How to handle a real recording’s tail before WAV to MIDI.
Trim or inspect the tail before downloading MIDI. In this controlled test, a low-level tail and a short gate-cutoff click both produced one detected event, so the result did not prove that denoising creates an extra note; it did prove that the tail must be checked rather than assumed harmless.
Four artifacts, side by side
| Input | Output | Events |
|---|---|---|
| original-tail.wav | original-tail.mid | 1 event: MIDI 64 |
| gated-tail-click.wav | gated-tail-click.mid | 1 event: MIDI 64 |
Both inputs contain the same four-note melody followed by low-level random noise. The gated variant adds a short high-amplitude cutoff impulse at the start of the gate. With the current detector settings, both runs returned the same single event. This is a measured result for this fixture, not a universal denoising rule.
What to do with a tail
- Listen to the last half-second of the source and decide whether it contains a real note or only room noise.
- Trim obvious silence before conversion, but keep a copy of the original WAV.
- After conversion, inspect the last MIDI note’s end time and compare it with the audio tail.
- If a gate or denoiser changes the attack, rerun both versions and keep the one whose note boundaries match the source.
Reproduce the test
Download run-denoise-tail.cjs and the full results.json. The script generates mono 11,025 Hz PCM WAV fixtures and evaluates the exact deployed detector and MIDI writer. The source app hash is recorded in the JSON.
WAV to MIDI questions
Can noise at the end always create a MIDI note?
No conclusion like that is supported by this run: both the original-tail and gated-tail fixtures produced one event. Test your own tail because its level, spectrum and preceding note can be different.
Should I denoise before conversion?
Only when you can compare the result with the unprocessed source. A gate can alter the note boundary or add a click, so preserve both files and inspect the final MIDI.
What is the safest tail workflow?
Keep the original, make a trimmed or denoised copy, convert both, and compare the final note event before downloading the version you will edit.