Ableton Forum

I saw at the artists reviews on abelton live that they can find there songs musical key using live!

Could anyone tell me how to do that ?

If you need to ask, you can't do it.

I need to ask.

try Rapid Evolution, or Mixed In Key.

i predict u have a 1 in 12 chance of finding it

I say 1 in 24...

The last note of a song is often the key note. Not always, but often--much more often than the first note.

I would probably use Spectrum and identify the strongest frequncies, IE notes.

Use your ears...

learn musical theory.

Hmm ,well... this can be simple, as there are some songs that are only 1 chord (therefore 1 key), alas there are also some songs that have no key at all. I would say the proper way to go about this would be to learn a bit of theory and some keyboard skills. Plunking out melodies/chords on the piano is a sure fire way to deduce the key/keys. Otherwise you will always be guessing, using technology, or someone else's works (tabs, etc.) that could be completely wrong.

get the song playing, relax and start hitting notes on a keyboard until you find one that fits best with the song. basically just use your ears.

I think he was getting at an automatic way or a way that live helps...


Not just playing the keyboard which eveyrone knows you self horn tooting bastards.

Depends on the track, keep in mind that a song may not be in one key throughout.

If the track is pretty straight forward harmonically, you're able find the root and can tell the difference between a major and minor chord then you'll have a good chance. If you haven't a clue then your prob buggered from the start.

Is Melodyne DNA out yet ? it's been ages since we say that promo ...

god forbid he should use any *gasp* musical talent. I know it sounds crazy in the day and age of computers to have any talent, just thought I'd be a pompous ass and throw it out there.

make sure you buy loop libraries that have the keys listed on the CD sleeve, correction: make sure you download sample libraries from torrent sites that have the content listed on the manufacturer's web site.

Tone Deft wrote:get the song playing, relax and start hitting notes on a keyboard until you find one that fits best with the song. basically just use your ears.

On that note, there should be a 'set scale from MIDI' feature on the Scale plugin, which reads all the notes played in a bit of MIDI and sets them up in the plugin. Would save a lot of work after the plink-plonk. You could 'rob' scales from existing MIDI files too.

whoa, now there's an idea.

hit 'learn' on it then pass a midi clip through it or plonk on some keys, turn off midi learn and all other notes will be blocked out (or moved to the key.)