I have adjusted my classical music CD’s from 440 to 432Hz via the ‘Adjusting pitch’ function in Audacity. But when I burn a CD, the sound is distorted. I have tried many things and I have found out that it appears after adjusting the pitch to 432Hz (I put in the menu the frequency (Hz) to -1,8181). I play the music on a high-end installation and it irritates. How could I prevent the distortion? Advice would be really appreciated!
I use Audacity 1.3 Beta (Unicode).
I assume that you mean the “Change Pitch” effect?
I’ll also assume that you’re using Audacity 1.3.13. If not I’d recommend that you update: Audacity ® | Downloads
There’s a few things that can cause the sound quality to deteriorate, so I’ll give a step-by-step account of how I would do it so as to get the best quality:
Rip the CD in WAV format. (MP3 or other lossy formats will reduce the sound quality). If you’re on Windows I’d recommend using Exact Audio Copy as it can produce bit accurate copies (provided that the CD is in reasonable condition). Another very good Ripper is C-Dex - it’s often faster, particularly on scratched CDs, but as with most other rippers the ripped file may not be an exact 1:1 copy.
Import the file into Audacity.
3a)Ensure that the track is selected, then “Effect > Change Speed”. The Change Speed effect changes both pitch and tempo, but as we’re looking at a change of less than 2% the difference in tempo will probably not be noticeable. The Change Speed effect is much higher quality than the Change Pitch effect because it uses very high quality resampling and does not need to perform “time stretch”.
3b) Get out a calculator and work out (432-440)/440
3c) multiply the answer by 100 (-0.0181818 x 100) = -1.818181
3d) type this value into the “Percent Change” box and click OK.
Export as a WAV file.
Burn the Exported WAV file to CD. If you’re on Windows I’d recommend CDBurnerXP.
If the exact tempo is important and a 1.8% change is unacceptable, use the “Sliding Time Scale/Pitch Shift” effect instead of the Change Speed effect in step 3. The quality is not quite as good as using Change Speed, but the tempo will stay correct and it is better quality than the other Change Pitch effect (though much slower processing).
Yes I mean pitch shift. I have the Dutch version.
I have tried you suggestion, but I dídn’t got the result that I was looking for. I’ve listened to both; the orginal wav and the adjusted change speed wav (-1.818181), but the tuning is still the same.
When listening to the third file that I have pitch shifted earlier, this sounds like 432Hz. Seems like this pitch shift function is the only function? Is there any other possibilty of changing pitch to 432Hz without deterioration? Another program? Some paid version?
You are right that the quality is better with ‘change speed’. But unfortunately not the result that I’m looking for.
It seems you are right though. I think I’ve compared the wrong song first, not compared with the original. Thank’s for helping out.
You’re welcome.