Finding the key/notes of loops

[scottymac]

I have been messing with a static bass loop and made in into a bit more of a groove by transposing some notes and rearranging them. What would be the best way to find out what the exact note that are being played? I would like to find out so I can layer a lead line over it in the same key. Is there anything I can use that will detect the notes other than me playing a synth and matching them by ear? I'm assuming that it would probably be good practice to do it by ear but I would like a check if possible.

[ImNotDedYet]

If it's an audio track, you can export to MIDI or convert to MIDI although I'm not sure how well Ableton actually does that, but it will give you a MIDI track and clip with the actual notes. You can also open up Spectrum and see where the highest point of the frequency spectrum is. That's the fundamental frequency and I believe it will also tell you the note. Once you have the notes in your bassline via either method above, you can determine what musical key(s) would fit those particular notes and develop your lead from there.

[xbitz]

SongKey plugin ? http://www.musicradar.com/news/tech/wor ... gin-607792

[iamcluster12]

I have all of my samples run through AudioFinder http://www.icedaudio.com/site/ which can scan for what key samples are in but Mixed In Key is also a good one for showing what key it is in http://www.mixedinkey.com/

[SLEEarts]

I like to sit down at a piano and figure it out.

[Garry Knight]

Look for the free Sonic Visualiser programming and the Key Detect plugin for it. If you intend doing a lot of work with samples, you might want to download all of the plugins.


I think this is the plugin with the key detection: http://isophonics.net/QMVampPlugins