Pitch Shifting a song from a commercial CD

Trying to help a band learn a cover tune from a 70's album. The song tuning on the CD is off 440 A tuning by ~40 cents. Would V-Vocal be a good tool to use to pitch shift the entire song ? -- Or would Cakewalk-Time/Pitch Stretch be more appropriate here?

What if I split the stereo into 2 mono tracks and then pitch shifted them individually, but by the same amount?

What krozrox says, why not tune down? Even if they can't do it by ear, it would be easy to recalibrate a tuner.

Then you get that cool honky tonk sound Acutally, many if not most decent electronic keyboards allow you to fine tune the pitch (I know mine does). If they're actually using a real piano then that would be a problem.

ORIGINAL: jamesg1213

De-tuning would be OK for guitars, but what if they have keyboards?

You would think right? I've been through this before myself actually. Occasionally I get these karaoke gypsys who need a song in another key. What you'd think would be a slam dunk turns out to be not that easy sometimes. I have a karaoke deck here that actually works pretty well when all else fails. Oh try that other pitch shifter in Sonar - not the one in the plug-in section - the other one (what's the name of it? That might work with stereo files).

Sometimes I think I'm the oldest guy around here but clearly that's not true. Misery loves company :-) I'll be 50 next March. Of course, 50 is the new 30 right? Happy birthday you young wippersnapper

bbdude
El Kabong Rules.....
What you are trying to do is pretty easy using Acid Software,
( I'm using the Sony Acid Music Studio 6.0 $ 69.00 , it was worth the money only thing is 16 is as high as I can Export)
open the file , beatmap it leave the preserve pitch box unchecked , and then shift the tempo untill tuning is acurate.
I do this all the time to practice along with situations where the tuning is not exaclty 440.
Usualy the tempo is only different by a couple of beats per min, still a compromise just a very small one.

Kenny

FWIW 50 was last year for me 51 was on the 6th of OCt..,.and El Kabong was my first Guitar Hero....

ORIGINAL: jamesg1213

Phew, you guys are ANCIENT....I'm only 46 and can't remember anything before, ooh, er, Dick Dale?

jamesg1213 ,
Your 50 is gonna be around 2010 .......That has a cool futuristic Sci Fi Vibe...

Thanks for the advice you guys. I've got a little time tonight, think I'll try the pitch shifter in Sonar just for the heckuvit.

... and yeah Kenny there's a story behind my avatar memorialization of El Kabong. When I was a real youngster (3rd grader or thereabouts), me and my brothers, who never had a lick of sense, got ahold of my dad's Sears Silvertone guitar (which he had given up on learning to play a year or 2 before), and after having watched a few too many episodes of El Kabong ... well we wound up with a few extra knots on our heads and a pissed-off old man. I honestly don't remember that guitar being much worse-off for the wear. Fast-forward 45 years later, my 19 year-old daughter found grandpaw's old Silvertone in a box out in the garage (I had no idea I still had it), and without my knowing painted the whole thing up in psychodelic colors -- looked just like it belonged to Hendrix. I came home from work and saw her handiwork and did a double take. I told her ... kid ... ya know there's a story behind that axe ...

ORIGINAL: jamesg1213

De-tuning would be OK for guitars, but what if they have keyboards?

most decent keyboards will let you change the pitch i think. i have a very old keyboard that was a little over a grand when i bought it over 10 years ago. it had a pitch option so i figure the korg tritons do too... =)

OK Thanks again -- also lasaxman, jack, and rcastp -- and yes, I did use Cakewalk TimePitch Stretch 2, a couple of days ago. It worked fine. It just makes its a lot more convenient for practice to create a pitch shifted version, rather than having to re-tune the guitars & keyboard.

... And guess I should tell you what the song is -- It's Layla (original Clapton version with Derek and the Dominos, taken from the album Layla and other Assorted Love Songs). I needed to shift it down about 50 cents to get it into the key of Dmin.

I found some really interesting things about that recording (or that mastering version that was put on the CD). The CD is "The Best of Eric Clapton -- The Millenium Collection". Anyway the imported waveform was full of hard digital clips, many lasting 10 seconds+. Also, in the last ~ 40 seconds of the song, (the piano part), the pitch drifts flat. Either they had really poor speed control on the original tape, or the master tape stretched over time. The song still sounds great, and nothing will ever change my original impression of it, but it makes me wonder about the state of mind in that studio and mastering house back in 1970.