Change the key of a backing track

Ray has asked me one of the most common questions we get asked here at MP3 Backing Trax…

Hi There
Can you tell me once Ive purchased the track is it possible to change the key and maybe edit the track?
Cheers
Ray

Hi Ray

Yes, you can change the key of audio backing tracks using karaoke style software to pitch shift the song.

However pitch shifting (i.e. key changing software) degrades the sonic quality of a track quite considerably so just bear that in mind when you do it.

Pitch shifting a track to change its key is obviously not something we would ever do or recommend you do, but you are welcome to try it.

We change keys by re-mastering the track from our original multi-track arrangement, so there is no pitch shifting, therefore no loss of quality when we make key changes.

You don’t say what sort of other editing you want to do to the track, but global cuts are sometimes possible on rare occasions if you have a good audio editing software (programs like Audacity, Soundforge and Wavelab are good editors). However if the point where you want to cut the track isn’t in a convenient place in the song you will probably get some glitches doing this. Tweaking individual instruments won’t be possible at all, no matter how good software you have.

To be honest, editing is not something that many customers attempt to do themselves because you only have two channels (stereo L&R) so there are serious limitations when you try to work with a stereo audio only track.

We on the other hand have access to the original multi-track arrangement to work from.

This means that we are able to change keys without pitch shifting and without loss of quality and we can edit individual instruments from within our master multi-track arrangement which we keep here at our studio (see www.mp3backingtrax.com/customtrax.htm for more info on our custom track service).

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