Audio --> MIDI?

Hello,

I'm interested in taking my real-time recordings and converting them to MIDI on my Mac. Basically, I work in GarageBand, and I need to convert the piano I'm playing/recording to MIDI for editing purposes. Is there an easy, reliable way?

I'm sure I'm explaining this in a very rudimentary fashion, as I know very little about these things, but any help would be really, really great.

Thanks a lot.

-R

afaik garageband doesn't export midi but logic can open garageband songs into its midi editor

hmmmm that is good to know.

is there something technically distinct about the way garageband stores/plays its software instrument tracks that explains why this isnt a built-in feature or is it some stingy scheme to make you buy logic?

i bet it's the latter. so. annoying.

its gotta be some bullshit like that because it does let you import midi

before u "buy logic" u should download it first for "testing" ; ) or delete garageband and get ableton live

If the OP is asking whether there is software that will convert an audio file of polyphonic music into MIDI data, the answer is "no, not yet". It's one of the holy grails of DSP. A German company, Celemony, claim that the upcoming version of their (very expensive) tuning-correction software will be able to process polyphonic input. You can read about it here.
Right now, what you need to do is to borrow a digital piano with a MIDI output, and record the MIDI data of your performance directly into a halfway decent sequencing application (i.e. not GarageBand). I understand that the entry-level version of Logic is quite affordable.

I spent a long time fighting with little apps to translate monophonic guitar playing to MIDI, which isn't all that well-developed either; in the end I just gave up and bought an old MIDI guitar.

what apps are these? any that work halfway-decently?