Karaoke Forums

I recently purchased a Pioneer CDJ-100S CD player, and now find that I need to replace it with another player that has the ability to change the key on the song(s) being played back. I see the term "pitch bend" or something similiar to that, on a lot of the players..............however I don't think that's what I need?????

Any recommendations or information on a unit that can change the key (with quality sound) on a song being replayed would greatly be appreciated.

Pitch shifting is usually done with a technique called FFT which approximates the changed sound using math. Unfortunately, math and acoustics tend to have very different results and it pretty much sucks. It's best just to leave the key alone IMHO.

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Okay, who took my pants?

You don't need to get rid of your CD player, you need to get a mixer that has digital key change and vocal effects built in. I've seen some on ebay. I know Vocopro makes some models that have it. Forget about pitch bend, you need digital key change.

Is that something you are going to use for karaoke? Does it play/read CDGs?

To the original question.

You want Digital Keychange, which will change the key in exact steps (usually 1/2 an octave per), without changing music speed.

Pitch control is designated in terms of percentage, rather than key steps, can be inexact, and actually changes music speed, causing distortion as well.

BTW- I have seen something a bit weird lately: I saw a host doing what I call an "assembly line" show ( one where the host's main concern is stuffing as many singers in as fast as possible without regard to show quality).

He wouls speed up the music using the pitch control at the highest percentage up, then attempt to bring the music key back down using the digital keychange. I think he may have gained something like 4.5% in song speed ( in other words making the song move faster), but it sounded like incrediblt distorted crap, and the singer complained about it, as well as music being too fast. It was just awful...

Any, stick with Key Change. Though it may not be on your current player, I would expect it to be on your mixer, unless you are using DJ equipment.

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"No Contests, No Divas, Just A Good Time!"

" Disc based and loving it..."

25 years ago I used to buy Pocket Songs tapes for a singer who could not sing to any of the songs.
I changed key using a Boss pitch shifting foot pedal aimed at the guitar market. Back then £90 GBP.
Pitch shifting is simply writing data into memory at real time and reading back faster or slower in real time. It does not alter the speed.
Although some badly designed cheap models may alter speed.
There has to be a lot better available now. There is also pc software to do it.
But you know that.

Joe,

I am currently cdg based, and am using a Pioneer PD-V10G. It has key change on the player, but as you know, slows down/speeds up the music. I wasn't aware of any other method to change the key.

Could you expand on the digital key changer, or provide a link to such equipment?

If I understand correctly, this device changes the key of the singers voice only?

The key changer is applied to the karaoke music only to bring the music down or up to a key that the singer is comfortable with.

Your Pioneer's key changer should be digital. Look in the manual... That should be about as good as it gets. It shouldn't change the tempo though...

Normally you'd look for digital key change on a quality CDG player. Unfortunately there's not an abundance of those these days. However, here's a couple I've heard someone on this forum praise.

http://www.soundchoicestore.com/pck-3000-ii-dvd-karaoke-player-c-4-p-1-pr-780694.html

http://www.v2gotech.com/specifications.asp?Item=Y7Jg813-8862875736-6246240-39852631-22704327

--Tad

Lot of confusion here. If you music speeds up and slows down, the unit incorporates a PITCH control. Digital key changers only change the key, not the speed of the music.

Also, a key changer works wherever it's hooked up. Incorporated into a player, it changes the player output (music). If you have a separate device and hook it up to the mic, than the mic output (singers voice) would be changed.

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"No Contests, No Divas, Just A Good Time!"

" Disc based and loving it..."