application in common use, so if you plan to keep editing the score, transpose it, or combine it with other parts, that's the format to grab. The PDF export instead produces a ready-to-read, ready-to-print page layout with measures, staves, and standard notation symbols already positioned — useful when you just want something to hand to a student, print for a rehearsal, or share as-is without anyone needing notation software installed to open it. Both are generated from the same underlying corrected MIDI, so they represent the identical musical content either way — exporting both costs nothing extra beyond the two clicks.

Is audio to sheet music free?

Uploading a recording, running the transcription, and previewing the detected notes on the piano roll against your original audio are all free with no account required — you can fully judge whether a transcription is accurate enough to be worth turning into notation before deciding whether to sign up for anything. What requires an account is everything past that evaluation step: the full note-editing tools for correcting wrong pitches or timing before engraving, a saved history of past conversions you can return to, and — specifically for this page — actually exporting the engraved result as MusicXML or PDF, since notation export sits behind sign-in the same way it does on every other conversion page on this site — the transcription and preview step itself is never gated.

Why does the sheet music look messy for a full band recording?

Notation engines, this one included, are built around the assumption that they're engraving one clear melodic line at a time onto a staff — that's what standard sheet music notation is designed to represent cleanly. A dense full-band recording produces overlapping detected notes from drums, bass, chords, and a lead all sounding together, and when a notation engine tries to force that onto a single staff, the result is visual clutter: stacked notes, awkward beaming, and rhythms that don't reflect what any one instrument was actually playing. This isn't a bug specific to this tool, it's what any notation software does with polyphonic input that was never meant to be read as one part. For a score you can actually read and play from, isolate the melody, a single stem, or one solo instrument before transcribing, rather than uploading the full mix.

Related conversions

Related reading

How to import your MIDI into Ableton Live, FL Studio, and Logic ProWhat to do with a transcribed MIDI file once you have it — track setup, tempo matching, and cleanup steps for Ableton Live, FL Studio, and Logic Pro.How to choose a free audio-to-MIDI converterWhat actually separates free audio-to-MIDI tools: the transcription model behind them, whether you can fix wrong notes before export, sheet music support, and what happens to your files.Getting MIDI from a YouTube video: what actually worksThere is no direct "YouTube to MIDI" tool here, and there is a reason for that. What legitimate options exist, and how to get the audio into a transcription tool once you have it.

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