u/DeadLanguage0

Pitch shifter (for instrument players)

The pitch shifter is a general overall pitch increase/decrease tool. This may seem obvious at surface level, but the cause and effect of that isn't.

First, the number you set in the pitch selector is (by some miracle) accurate to the same value of half steps to be increased or decreased by.

This means the most efficient way to think about what you're doing when you see the pitch selector screen is to think in terms of tonic placement.

+1 = moving the tonic higher by 1 semitone.

So, for example, if you are wanting to do something with Bring Me To Life, first, identity the natural tonic, (Em). Plus 1 transposes the tonic to Fm.

Here's the catch.

You are bound to the quality of the song's natural key.

Meaning, if the song's natural key is a minor key, no matter what you increase/decrease the pitch selector by, you are still in a minor key.

The reason is because of the fundamental reason why major keys are different than minor keys. Step Intervals.

Major keys > WWH WWWH

Minor keys > WH WWH WW

So even though a relative minor is only 3 half steps down from the major, if you have a song like "Outside" by Staind, which is naturally in Ebm, setting the pitch selector at +3 transposes the tonic to F#m, NOT its relative major.

This limitation also applies to Modes. If you are working with a song that uses a mode in the key, increasing/decreasing the pitch will not get rid of the mode used in the song's natural key.

For example, say you are working with Sam Smith's "Unholy." The song's natural key is C# Phrygian Dominant. (Nothing in pop really has any business being composed to that level imo)

Increasing the pitch selector by +3 transposes the tonic to E, but because everything increases evenly, it is now E Phrygian Dominant, otherwise know as "A Harmonic minor."

Btw, if you've never played in a harmonic minor key, dude it's so addicting. Just take any minor scale and increase the 7th note by a half step. (Changes the Subtonic into a Leading Tone by making the 1st note of the scale just a half step away from the 7th note of the scale)

If you play an instrument, just try this. Play the Dm scale, only swap out C for C#.

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u/DeadLanguage0 — 7 days ago

It's fucking lonely at the top, and because I've spent 20 years practicing this distortion technique, I recognize almost nothing in my own feed no matter who I follow. I just end up uploading and opening titles that no one else recognizes. Occasionally I distract myself from that by playing vocal lifeguard. I search the heaviest bands I know, looking for any open invites where the opener is practicing dangerously incorrect form, and teach them 2 things. (Proper form, and the most unfair advantage of a warm-up I've ever found which acts like a safety net by pressurizing the larnyx in like 30 seconds)

I just want to help as many of you as I can, in whatever subject you need. I'm not above anyone. I am just an only child with no friends irl that lives in the middle of nowhere boondocks side.

u/DeadLanguage0 — 12 days ago