Free · In your browser · Nothing uploaded
Key changer: move any sample into your key.
Drop a song or a sample in. The key and tempo are detected, you pick the key you want, and it is transposed with the tempo left alone. Download it, or load it onto a TAIL pad and play it over your beat.
How it works
How to change the key of a song
Drop the audio in
A song, a vocal, a loop. The key and tempo are detected on the spot — about half a minute for a four-minute song.
Pick the new key
Choose the target key, or step up and down in semitones. It takes the shortest way there, never a long way round.
Render and play
Change key renders the file. Download it, chop it, or load it onto a TAIL pad.
What producers use it for
Why producers change the key
Make a sample fit the beat
The loop is in E minor, your 808 is tuned to G. Move the loop three semitones and they agree.
Put an acapella in your key
Extract the vocal, transpose it here, and it sits over your chords instead of clashing with them.
Sing or play it in your range
Bring a song down two semitones to sing it comfortably, or into a key that suits your instrument.
Mashups
Two tracks a tone apart become two tracks in the same key. Match the tempo too with the BPM changer.
Pitch without tempo
The key changes, the tempo does not
This is a pitch shift that keeps the timing: a loop at 90 BPM is still at 90 BPM in its new key, so it stays locked to your grid. That is the difference from the speed changer, where pitch and speed move together like a record.
The tempo controls sit under the key, so you can change both at once — the BPM changer is the same tool with the tempo first. Up to an octave either way; small shifts of one to three semitones sound the most natural, especially on vocals.
How the key is found
Detected, then yours to decide
The key comes from S-KEY, Deezer's open key-detection model (MIT licence); the tempo from Beat This!, JKU Linz's open beat tracker (MIT). Both run in your browser after a one-time download of about 12 MB.
Tested with the same models and pipeline on the GTZAN dataset, the key was exactly right for about two in three excerpts, and most of the rest landed a fifth away or on the relative or parallel key. So trust your ears: the semitone buttons work whatever the detector said, and with no key detected at all.
More TAIL tools
Everything else that runs in the same tab
BPM changer
Change the tempo of a song or sample without changing its pitch.
Acapella extractor
Pull the vocal out of a song, then move it into your key here.
Sample chopper
Chop the transposed sample into slices and play them on 16 pads.
Common questions about changing the key
Drop the song on this page. The current key is detected; pick the new key from the list, or step in semitones, and press Change key. The result plays right on the page and downloads as an MP3.
No. The pitch is shifted and the timing kept, so the BPM stays the same. If you want both to move together, like a record played faster, use the speed changer.
Up to twelve either way — a full octave. Picking a key always takes the shortest route, at most six semitones.
Use the semitone buttons; they work regardless of what was detected. Key detection is most often off by a fifth or confuses a key with its relative major or minor, so if it sounds wrong, it is worth checking by ear.
Free, no signup, no watermark. Nothing is uploaded: the detection models download to your browser once and the audio is processed on your device.
The key and tempo detection reads up to ten minutes per file. A longer file is offered a split into parts.