Free online 3GP to MIDI converter

A phone recording may need to become MIDI when a music program or device accepts note data but not the original 3GP audio. MIDI stores musical events rather than recorded sound, so the conversion attempts to transcribe pitches and timing; it does not preserve the recording as audio.

What the 3GP format is

3GP is a multimedia container used mainly for video and audio on mobile phones. Phone cameras and recording apps commonly create 3GP files, which may contain audio encoded as AMR-NB, AAC, or another codec, sometimes alongside video. The audio codec and recording quality affect how well software can detect notes.

What the MIDI format is

MIDI files store instructions such as note pitch, start time, duration, and velocity. Music sequencers, notation software, and synthesizers can edit or play those events using different instruments. A MIDI file contains no copy of the original voice or instrument sound; playback depends on the receiving software or device.

How to convert 3GP to MIDI

Online on 101convert.com

1. Open the 3GP-to-MIDI converter page and upload the file. The page allows batch conversion; check its displayed per-file size limit.
2. Choose MIDI as the output format, then start the conversion.
3. Download the resulting MIDI file and inspect its notes in a sequencer or notation program.

Because this process must infer notes from audio, the MIDI may not match speech, chords, percussion, or noisy recordings accurately.

Offline with desktop software

Free option: Basic Pitch and FFmpeg. Basic Pitch is an open-source audio-to-MIDI transcription tool for Windows, macOS, and Linux. First use FFmpeg to extract the audio and decode it to WAV; -vn excludes any video track:

1. Run ffmpeg -i input.3gp -vn -ac 1 -ar 22050 input.wav.
2. Install Basic Pitch with python -m pip install basic-pitch.
3. Run basic-pitch output input.wav. The output folder receives a MIDI transcription.

Commercial option: Ableton Live. Import the extracted WAV into an audio track, right-click its clip, and choose Convert Melody to New MIDI Track for a single melodic line or Convert Harmony to New MIDI Track for chords. Live creates a MIDI clip that you can edit or export. These conversion commands work best with clear, pitched material.

Quality and limitations

Transcription can estimate note events, but it cannot recover a performance perfectly. Speech, overlapping instruments, percussion, background noise, and AMR-compressed phone audio can produce missing or incorrect notes. Review and edit the MIDI; use the original 3GP when you need to retain the actual sound.