Tutorials

How to Change the Pitch of a Song

Ever tried to use a sample in a song you’re producing but the key doesn’t fit? Or sing a song but it was just out of your range? It’s time to use transposition to change the pitch of a song!

In production, singing, or playing an instrument, knowing what, why, and how to change the pitch of a song can make a world of difference and can be extremely helpful in your musical practice.

What is pitch?

In order to learn how to change the pitch of a song, we must first dive into what pitch actually is to begin with. Pitch is defined as the quality that makes it possible to judge a sound as ‘higher’ and ‘lower’ in association with musical melodies.

The frequencies of sound waves (created from vibrations) are measured in hertz or Hz. Humans can generally hear from 20Hz (low pitch) to 20,000 Hz (high pitch), whereas other animals (such as dogs, bats, dolphins, etc) can hear what we call Ultrasound, where it passes 20,000 hertz.

What is transposition?

When we move a collection of notes up or down in pitch, we are transposing. While transposing you are moving the notes up or down by semitones, which are the smallest interval between two notes and can also be referred to as a half step. This is important to know because if you want to transpose a song from one key to the next, you need to know if you need to pitch by 1 or 2 semitones.

Knowing all this can help you tremendously along your musical journey, because as mentioned at the beginning, if you have a song that you’re trying to sing along to or a project you’re producing with a sample in the wrong key, pitch-shifting is vital to crafting music to fit into what you need.

Quality of pitch-shifting

You might be wondering if your work will lose quality through the process of changing the pitch, and the answer is no! What CAN happen is that the song can begin to sound somewhat distorted.

Most software is very advanced and much better than what it used to be, but if you manipulate the song too much, it can cause sound distortion and sound like it’s lost some of its original quality. Still, you can attempt to save as much quality as possible by being sure to use high-quality audio files, and use files or samples with a high sample rate of 96kHz or more rather than the usual 44.1kHz or 48kHz.

So now we know the musical theory and technicality behind it, let’s talk about the best app to change the pitch of a song - Moises App - and how to do it!

How to change the pitch of a song with Moises

With Moises, this process is incredibly easy. Moises App features an exclusive Pitch Changer & AI Key Detection technology, allowing you to change the pitch of ANY song.

Step 1:

Choose your favorite song and upload it - You can upload any song from your library or from any public URL. Multiple Audio and Video formats supported

Step 2:

Moises AI will detect the song key and chords. It will also separate the vocal and instrumental tracks.

Step 3:

Open the Pitch Changer. Dial one semitone at a time until you find a suitable key. After changing the music key, the chords will appear in real-time!

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Super quick and simple! Moises is hands down the easiest and best app to change the pitch of a song. Try it out with a few of your favorite songs and once you’ve got the process down, you can try a more advanced technique where you isolate your tracks and pitch-shift them individually before mixing them back together. So there you have it, you’ve gained even more knowledge on how to better your musical craft and advance your practice, amazing job!

Moises can change the pitch of any song to suit your needs. Download the Mobile App today or use our Web App Version!

Amanda Medeiros

Content & SEO Manager at Moises

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