How to Change Pitch or Key in Audacity (3 Steps)

Here you can learn how to change the pitch or key of an audio or song with Audacity software in 3 easy steps:

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How to Change Pitch and Key (of an Audio or Song) in Audacity

In music, pitch refers to the perceived highness or lowness of a sound, which is determined by the frequency of the sound wave.

The key of a piece of music, on the other hand, refers to the set of notes or scale that the music is based on. It is the central note around which a piece of music is composed. The key determines the overall tonality and mood of the music, and affects the way the music sounds and feels.

Both characteristics are largely synonymous and are modified in the same way.

Let’s see how to modify this feature with Audacity:

First of all you must have in Audacity the audio you want to change the pitch of. Either a recording or an imported one.

If you still don’t have it, access to the download of Audacity in its latest version, it is totally free.

Step 1: Select the track

Except if you want to apply the key change only to a fragment you should select the whole track. You can do this with the keyboard shortcuts:

Control + A (Windows) or Cmd + A (Mac)

Step 2: Go to Pitch Change Effect

In the top menu, go to:

Effect -> Pitch and Tempo -> Change Pitch

Step 3: Select Semitone, Scale or Percentage change

2 possibilities to make the pitch change:

If you want an exact key change, the best way is to change the semitones.

2 semitones = 1 tone

For example, if a track is in C and you want to change it to D, you will have to increase it by +2 semitones.

So you will have to calculate how many tones you want to change according to the key you want to transform the track to.

For this you need to know how many semitones there are from one key to another. You can also use the scale changes already offered by Audacity, although it is more limited, and the analysis could be incorrect.

If you are applying a key change to a song, keep in mind that the more you change the key without changing the tempo, speed or bpm, the more forced the sound will become and the lower the quality will be.

If you don’t mind changing the speed, tempo or bpm, in the tutorial about how to change tempo, you will learn how to make the exact pitch change, changing also the speed, keeping more sound quality.

If you don’t care about the exact key, you can change the pitch by percentage of variation and listen to the preview, to check when it corresponds to what you are looking for (e.g. to distort vocals).

Move the percentage bar and listen to the preview.

Finally, if you want the best possible quality, check the checkbox below ” ✅ Use high quality stretching (slow)”

When you are sure of the change apply the effect.

Export the track with key change in Audacity

Now you have it processed, you only have to export the audio track in the format of your choice.

File -> Export -> (Select the format you want to export it in)

Pitch change application ideas:

in the world of electronic music these key changes are very common to make mashups, for example to adapt an acapella from one song to another by matching the key.
It is also common to match two songs to the same key to make these mashups.
- For example Deadmau5 changed the key of Levels, matching it to Ghosts N Stuff at Ultra Music Festival.
Another idea is the distortion of the voice, you can transform a voice to very water or very low, for example to create dubbing audios for different types of characters, it is applied much in the cinema.
Any idea you can think of, art is based on creativity, so give free rein to your imagination.