What it does
Basic Pitch, from Spotify's audio research lab, listens to a music recording and writes out the notes as a MIDI file, a format music software can edit and play back. It even captures pitch bends.
It works with many instruments and can handle several notes at the same time. Its makers say it is small and efficient yet competes with much larger systems.
There's a demo website for trying it on your own audio, and a command-line tool and Python library for regular use.
Who it's for
Musicians, music producers and developers who want to turn audio into notes.
Can I use it without coding?
Developers only. It's installed with Python and run from the command line. A demo website lets anyone try it. New to this? Start here.
Can I run it?
- Cost
- FreeNothing to pay or sign up for.
- Runs on
- Mac, Windows, Linux, Web browser
- Computer
- An ordinary computer is fine
- Privacy
- Runs on your own device: your data stays with you
- API key
- Not needed
Try it
Using Claude Code, Cursor or another AI coding assistant? Paste the prompt and it will walk you through the setup.New to this?
Before you install
- Only download from the official GitHub page. Copies with similar names exist for many popular projects.
- License (Apache-2.0): Permissive: free to use, change and share, including for business.
- More on staying safe
Where people are talking about it
- A Lightweight Instrument-Agnostic Model for Polyphonic Note Transcription and Multipitch EstimationResearch paper · Mar 2022