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Hello all, quick question. I have gone around Google for quite a while and still couldn't find a definite answer, except for sounding things out. I'm looking to find what key a song is in, and I'm not sure what exactly to do. My friend is willing to hand me a copy of Melodyne, but I'm pretty sure that's like auto-tune? Any advice? Thanks.

If your on Reason 5/record or Reason 6 then you can use the neptune and that will give you what you want, but judge by the fact that your thinking about melodyne then your probably not on reason...

Study the 2-part Inventions by Bach

use your ears. melodyne's a great tool, but it's not the right one for finding the pitch of something.

Just listen to the main melody of the song. Majority of the time the first note will be the root note. That is not always the case. Just figure out the melody with help of any instrument and then figure out what scale is in use. If the C Major scale is used then the key is C Major. Of course we can get technical and talk about modes, but I don't think a lot of artist go deep into use of modes unless they are writing classical scores or some experimental stuff.

Sharmaji wrote:use your ears.

nice idea in theory, but in practice it takes years to develop perfect pitch. not that i'm against using ears, just that i couldn't tell a C from a D.


op - there's a few tools you can use, such as spectrum analyzers and tuning tools. i use melda productions manalyzer which tells you the note, i've also used tuning tools in the past.

learn your scales, chords etc, study theory. then you can work from a scale and have an idea as to what goes with what. it takes a bit of time but will sink in eventually.

another good thing to do is to get the midi file off the web for a song you like, and study its musical structure. helps my anyhow.

VirtualMark wrote:

Sharmaji wrote:use your ears.

nice idea in theory, but in practice it takes years to develop perfect pitch. not that i'm against using ears, just that i couldn't tell a C from a D.

good point. I couldn't tell a C from a D either, but thats why I would involve another instrument with it. I'd hit a C on the piano and then use that as a reference point.

easiest way is to just take a clean piano preset and bang keys along with the trck until you figure out what is being played and when. Like stated above. The first note and/or most prominently used note in a phrase, will more than likely be your ROOT. I have found that using a higher octave on the piano preset to find the melody/root is easier than using lower octaves that may get lost/blurred by basslines or drums.

you can't really develop perfect pitch, but you can develop relative pitch. there's a cool iphone app called karajan that'll help you develop the ability to hear intervals, chords, and keys. spend 15 minutes a day with it for a while and... fucking WALLS will come down.

And google can do miracles... u wouldnt believe what songs i found info for, so unless its some real hypster obscure shit u should find ur basic info on bpm and scale on there. If its an edm track, beatport and lots of others tell u that info. Or like others said... 99.9% of time the first note of ur melody is gonna be the root note, and not as a rule but the root not usually occurs more then other notes. U could also use some frequency analiser to get near ur result.

pretty sure if you load a song into the free version of virtualdj and load it on a deck, after it's done analyzing the track it will give you they key the song's in

Thanks for the tips!

blinx wrote:easiest way is to just take a clean piano preset and bang keys along with the trck until you figure out what is being played and when.

Agreed

One fine tip that works more often than not is to have a synth with a saw wave and keep pressing every keys one after the other for a few seconds until you find one that seems to match the song. Usually that's going to be your root note.
If you can tell whether the song's major or minor just by listening to it, all you have to do is play the notes of the given key (for instance C# harmonic m : C#,D#,E,F#,G#,A,B#) while the song's playing. If it sounds right, then you have your key for sure, otherwise try the melodic minor scale of the same key. If it still doesn't sound right then either you picked the wrong key or it's an exotic scale and you'll have a harder time finding the right one.

Much more accurate method than any software.