Ableton Forum

I know this should be obvious but I didn't see any info on this in the tuturial video or the manual. How do I change the key of an arrangement? Say my arrangement is in the key of A and I would like to hear it in D. Is there a global way of applying a key change like the tempo? I've been an Acid and sonic foundry user for years (tempo and key change is simple) and have just made the plunge and purchased Live 4

Thanks for the help

for your audio tracks just use the transpose dial in the clip properties editor, for midi just select all and drag it up the piano roll wherever you want it to be. simple. OR, get some sort of pitch shifting effect or plugin and apply to the master track (of course this will affect all your drums and probably make your reverd sound a little screwey)

I find that no song ever sounds as natural or fluid than in the key that it was written in. and for transposing audio clips.....well.....if you want them to sound good and real.........any transposing will definately affect the soun

Thanks for the insight. I guess Live doesn't handle key change as simple as Acid? I was hoping for a way to just click and change the entire arrangement all at once. You can do that in Acid without really compromising the sound.

If anyone knows of an easier way please reply.

Thanks!

Using transpose in the clip properties envelop is just the same as Acid.

Just you will always experience some problems doing this kinda thing,
from A to D might be ok, depends on the sound source.

As said above, it will never sound the same as it did originally....

Transposing a wav file digitally is nothing like playing up a few frets on a guitar.

-Ben

for midi transposing, you of course don't have to 'select notes and drag'. you can just as well insert the 'pitch' midi fx. obviously, drum machines react differently... nice too, but other results

the few times i played with fruity loops, i really enjoyed the global pitch as well. it can change the feel of a dance track dramatically. cool...

hward wrote: I guess Live doesn't handle key change as simple as Acid?

I deeply love workin in Live and would never trade it for anything, but unfortunately sometimes I get the feeling that it was not concieved with pitch shifting as the highest priority... As it is pretty easy to work with glitchy, "digital-ish" sounds, working with sounds with a well defined pitch is sometimes a bit more difficult...
I often create melodies out of lots of little samples, which means I spend a large amount of time adjusting the transpose knob in the clip properties.
I think before implementing global key change, the Abes should improve the 4 different warps modes to enable us to perform better pitch shifting... Anyways...

Ben