Audio to MIDI in FL Studio

Before you convert

FL Studio has no built-in audio-to-MIDI conversion, which is why this takes a round trip through a converter. Two things decide how much editing you will do afterwards, and both happen before conversion:

• Export one instrument, not the mix. Solo the channel and render just that. A full mix gives you a MIDI part with notes from everything at once.
• Render a short section. Set the selection to four or eight bars and export that rather than the whole arrangement. Fifteen to sixty seconds converts fast and gives a cleaner result.

In FL Studio: File → Export → WAV, and under Miscellaneous make sure Save selection as is what you expect. Note the project tempo shown in the transport — you will need it in a moment.

Convert the file

1. Open the converter and drop in the WAV you exported.
2. Drag the selection handles to the section you want. The converter transcribes up to sixty seconds per run.
3. Play it back and switch between Original and MIDI. If the MIDI is a scatter of short notes, raise the minimum note length; if notes are missing, lower the sensitivity.
4. Set the tempo to your FL Studio project tempo before exporting. The converter estimates tempo from the notes, and an estimate that is out by a factor of two is the usual reason imported MIDI does not line up.
5. Download the .mid file.

Import the MIDI into FL Studio

There are two routes, and they do different things.

Into the current project (usually what you want)

1. Open the Piano roll on the channel you want to play the part — a synth, a sampler, anything.
2. In the Piano roll menu, choose File → Import MIDI file, and pick the .mid you downloaded.
3. The notes appear in that channel’s Piano roll. If FL asks about the MIDI channel, take channel 1 — the export is a single track.

As a new project

Dragging the .mid onto the FL Studio window, or using File → Import → MIDI file, opens it as its own project and takes the tempo from the file. Useful for auditioning, awkward if you wanted the part inside the track you are already working on.

If the notes do not line up

• Everything drifts progressively. Tempo mismatch. The file’s tempo and the project tempo differ. Re-export from the converter with the correct tempo set.
• Everything is offset by a constant amount. Your selection did not start on a bar line. Select the notes in the Piano roll and nudge them, or re-render the audio from a bar boundary.
• Timing is close but loose. That is your performance, faithfully transcribed. Use the converter’s quantize control at a low setting, or FL’s own quantize (Alt + Q) once the notes are in.

Cleaning up in the Piano roll

Transcription of a recorded performance always leaves some artefacts. The three worth fixing first:

• Very short stray notes. Faster to remove in the converter before export — set “remove short notes” to around 80–120 ms — than to hunt for them by hand.
• Notes an octave off. Usually an overtone read as a note. Select and transpose, or narrow the pitch range and convert again.
• Overlapping duplicates on one pitch. Turn on “trim overlaps” in the converter; FL will otherwise retrigger the same note oddly on some synths.

What this will not do

It will not split a finished track into separate instrument parts, and it will not give you an accurate transcription of a dense mix. If the source is a full arrangement, expect a sketch you rebuild by hand rather than a part you can use as-is.