How to find what note it is ?

Hi people ! I have one short question. Is anyone knows techniques which could help me to find the key note of my samples ? I whish to keep my projects in harmony but I still need a time to learn octave and increase my listening skills
Thanks for any reply.

Much love !
Big up !

maderrr wrote:increase my listening skills

I'm sure there is programs that can help you tuning samples, and I'm sure there's programs that help you to train your ears. I'm quite sure you're able to find some freeware programs too with Google...

EDIT: And that quote means that your ears are the most valuable weapon, so train them!

If you get audacity (free) and go to "effects" and go to "change pitch" it will tell u the original note (really the key of the song) then give u the option of tuning to any other note. I would guess if you edited the waveform to a small one shot sample, it would give you the specific note, but I have not done this technique, but seems like it would work. I would kind of recommend using ear at this point, if yr matching a bass tone to a chord there's at least 3 different notes that will sound good.

Doc333 wrote:If you get audacity (free) and go to "effects" and go to "change pitch" it will tell u the original note (really the key of the song) then give u the option of tuning to any other note. I would guess if you edited the waveform to a small one shot sample, it would give you the specific note, but I have not done this technique, but seems like it would work. I would kind of recommend using ear at this point, if yr matching a bass tone to a chord there's at least 3 different notes that will sound good.

Thank's a lot ! I'm gonna try this tonight. Are you using that option often ?

Yes, I use audacity and tune songs rather than in the mpc, to me the time stretch/tuning sounds better. I also do a lot of the rough editing. So rather than burn a cd, and record it thru the rca inputs, then tweak in the mpc, I open it in audactiy, tune it to what key I want (tip for hip hop u almost ALWAYS want to tune up), put at the temp I want, then edit it down (rough edit usually) of the section I want then IMPORT that into the mpc. Now I know its exact key and bpm (actually i think its slowed down in percentages, so sometimes I open it in a demo of beat cleaver and THAT tells me the bpm.

That being said I have not chopped a sample to a note, and keep in mind none of this technology is 100% accurate, but it can help narrow it down. Personally I have little luck just "hearing" the right note, but there are CDs or online classes to teach u this skill (called ear training)

Doc333 wrote: (tip for hip hop u almost ALWAYS want to tune up)

Some of the illest beats i ever made was by pitching it to negative 15 to 50%

You can get some crazy sounds like that

melodyne, I own melodyne single track,(melodyne essentials) its about 30 dollars, it will give you an accurate reading of what pitch your sample is in. You can also demo it free for about 30 to 45 days.

Of course you can tune up or down, but for samples, especially vocals, its usually pitched up. In the earlier days, this was one way people saved memory.

Doc333 wrote:Of course you can tune up or down, but for samples, especially vocals, its usually pitched up. In the earlier days, this was one way people saved memory.

you worded it wrong then... when you said you need "to tune up", people are gonna think you mean AFTER sampling... if you're referring to sampling at a higher speed and then tuning it down after sampling, then that's one of the oldest tricks in the book and you would want to word it as sampling at a higher speed and then tuning DOWN.

im so confused.

but , in order to find out what note it is??? (title of the thread). instead of using software i would take the time to train your ear for that one... it will come in handy

this might not help finding the initial key of a song but learn about the circle of 5ths.

Buy a sh*t keyboard and play around



just reading about how music works is a good starting point as well.