# reverse engineering MIDIS

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reverse-engineering-midis/22169>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [June 12, 2000, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reverse-engineering-midis/22169 "2000-06-12T21:47:27Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![The\_Ryan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7feea3/32.png) [@The\_Ryan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Ryan)\
**Post date:** [June 12, 2000, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reverse-engineering-midis/22169/1 "2000-06-12T21:47:27Z")

</div>

I was wondering: MIDIs are basically sheet music for computers, right? So is there any way I can look at a MIDI file and figure out what the sheet music equivalent would be? Would I need a special program? Would any program capable of converting sheet music into a MIDI file be able to go the other way?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\
**Post date:** [June 12, 2000, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reverse-engineering-midis/22169/2 "2000-06-12T22:37:52Z")

</div>

You can download for free a program that does just this. It’s called MidiNotate. [http://www.notation.com](http://www.notation.com)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\
**Post date:** [June 13, 2000, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reverse-engineering-midis/22169/3 "2000-06-13T02:24:19Z")

</div>

I have MusicMagic by Midisoft [http://www.midisoft.com/](http://www.midisoft.com/) It’s old but does just that. Allows you to write and save your own music or to retouch and make changes and edit midi files

[http://www.tcp.ca/Nov94/PCMIDI.html](http://www.tcp.ca/Nov94/PCMIDI.html)