Is Audacity capable of changing the key of an MP3 file created by downloading a recording from a karaoke website? The closest I have seen to this is a reference to change of “pitch” associated with slowing down or speeding up a recording (I don’t want to change the speed). I can’t find any websites that will let me dictate the key that I want the song to be in. The song was recorded in the key of G, and I want to sing along with it in Eb. If this product cannot do it, are there any other free/cheap products that will do this? Thank you.
We can do it with Effect > Change > Pitch without seriously affecting the length of the song, but you’re going to run into two problems almost immediately. Two and a half full notes is right at the limit that can be done without sounding like you’re dragging your finger on the record – if you’re old enough to remember those. The problem is sibilants (ssssss) don’t change with the key signature, but the notes do. Pitch Change affects everything.
And you will likely not be able to export your new song to another MP3 file. You can make it into a large, gently compressed MP3 file (256 or 320) or an uncompressed WAV or AIFF file, but you will probably produce distortion and gargling if you try to make a new MP3 file the same size. Audacity has to make a new MP3 when you export and that results in double compression.
You can get MP3 editors such as MP3Split to do simple production without recompression, but you want to do heavy surgery and that always requires export.
Koz
See also “Sliding Time Scale / Pitch Shift…”
It’s a bit more complicated than the Change Pitch effect, but better quality.
http://manual.audacityteam.org/help/manual/man/effect_menu.html#slide