MP3 to sheet music

Convert an MP3 of piano music to sheet music in your browser: a two-hand score you can print as PDF or open in MuseScore. Works with M4A, WAV and video too. Nothing uploaded.

AudioRinse · sheet musicOn-device · 0 B uploaded

Drop a piano recording here

MP3 · WAV · M4A · MP4 · MOV · WEBM — up to 20 min. Nothing is uploaded.

How it works

Drop the MP3 onto the box above. M4A, WAV, FLAC and videos work too, up to 20 min.
AudioRinse checks that it's piano music, then hears every note on your own device. The first time, the models download once.
It finds the beat, the bars, the key and the hands, and lays the notes out as a grand-staff score.
Read it on the page, then download a PDF to print, MusicXML to edit in MuseScore, or MIDI.

From an MP3 to a printed score

An MP3 holds sound, not notes: there's nothing inside it to read off. The converter listens to it the way a transcriber would, note by note, and writes down what it hears as piano sheet music, with the treble staff for the right hand and the bass staff for the left.

MP3's compression doesn't get in the way. We tested every piece through a copy made to sound like a phone recording, filtered and compressed to 64 kbps, and it scored within a point or two of the original: 99.6% of the notes of a Bach prelude, either way.

Which recordings work

Solo piano, acoustic or digital, recorded or downloaded. A singer over the piano works too, with a few stray notes from the voice.
Your own playing, recorded on a phone: iPhone Voice Memos and most Android recorders save M4A, which goes straight in.
Not a band or an orchestra: the transcriber writes every sound as piano notes, so the guitar, bass and drums of a song would all land on the piano staves. The page says so when it can't hear a piano.

What you get

A piano score on two staves: the right hand on the treble staff and the left hand on the bass staff, each written as one line of notes and chords. It has a key signature, a time signature and a tempo mark, notes from whole notes down to 16ths and eighth-note triplets, ties across bar lines, and a pickup bar when the music starts before the first beat.

It's written to be read, not to copy every millisecond of the performance: notes that the pedal holds over the next ones end where the next note in that hand starts, a key let go a moment early still gets its full value, and nothing shorter than a 16th becomes a rest.

Fixing the score in MuseScore

Download the MusicXML and open it in MuseScore, which is free. Click any note to move it with the arrow keys or delete it. If the bars came out in the wrong meter, select the first bar and pick the right time signature from the palette: MuseScore re-bars the whole piece.

Play it back in MuseScore to hear it against the recording. The MIDI file does the same job in a DAW or a piano-learning app.

How accurate it is

We tested it on seven freely licensed recordings by real pianists, each against its printed score, through a phone-quality copy of each recording (the originals score within two points of it):

Notes that match the printed score, phone-quality copy of each recording
Piece	Pianist	Notes matching
Bach, Prelude in C major, BWV 846	Kimiko Ishizaka	99.6%
Bach, Prelude in C minor, BWV 847	Kimiko Ishizaka	99.1%
Chopin, Prelude Op. 28 No. 20	Ivan Ilić	95.9%
Clementi, Sonatina Op. 36 No. 1, I	Alessio Cesaroni	95.1%
Chopin, Nocturne in E minor, Op. 72 No. 1	Luke Faulkner	89.7%
Satie, Gymnopédie No. 1	Daria Baiocchi	82.8%
Joplin, Maple Leaf Rag	William J. Leslie	77.8%

Questions

Is my recording uploaded anywhere?

No. The models run inside your browser, on your own computer. Your recording and the score never leave your device; the only downloads are the models themselves, the first time.

Is it free?

Transcribing and reading the score on the page are free and unlimited. You get 3 free downloads a month for recordings up to 10 minutes (1 without an account), and a score's PDF, MusicXML and MIDI count as one. Pro adds unlimited downloads and recordings up to 20 min.

Which files does it take?

MP3, M4A (iPhone Voice Memos), WAV, FLAC, AAC, OGG and Opus, and the sound of MP4, MOV, WebM and MKV videos, up to 20 min. The tool reads the sound only; a video's picture is ignored.

How accurate is it?

On seven recordings by real pianists, from 78% to 99.6% of the notes matched the printed score, 92% on average, through a phone-quality copy of each recording. Clear, steady playing does best (Bach's preludes, 99%); dense ragtime by an amateur pianist who adds notes that aren't in the score, the hardest (78%). The rhythm is harder than the notes: check the bar lines and the time signature.

Does it work on guitar, singing or a whole band?

No: it's made for piano, and it says so if it can't hear one. The transcriber writes everything it hears as piano notes, so on other instruments the score would be wrong. A piano with a voice works, though the voice may add a few stray notes.

How long does it take?

It depends on your graphics chip. A 3-minute piece takes about 15 seconds on a gaming laptop, under a minute on a 2020 laptop's built-in graphics, and one to two minutes on the processor alone, in browsers without WebGPU. The page shows the time left as it goes.

Why does the first recording take longer?

The models download once, 131 MB in all, and stay in your browser. The next recording starts at once.