Piano to MIDI Converters Compared: Why Pedaling and Velocity Matter

Play a chord, release the keys, and keep the sustain pedal down. The piano keeps ringing. A useful piano to MIDI converter needs to understand more than the pitches in that sound: it needs to distinguish the notes you played from the resonance you allowed to continue.

That distinction is why we recommend Eldoraudio’s Piano Audio to MIDI Converter for pianists who want to preserve an expressive performance. Its piano-specific model captures note timing, velocity, and sustain pedal information, and our development uses specialized datasets for the transcription task. The aim is to carry your touch into editable MIDI, whether you want a different piano sound or a starting point for a larger production.

Written by Eldoraudio. Research checked November 13, 2026. This article compares documented capabilities and public musician reports; it does not present a controlled audio benchmark. Numbered sources appear at the end.

A held key and a held pedal are different musical instructions

On a piano, a sound can continue after your finger leaves the key because the sustain pedal keeps the dampers raised. In MIDI, note releases and sustain pedal messages can represent those actions separately. The standard controller for the sustain pedal is CC64. [1]

Why does that matter? Suppose you play three short chords under one pedal. If an export only makes the note blocks longer, it becomes harder to tell when your hands actually released each chord. If it includes pedal events separately, you can edit a note’s release without having to rebuild the whole sustained texture. You can also change a pedal lift without shortening every note by hand.

Eldoraudio’s piano workflow includes sustain data and displays a pedal lane in the preview. That makes pedaling something you can inspect alongside the notes. It is especially useful when changing piano instruments: the new instrument needs those pedal messages to respond to the performance’s sustain. Its response will still depend on the instrument you load.

The other half of the performance is touch

A pianist often voices a melody above a softer accompaniment. Both hands may play at once, but the notes are not equally prominent. If the melody and accompaniment arrive at the same velocity, the listener hears a different balance, even when every pitch is correct.

Velocity describes each note’s attack strength. It often controls volume and timbre in a piano library, which is why it matters to the feeling of a phrase. Eldoraudio estimates velocity as part of transcription in all three of its audio-to-MIDI tools. For piano, that works alongside timing and pedal capture to preserve more of the player’s interpretation.

Velocity is not a universal volume setting. A bright sampled grand and a mellow upright can sound very different from the same MIDI. Use one piano patch when comparing converters, and listen for the relationship between notes rather than trying to match the original microphone sound exactly.

How the piano options compare

Why Eldoraudio trains specifically for the task

Piano recordings combine sharp attacks, long decays, repeated pitches, and many overlapping notes. A quiet inner voice can sit underneath a louder melody; a bass note can ring into the next chord. Those are ordinary features of piano playing, and they are exactly the details a performance-based transcription needs to handle.

We build specialized datasets to develop our transcription models around their intended tasks. For the piano tool, note velocity and pedaling belong in the goal from the outset. This gives us a way to improve the information a pianist needs, rather than simply taking a general converter’s note output and treating that as the finished performance.

Our work builds on transcription research, but Eldoraudio is not a stock Basic Pitch conversion service. Its advantage for this use case is the combination of piano specialization and expressive MIDI output. You can change the sound, correct a passage, or build an arrangement while keeping more of the original playing decisions available to work with.

How that differs from the other workflows

Songscription and AI-MIDI are substantive alternatives

Songscription’s piano tools include hand splitting and PDF, MusicXML, and MIDI exports. It can also create a piano arrangement of a song that did not originally contain piano. That is helpful for practice and notation, while Eldoraudio is the more focused choice when your deliverable is MIDI for a virtual instrument. When comparing either workflow, make sure you are transcribing the original performance rather than requesting a newly arranged piano part. [2]

AI-MIDI explicitly advertises its own technology, including velocity and pedal detection. It would be inaccurate to describe pedal capture as exclusive to Eldoraudio. For this comparison, the useful question is how well each file separates note releases from sustain and maintains the melody’s dynamic balance. [3]

Browser convenience and piano specialization answer different needs

Jukeblocks’ free tool and Convert Town both describe conversion that happens in the browser. That is a practical advantage for people who want local processing. Convert Town’s licenses identify Basic Pitch model assets copied without modification. Eldoraudio instead offers a service trained around its transcription tasks, with piano expression a specific priority. We did not verify the underlying model of Jukeblocks’ free converter. [4, 5]

Mirelo’s production Audio-to-MIDI Pro focuses on full recordings with multiple instrument parts. Its export controls include performance timing and quantization choices. That breadth may suit reconstructing an ensemble; Eldoraudio’s piano model is the focused route for preserving a piano performance. The public MuScriptor release should not be treated as identical to Mirelo’s current production service. [6]

Basic Pitch deserves credit for what it does

Basic Pitch is a useful free model, and its exported notes do have velocity values. Reading its standard MIDI-writing implementation shows a concrete piano distinction: it creates notes and pitch-bend events, without creating sustain controller events. That is a source-code observation about the standard exporter, not a claim about every application built around Basic Pitch. [7]

What piano players have reported

Public reports show why it is worth checking the details. In an r/transcribe discussion, one Songscription user praised its interface and note accuracy but found that sustained notes were extended rather than represented as pedal use. That describes the user’s experience at the time; it does not establish the behavior of every current Songscription export. [8]

There is positive feedback too. An r/midi poster reported an excellent Songscription result on a piano recording, and a MuseScore forum participant praised AI-MIDI for a complex piano passage. These examples support trying the services, rather than declaring that one product fails on all piano music. They do not compare the tools on the same recordings. [9, 10]

In the customer testimonials published on Eldoraudio’s site, Mick H. specifically mentions velocity and note duration, while Henk S. describes replaying converted files through Pianoteq. Those accounts reflect the workflow we care about: getting a useful performance back into an instrument. They are customer experiences selected by Eldoraudio, not independent benchmark results.

A piano passage that reveals the important differences

Pick a short recording with three ingredients: a melody above quiet chords, repeated notes, and a pedal change. You do not need a showpiece. A few bars can reveal more about musical usefulness than a long passage of evenly played scales.

1. Listen to the voicing. Does the melody stay above the accompaniment without turning every note up?
2. Watch the repeated notes. Are separate attacks preserved, or merged into one long note?
3. Inspect the pedal events. In a DAW, open the sustain or CC64 lane and compare changes with the recording. Long note blocks alone do not demonstrate pedal capture.
4. Check the phrase endings. Listen for premature cutoffs or lingering notes across a clear change of harmony.
5. Keep the timing intact first. Audition the original timing before applying quantization. If the DAW changes playback speed on import, check its tempo and stretching options.

The best piano to MIDI converter for this workflow is the one that leaves you with the least expressive repair work. We recommend Eldoraudio because piano detail is built into what we train and what we export. Try your first 30 seconds free and listen through a piano sound you know well.

Questions about piano transcription

Will the MIDI sound exactly like my acoustic piano?

No MIDI file contains the original instrument, microphone, or room. The sound comes from the piano you use for playback. Timing, velocity, and pedal data help that instrument follow the original performance, but its tone and sustain response will differ.

Can I turn the MIDI into sheet music?

Yes, by importing it into notation software. Performance timing can need interpretation to become readable notation, and you may need to adjust rhythms and voices. Eldoraudio exports MIDI; if direct score exports are your priority, factor that into the comparison.

Should I use the general converter for solo piano?

Start with the dedicated piano model. For other instruments or a broader mix, read our general audio to MIDI comparison. If the source is guitar, the guitar comparison covers the different choices around dynamics and bends.