كيف يعمل

Why the pitch dial stops at twelve

فريق Elyra Labs21 أغسطس 2026قراءة 2 دقيقة

Twelve semitones is one octave. Every ordinary reason to change the key of a song lands inside it — fitting a song to a voice, moving to a friendlier key, matching a record tracked a half step down, dropping a bassline into a range you can play.

How far can you transpose a song?

The range widens to ±36 or ±48 in Settings, and it is opt-in rather than default for one reason: the same physical dial travel would then cover four times the ground. Landing exactly on −1 becomes fiddly for everyone, to serve the few people dropping a drum loop three octaves. Precision at the centre is worth more than reach at the edges.

Which semitone shifts are actually useful?

Move	Semitones	Why you would
Half step	±1	A great many rock records were tracked a half step down
Whole step	±2	Common for wind instruments
Fourth / fifth	±5 / ±7	Standard key relationships
Octave	±12	Same note, playable range

The Controls section of Settings: pitch range, pitch display, speed and volume ranges, and Scroll to adjust — Controls, in Settings. Pitch range sits at ±12; ±36 and ±48 are there but off by default.

Controls, in Settings. Pitch range sits at ±12; ±36 and ±48 are there but off by default.

Why the maximum is 48 semitones

It stops at 48 because that is where the audio gives up. Neither Signalsmith nor Rubber Band shifts cleanly past about four octaves; beyond that the grain machinery has so little original material left that the output is more artefact than signal. A control that went further would be offering you a way to make noise.

Does the pitch range apply per tab or everywhere?

One thing we got wrong first: an early build let the wide range apply per tab. It sounded flexible and was a support problem, because people would widen it once, forget, and later find the dial behaving differently on one site than another with nothing on screen to explain why. Ranges are global now. Less clever, much easier to reason about.

أسئلة

How many semitones can you shift a song?

Twelve each way by default, which is a full octave up or down. Settings widens the range to ±36 or ±48 if you need it, but the default keeps the dial precise where almost every real move happens.

What is the maximum pitch shift?

Forty-eight semitones, or four octaves in each direction. That is the ceiling because neither Signalsmith nor Rubber Band shifts cleanly past about four octaves — beyond it the output is more artefact than signal.

Can you shift pitch by less than a semitone?

Yes. Fine tuning covers ±50 cents around the chosen semitone, which is half a semitone in each direction. Past that you are better off moving the semitone itself.

Does a wider pitch range apply to one tab or all of them?

All of them. The range is a global setting, not a per-tab one. An early build made it per tab and it only produced support tickets, because the dial behaved differently on one site than another with nothing on screen to explain why.

Why is the pitch range not just set to the maximum by default?

Because the same physical dial travel would cover four times the ground, so landing exactly on −1 becomes fiddly for everyone in order to serve the few people dropping a loop three octaves. Precision at the centre is worth more than reach at the edges.

تابِع القراءة

كيف يعمل3 دقيقة

Why Capo ships three time-stretch engines instead of one

Audio quality picks between SoundTouch, Signalsmith and Rubber Band. What each one costs you, and when to change it.

كيف يعمل3 دقيقة

Why two guitars a few cents apart beat against each other

That slow wobble when two players are nearly in tune is not a metaphor. It has a frequency, and you can count it.

أي موقع به صوت4 دقيقة

How to change the pitch of a YouTube video

Shift any video up or down in semitones without touching the speed, on the player you already use. Free, and nothing is uploaded.