What a pitch shifter does
A pitch shifter moves every note in a recording up or down while (normally) keeping the tempo the same. Musicians measure the change in semitones: one semitone is the distance between two neighbouring piano keys, and twelve semitones make an octave. Shifting a song by +2 semitones moves it from, say, C major to D major; shifting it by −3 moves A minor down to F♯ minor.
For finer adjustments there are cents — one hundredth of a semitone. Cents are handy when a recording is slightly out of tune with your instrument, for example an old tape that plays a little fast, or a band that tuned to A = 432 Hz instead of 440 Hz (about −32 cents).
How to change the key of a song
- Open the song in the tool above. MP3, WAV, M4A, OGG and FLAC work, and so do videos (MP4, MOV, WebM) — the soundtrack is extracted automatically.
- If you know the song's key, choose it under Original key. The tool then shows the result as you move the slider, for example “A minor → C minor (+3)”, and you can pick a target key directly instead of counting semitones.
- Press play and listen. Adjust until it sits well for your voice or instrument.
- Download the result as MP3 (smaller, fine for practice and sharing) or WAV (uncompressed, best for further editing).
Don't know the key? Play along on the virtual piano or find the lowest and highest notes you need with the guitar tuner in chromatic mode.
Lowering a song for singing
Most singers only need a small change: −1 to −3 semitones takes the edge off high notes while keeping the song's character. Men singing songs recorded by women (or the other way round) often shift by 4–7 semitones, or a full octave. Remember that a shifted recording also moves the voice on it — a big shift makes the original singer sound deeper or squeakier.
Pitch, speed and tempo: three different changes
There are three ways to change a recording, and the tool can do all of them:
- Pitch without speed (the default). The key changes, the tempo stays. This is what most people mean by “pitch changer” or “key changer”.
- Speed without pitch. Move the Tempo slider while the pitch stays put. Slowing a song to 75–90% is a classic way to learn a difficult passage.
- Pitch and speed together. Tick Link pitch and speed and the tool behaves like a record or tape played faster or slower: +12 semitones doubles the speed. This “tape” or “vinyl” mode is also how “nightcore” (faster and higher) and “slowed” (slower and lower) edits are made.
Why big shifts can sound robotic
Changing pitch while keeping the tempo means the tool has to cut the audio into tiny overlapping grains and play them back at a different rate. For small changes this is almost inaudible. For large ones — more than about ±5 semitones, or a tempo far from 100% with the pitch held — you'll hear a warble or a slight echo, especially on voices and sustained notes. Two tips:
- Choose Voice / speech under “Optimise the pitch shifter for” when processing speech or solo vocals; it uses shorter grains and reduces the echo. Keep Music for full mixes and bass-heavy material.
- If you don't need to keep the tempo, use Link pitch and speed. It simply resamples the audio, so there are no artefacts at all.
Changing the pitch of a voice
The same controls work as a voice pitch changer: shift a spoken recording down a few semitones for a deeper voice or up for a lighter one. For a natural result stay within ±3 semitones and use the Voice setting. You can record straight into the voice recorder, download the file and open it here.
Working with videos and other formats
If you open a video, the tool extracts its audio track. Common videos from phones and cameras usually open instantly; for other formats a converter (about 30 MB) is downloaded the first time and cached afterwards. The result you download is audio only. To put it back into a video, use your video editor. To convert the result to another audio format such as M4A or FLAC, use the audio converter.
Is it private?
Yes. Your file is decoded and processed in your browser, on your own device. Nothing is uploaded, and there is no sign-up or watermark. That also means very long files (an hour or more) use a lot of memory; on a phone, shorter clips work best.