emusonacid!

Hi all,

I have a guitar loop running at 180bpm, a vocal at the same speed, I've been told that the guitar is not in the same key as the vocal - I'm not a musician, simply a sampler man - so how do I get the guitar in the same key as the vocal??? Digital tune or something on the EMU?

well this is when things can get kind of difficult. if you have a loop at a set speed, to pitch it up or down will of couse make your loop invalid. so then there is the pitch shifting algorythms on the emu, but that can create artifacts like timestretching things.

what i would try to do is play with it until it sounds good to me, but you another thing you can do is send the loop to an editing software like wave lab and do a spectural analysis. what you want to look for is the lowest frequency that is represented. that will be your fundemental, in other words, what note the guitar is playing at that given moment. you should be able to see each note as the fundementals move up or down from time to time. also, you can use the time grid to figure out where the notes are.

once you have established notes are being played, do the same with the vocals. then figure out what way you need to go. this is where music theory comes into play. but this can become even more complicated.

the best case scenario is that you are off a half step, from there you might get away with pitching the samples in your sampler, but remember, in order to boost an octave you need to pitch by 1200 cents. so if you are off by a half step, (c and c#) you would have to pitch by 100 cents. i think in this case i would pitch the vocals.

play around by ear or do the spectral analysis or trash the vocal and get someone you know that can sing and have them sing it in the right key.

perhaps some one has a better idea that i haven't thought of. this is the two likely courses of action i would take in this given situation though.

one other issue i forgot to mention, you might be able to get some parts of the vocal and guitar to sound good together but may still have issues with other parts. you might fix this by pitching sections of the vocals as needed. but this may make the vocals sound unnatural. so you will have to get creative. what i am concerned about are major/minor seconds, perfect fourths, deminished fifths, and sevenths. those may make the vocals appear to clash with the guitar.

you will just have to mess around with it, and if you have any questions about what i am talking about, don't hesitate to ask, there are alot of use that know music theory really well. especially on doa. i just know a little bit.

i hope i am not confusing you too much. good luck on it. i think it might be do able though.

How does it sound? If it sounds good to you, why worry that they're not in the same key?

Wigworld, I agree with you on this one, if it sounds good then it's good, there are no rules are there in the world of music? forget keys and stuff like that......many won't agree though, well the true musicians won't - I guess we are all about sampling though........

you could burn the sample to a CD then use a cd Player like a pioneer to change the tempo, which ever way you need to a bit, without changing the pitch, they have a feature that does this . Then record the result into the sampler and then change the pitch , it might take a couple of go's, but you wont get any "artefacts".