Changing the key of the music track: the basic tools and principles of their use

Many of us like to sing, preferring to play our favorite songs under a phonogram with a carved vocal part, called in the people minus one. But sometimes the tonality in which the composition is recorded is not suitable for a voice. In this case, you need to change the key of the track. However, not all so simple. Even professional programs can not give the desired result. Consider what you need to do to get the best quality sound.

Change of tonality: little theory

In general, even with software of the appropriate level, it is possible to change the tonality without sacrificing the sound quality of the composition in such a wide range.

Maximum this will be a few semitones. Otherwise, the track will sound unnatural. Do not forget, because changing the key affects all the sounding instruments. Okay, if it's some melodic parts, but with the percussion things are much worse, because raising or lowering the basic tone will lead to that very unnaturalness. It should also be taken into account that all overtones, as well as post-effects, will undergo a change (for example, if the delay is set or if there is a reverb).

Change the tone of the minus one: what to use in the general case

The very process of changing the pitch is to use special plugins, called pitch-shifter (from English Pitch Shifter).

In this case, you can not only change the key at a given tempo, but also change the speed of sound or combine both instruments. Again, the tempo change also takes place in a very limited range.

The best audio editing software and how to work with them

So, let's start the practical part. In the simplest case, we'll need the track itself (preferably WAV, not compressed MP3), and any program to change the key, or an application that has such a plug-in in its arsenal. Better, of course, to use professional and semi-professional audio editors (in them the Pitch Shift tool is built-in).

Among the software packages that make it possible to change the key of any track quickly and qualitatively, it is worth noting the following:

• Steinberg WaveLab;
• Sony Sound Forge;
• Adobe Audition (formerly Cool Edit Pro package);
• ACID Pro;
• Audacity;
• Prosoniq Time Factory;
• Acoustica Mixcraft;
• Cockos Reaper;
• Logic Pro X;
• Avid Pro Tools, etc.

Four recent programs are more used for professional recording in studios and information, but tools for editing the basic tone also have.

Changing the key of any track and in any program follows the same principle: first the entire track or its part is selected for which it is necessary to change the pitch of the pitch, then the Pitch Shift plug-in is selected from the list, the number of semitones or percentage The desired key up or down, after which the change process is activated. Then you can listen to and save the new track.

What to use?

If you give some practical advice in the end, it is worth noting that newcomers for professional programs should not be taken immediately. At the initial stage of mastering such processes, the Prosoniq Time Factory application is perfect, because it is the simplest of all the above-mentioned ones. If we are talking primarily about the sound quality, then there is no way to do without professional utilities.

However, even professionals sometimes use utilities such as the Amazing Slow Downer to quickly set the tone offset. In addition, if a person does not have sufficient knowledge in the field of audio processing, you can turn to a lot of online resources, which simply need to download your track, select the desired settings, wait for the conversion process to finish, and then upload the processed material to your computer.

As you can see, nothing particularly complicated. However, we should remember what was said at the beginning. Increase or decrease the tone is not recommended in the range of more than 2-2.5 semitones, because when it exceeds the composition too clearly lose in quality and natural sound. The same applies to the tempo. It can be changed up to 10 bpm (beats per minute). If these two tools are used in parallel, the range of possible settings is significantly reduced.