HumMIDI Help and Troubleshooting Guide

hummidi listens to you hum or sing, detects the pitch, and converts your voice into clean musical notes you can edit, play back with instrument sounds, and export as a standard MIDI file for any music app or DAW.

Contents

Quick start

Recording your melody

Hum, Do & Na

Recording quality

Editing notes

Tempo, key & timing

Playback & instruments

Exporting MIDI

Saving sessions

Troubleshooting

Privacy

Contact

Quick start

  1. Tap Record and allow microphone access when prompted.
  2. Hum or sing a short, steady melody.
  3. Tap Stop. Your notes appear on the piano roll.
  4. Tap Play to hear them, and drag any note to fix it.
  5. Tap Export MIDI to send the file to GarageBand, Logic, Ableton, or any DAW.

Recording your melody

Tap the Record button and hum or sing your idea. While recording:

  • The large note name and frequency readout show the pitch hummidi is hearing in real time — if it stays blank, hummidi isn’t picking up a clear pitch yet.
  • Sing or hum one note at a time, holding each note steady for a moment before moving on.
  • Tap Stop when you’re finished. hummidi then finds the notes, estimates the key and tempo, and shows the result.
Tip: A quiet, close, steady tone gives far better results than a loud, distant, or wavering one.

Microphone sensitivity

On the start screen, use the microphone sensitivity slider to match your voice and room:

  • Raise it if you sing quietly or notes are being missed.
  • Lower it if a noisy room is creating extra, unwanted notes.

Hum, Do & Na

Before recording, pick the voice input style that matches how you’ll sing:

  • Hum — best for smooth, sustained, closed-mouth melodies. Notes flow together.
  • Do — sing each note as a crisp “do.” hummidi treats each syllable as a new note start, so repeated notes stay separate.
  • Na — like Do, using a “na” syllable. Great when you want clearly separated, repeated notes.
If repeated notes are merging into one long note, switch to Do or Na and articulate each note. If a single note is splitting into many, use Hum.

Recording quality feedback

After each take, hummidi shows a quick quality summary so you know whether to edit or re-record:

  • Good signal — clean and stable. Ready to edit or export.
  • Fair signal — usable, but some pitch drift or soft passages. Review the highlighted notes; a slightly louder retake may help.
  • Retake — the signal was too quiet or unstable. Try again closer to the mic with a steadier, louder tone.

The summary also shows how much of the take was “voiced” (had a clear pitch) and how “stable” it was, along with the detected note count, key, and tempo.

Editing notes

Your melody appears on a piano roll. Tap a note to select it, then:

  • Drag up or down to change its pitch.
  • Drag left or right to move it in time.
  • Drag the right edge to change how long the note lasts.
  • Use the stepper in the info bar to nudge the pitch by a single semitone.
  • Tap the speaker button to audition (hear) the selected note.
  • Tap the trash button to delete the selected note.
  • Tap empty space on the roll to add a new note.

Made a mistake? Tap the undo arrow in the toolbar to step back through your edits.

Tempo, key & timing

Open the settings menu (the sliders icon) to tidy up your melody:

  • Detect tempo from rhythm — estimates the BPM from how you sang, or pick a fixed tempo yourself.
  • Quantize timing — snaps note starts and lengths to a grid (1/4, 1/8, 1/16, or 1/8 triplet) for a tighter feel.
  • Snap to key — nudges every note to the nearest tone in the detected musical key.
  • Transpose — shift the whole melody up or down by a semitone or a full octave.

Use the grid control on the piano roll to switch between snapped and free timing while dragging notes.

Playback & instruments

  • Tap Play to hear your melody. Tap Stop to pause.
  • Drag the ruler at the top of the piano roll to scrub the playhead and start from any point.
  • If your build includes an instrument sound bank, open settings to choose an instrument for playback.
Playback automatically pauses if you unplug headphones or receive a phone call.

Exporting MIDI

Tap Export MIDI to create a standard .mid file and open the share sheet. From there you can:

  • Open it directly in a music app such as GarageBand, Logic Pro, or Ableton Live.
  • Save it to Files, AirDrop it to your Mac, or send it via Messages or Mail.

The exported file preserves your notes, their timing, velocities, and the melody’s tempo, so you can assign any instrument in your DAW.

Saving sessions

Tap the folder button to manage your melodies. You can:

  • Save the current melody so you can return to it later.
  • Load a previous melody.
  • Rename, duplicate, or delete saved melodies as you experiment.

Troubleshooting

hummidi isn’t detecting any notes
  • Make sure you allowed microphone access (see the microphone permission item below).
  • Sing or hum a little louder and move closer to the microphone.
  • Raise the microphone sensitivity slider on the start screen.
  • Hold each note steady for a moment — very short or wavering sounds are hard to pin down.
  • Watch the live pitch readout while recording; if it stays blank, hummidi isn’t hearing a clear pitch.
I’m getting too many extra notes, or notes are splitting apart
  • Lower the microphone sensitivity slider.
  • Reduce background noise, fans, or music in the room.
  • Use the Hum input style for smoother, sustained notes.
  • Delete stray notes on the piano roll, or tap undo to revert.
Repeated notes are merging into one long note
  • Switch the input style to Do or Na and sing a clear syllable for each note.
  • Leave a tiny gap between repeated notes so each start is distinct.
The pitches are correct but off by an octave
  • Open settings and use Transpose → Up an octave or Down an octave to shift the whole melody.
  • To fix a single note, select it and drag it up or down, or use the stepper.
The timing feels loose or uneven
  • Open settings, tap Detect tempo from rhythm (or set a tempo), then Quantize timing to a grid.
  • Fine-tune individual notes by dragging them on the piano roll.
Some notes sound out of key
  • Open settings and tap Snap to key to pull every note into the detected scale.
  • If the detected key is wrong, correct the offending notes by hand first, then snap again.
Microphone permission was denied

hummidi needs the microphone to hear your humming. To re-enable it:

  1. Open the iOS Settings app.
  2. Scroll to hummidi.
  3. Turn on Microphone.

You can also tap Open Settings in the in-app prompt to jump there directly.

There’s no sound during playback
  • Check that your device isn’t muted and the volume is up.
  • Make sure the Silent/Ring switch isn’t set to silent.
  • If you just unplugged headphones or ended a call, tap Play again — playback pauses automatically in those cases.
My exported MIDI file won’t open in another app
  • hummidi exports a standard .mid file, which nearly all music apps support.
  • In the share sheet, choose Save to Files, then import the file from within your DAW.
  • MIDI files contain notes and timing only — you’ll pick the instrument sound inside your DAW.

Privacy

hummidi processes all audio on your device. Your humming is used only to detect pitch and create notes. Nothing is recorded to a server, transmitted, or shared, and the app has no accounts, ads, or tracking. The microphone is used only while you are actively recording.

Contact & support

Still stuck, or have a feature request? We’d love to hear from you.

Email: info@mickeydesigns.com