Basic Pitch

About

Spotify's lightweight audio-to-MIDI transcription model. Instrument-agnostic CNN using harmonic CQT representation. ~15MB model, runs on CPU, detects pitch bends. Designed for consumer use — converts any pitched audio (voice, instrument) to MIDI. pip-installable with CLI and Python API.

Relevance

Best starting point for banjo transcription. Instrument-agnostic means it works on banjo without retraining. Pitch bend detection handles slides and chokes. Outputs MIDI which can be post-processed into tab. For monophonic banjo solos, this is the tool to try first.

Mentions

• ../sources/2022-03-23-basic-pitch — paper
• ../entities/crepe — complementary monophonic F0 tracker
• ../entities/tabcnn — tab-specific output (string+fret)

Links

• GitHub: https://github.com/spotify/basic-pitch (5k+ stars)
• Install: pip install basic-pitch