How to Change Song’s Key Base / Chord without changing the Tempo

Yesterday I had someone ask me about how to change song key without changing the original song tempo or bpm, should he raise or lower the original chord as he wish. Fortunately I have been on that situation before. A long time ago I worked on Live PA song that ordered by someone and when he checked the song by sang it, he can’t get the base key because it’s too high and then he asked me to lower the key base as his voice register.

Later on I think, what I can do to change it without consuming a lot of time rearrange the song project, and finally I got the tricks on how to change key base faster. This is the tips what I want to share about based on my experience. Let’s we check it out....

How to Change Song’s Key Base / Chord without changing the Tempo

1. Using Virtual DJ 8 Home or Pro Edition software

Beside have functioned as song mixing, Virtual DJ also can operate as song chord checker and song changer. I will show you how to change the key on Virtual DJ software.

a. Download the software first from here, pick the one that fit to your Operating Systems (Mac or PC)

b. After installing, open it, go to setting icon, and click (upper right corner), then click on tab interface, and choose skin default. Close setting option window.

c. Load the song we want to change the  key or chord to deck A or B. Don’t load another song to another deck just use one of the deck, because if you activate auto bpm setting, the song that we want to change will follow the previous song that already load.

d. After that, click on “show key panel” button and deactivate lock icon (this feature to deactivate key lock function so we can change the key of the song). Because if it activate (lock position) the key of the song will not be change. Take a look on the picture below:

e. And to change the key without affecting the tempo simply click on (-) or (+) icon. Depend on what we wan to change higher or lower key. To know which one is fit to our needs better if we checked it while the songs play. If we need to raise the key just click on (+) icon. For example, we want to change the song with original key on “C” to “D”, click on (+) one time to raise the key 1 note and so on.  

Make sure first what we really needs to change the key, is it higher or lower. If we need to make it high try not to raise it over at least 1 or 2 times. Because if we raise all of the song will impact on the song's instrument pitch changer and sounds weird including the vocal as well.

The original vocal pitch also getting change, if we raise it to high the sound would be blurry. This tricks only to change the base key of a song not to change the note like from Major to Minor. On that case, er need to re arrange the song from the beginning. Hmm complicated right...?

So let say we already change the key or chord in virtual DJ, what next we should do to save it?.

To save a custom song to be a new song by record it. Before that, we must play the song from the beginning tight after we click on record button on Virtual DJ 8. Where that button exactly? In the center windows we have 4 tabs (Mixer, Video, Scratch and Master tab) click on master tab and find Rec button, click it. It will open pop up save as windows. Rename as you desire the song, Click on save it will activate rec function and automatically record the song after we trigger the play button.

2. Changing Key Song without affect the BPM using FL Studio software

First open your FL Studio and find Newtone VST Plug in on Effect section inside the mixer windows. To change the key using Newton VST on FL Studio 12:

a. Press F9 to open mixer windows and then choose one channel slot (ex: Insert 1-Slot 1) the slot on the right of the mixer. Choose Newtone vst plug in.

b. Drag into newtone the song or vocal we want to change or click on diskette icon (center) inside newtone and load sample.

c. After the song loaded, press Ctrl + A (Select All) to block all part of the song.

d. Left click on the block song, hold and drag it to desire position. Go up if we want to change the key higher or opposite way to make it lower.

e. After finish, save the song by click on menu file (or click on diskette with + icon on the newtone) AND CHOOSE “Save As”... Type the file name an voila, that's it.

The Conclusion:
To change the original key of the song or vocal and not change its own tempo or bpm we can use Virtual DJ 8 Home Edition or Virtual DJ Pro (Paid Version) as describe above. Also we can use FL Studio 12 using feature inside Newtone VST on Mixer Effect slot.

Tips: Don't raise or lower the song key or chord too far because it will affect to the song, sounds weird and blurry. Just raise or lower it one or two times. If you raise the vocal only, the vocal will turn to chipmunk voice, wkwkwk

Whatever the choice to change the key using software, its all in your hand to choose which one is the best for you and give you the faster way to work on it. In my opinion, choose Virtual DJ option to make it faster and simple even in free version can do this task. So, why don't you give it a try?

See you on another story of tricks and tips n music production...