How to Find the key of a Song: 6 Best Software
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Key notes
- When mixing songs, you need to make sure that the tracks you play are in the same key so that the whole mix blends seamlessly and creates a pleasant experience for your audience.
- Assessing a song's key might be challenging, so make sure to use song key recognition software.
- You can discover more about similar software tools by simply visiting our Music Guides section.
- If you're an audiophile, then you might want to check out this Audio Hub and even bookmark it.
Are you looking for a song key finder software? Well, if the answer is yes, you’re in the right place. In this article, we’re going to list some of the best tools that allow you to identify song keys so that you can quickly compose mashups.
Being a DJ is a synonym for being creative. In a sense, you’re like a music chef, mixing sounds and songs, stirring in the pot from time to time to make sure that the ingredients blend perfectly.
When mixing songs, you need to make sure that sounds are in the same keys to that the tune sounds similar when played together.
The aim is to create a new song by intermingling different songs and making them harmonically sound as one.
That’s quite challenging and this is where song key recognition software can help you.
What’s the best software to find song keys?
Mixed in Key
Mixed in Key is simply a great software tool that can help you find the key of a song with ease.
The application comes with a friendly and straightforward user interface. As for the actual experience that you are about to enjoy, here are some notable features that this application offers:
- Advanced key detection that allows you to easily find compatible songs to mix
- Energy Level detection that allows you to combine the songs with a similar tempo
- ID3 tag editor that you can use to clean up ID3 tags and make your music library look neater
- Customizable ID3 tagging
- Ability to automatically add up to 8 cue points
- Supports export of cue points to Traktor and Serato
- Available on both Mac and PC
GetSongkey
As a songwriter, musician, producer, or DJ, you often find yourself wondering if there’s a way to accurately find song keys. This is where GetSongkey steps in.
For those of you who don’t know, GetSongkey includes millions of song keys for mainstream artists, and can find the key of your samples with ease.
That’s a major step when it comes to getting to know which keys sound well together and surprising your audience. Even more, let us tell you about another unique feature that you’re about to enjoy.
Thanks to the included Song key notation converter, that’s your chance to instantly convert any song key between music key, Camelot wheel, or Open key notation.
Major features that GetSongkey brings to the table:
- Intuitive ways to browse the generous catalogue of key data
- Circle of fifths and Camelot wheel for harmonic mixing
- Song key finder – to easily identify what key a song is composed in
- Key transposer feature – to transpose chord progressions into another key
- Easy extraction of the song key from literally any chord progression
Moreover, keep in mind that GetSongbpm is the largest database of beats per minute in the world. If you want access to millions of songs tempo and a built-in metronome at your disposal, GetSongbpm is waiting for you.
Traktor DJ software
Traktor is a music software for professionals. If you’re a DJ and you’re looking for a powerful tool that can also quickly identify keys and support harmonic mixing, then you may want to check out this tool.
There is a wide variety of Traktor versions that you can use, all perfect for distinct categories of users.
For example, Traktor LE 2 DJ is perfect for beginners but still offers you all the features and options that you need to mix sounds.
On the other hand, Traktor Pro 2 is a true monster featuring four desks and a bevy of creative features that you can use to unleash your imagination.
At the same time, Traktor’s developers offer users a series of tutorials on how to better take advantage of all the features supported by the tool.
Speaking of song key recognition, they have published a tutorial on this topic. For more information on key detection and harmonic mixing, go to Traktor’s support page.
Audio Key Chain
If you don’t want to download any tool on your computer, try Audio Key Chain.
This online music key and tempo estimation tool allows you to quickly identify the key and tempo of your entire song library in order to find compatible tracks to create your mashups.
Using this tool is very simple: all you need to do is drag and drop your tracks into the dropzone and then click on the Upload Tracks button.
Wait until the analysis process is over and you can then share the results with your friends, as well as edit the track data. You can also save the results to Audio Key Chain’s public collection.
It is worth mentioning that the platform supports only MP3 and WAV files and there is a 15MB file size limit for the tracks that you upload.
⇒ Download Audio Key Chain now
KeyFinder
KeyFinder is a very interesting tool that can help you really unleash your imagination as a DJ. The code itself is open source and can run on multiple platforms.
This DJ software focuses only on harmonic and tonal mixing and it supports a wide array of codecs. Keep in mind that this tool is a minimalist one: it doesn’t feature library management options nor a media player.
According to its developer, KeyFinder’s algorithm’s is very good, putting it in the same league as paid key estimation software.
It is worth mentioning that the developer no longer offers KeyFinder support for Windows, meaning that you’ll need to download an older version of the tool.
However, we can confirm it still works on Microsoft’s platform, so this small inconvenience shouldn’t stop you.
djay PRO
This DJ software offers advanced sound analysis features, allowing users to detect key, BPM, and beat.
To make things even more interesting, information is presented as frequency-based colored waveforms.
Here are some unique djay PRO key features:
- You can access a library of over 20 million songs, create your own playlists where you can add those catchy songs that stood the test of time, as well as add a series of effects on the fly
- Designed for Windows 10; it offers support for touchscreen and desktop, native UWP app, as well as enhanced support for Surface Studio and Surface Dial
- Advanced audio processing features that include advanced time-stretching of up to ±75%, pitch shifting of up to ±1 octave, audio mixing with adjustable crossfader curves, and more.
As you can see, in this article we included professional DJ software as well as easy-to-use simple tools that are perfect for beginners.
When choosing which tool to use, keep in mind that beginners may have a hard time using an advanced tool.
So, if you plan to use a key detection software occasionally, the best solution is to actually use an online tool such as Audio Key Chain.
If you’re a pro and mixing sounds is part of your job, then you should definitely go for an advanced song key recognition software.
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