What we tested in the current converter
We generated a four-second, 22,050 Hz mono WAV with a synthesized low-frequency kick-style hit, a noise-plus-tone snare-style hit, a short high-frequency noise burst, and a second kick-style hit. No public media or copyrighted source was used.
The file went through the live local converter with its default sensitivity and minimum-note-length controls. The browser completed without console errors and exported a 127-byte MIDI file containing nine notes.
| MIDI inspection | Observed result | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Musical tracks | One | No separate kick, snare, or hi-hat tracks |
| Channel | Channel 1 | Not General MIDI percussion channel 10 |
| Instrument | Acoustic grand piano | The file is marked as a pitched instrument |
| Detected pitches | F♯1, D♯2, E2, F♯3 | Transient energy was interpreted as musical pitch |
Why pitched-note transcription is different from drum transcription
A pitched-note model looks for fundamentals and harmonics that can be represented as notes such as C4 or F♯3. Drum transcription instead classifies transient events into roles such as kick, snare, closed hi-hat, or tom, then maps those roles to drum notes or separate lanes. A burst of noise can make a pitched model emit uncertain note fragments without identifying the instrument that caused them.
How to recognize a real drum MIDI result
- Inspect the MIDI channel. General MIDI percussion convention uses channel 10; the tested file used channel 1.
- Check the instrument flag. A percussion track should not be labeled as acoustic grand piano.
- Listen with a drum rack. Confirm that kick, snare, and cymbal hits land on the expected drum cells rather than arbitrary pitches.
- Compare hit times. Drum transcription should preserve the transient rhythm even when the source has no stable musical pitch.
What to do with a YouTube drum performance
For audio you own or are allowed to use, first isolate the drum stem if the recording is a full mix. Then use a tool designed to classify drum hits, or manually slice the transients and trigger a drum rack in your DAW. Do not treat the pitched notes from this converter as drum names merely because a MIDI file was created.
What this test does and does not prove
It verifies the current converter's output for one reproducible synthetic drum-style file and confirms the exported channel, instrument, event count, and pitches. It does not measure drum-transcription accuracy, compare every converter, or predict the output of every percussion recording.
For recordings with several pitched instruments, read the track-separation boundary. If you need to verify simultaneous musical pitches, see the controlled chord test. If the draft plays with the wrong sound, use the instrument and playback guide.