Update: Turns out I had some issues with my media player which was exaggerating the issue here (see my 3rd post in this thread). Currently I'm unsure about how out of key this sounds... appreciate every opinion!
Recently ran into this very strange issue where a track sounds out of key, but I can't quite figure out why. I invite you to have a listen to the following section of (EDM) music:
https://vocaroo.com/1cXR7mPRSTf5
Does anything about this sound out of key to you?
It was very subtle at first but seems to become especially noticeable if you skip to the 0:15 mark for example and start the track from there - the lead sounds very out of tune for some reason. I initially thought there was something off about the tuning of the lead or maybe some pad/atmosphere, but everything turned out to be completely in tune and in key. Yet this weird out of tune sound was there. VLC was messing with me asdfasdfasdasd
Taking away the lead melody, does it still sound out of key?
https://vocaroo.com/190SbuzXBVha
To me, this one without the lead sounds much more in-key. So it seems that the lead is the problem, but there's nothing wrong with the tuning of it. For now I can only conclude that it has something to do with the melody notes clashing with the chords, but I've never run into anything like this before. Usually I can tell if a specific note in a melody sounds off, but in this case none of them really stand out as offenders, and I can't quite pinpoint the source of the weirdness.
I hope I'm posting this in the right place, because it does seem to be a music theory thing rather than a technical issue. I'm just very confused in general about what the problem is. Would appreciate help of any sort here!
Does this sound out of key? Why?
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- KVRAF
- 1644 posts since 8 Feb, 2013 from Switzerland
It's the lead pitch-bends' timing to my ears.
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- KVRer
- Topic Starter
- 27 posts since 28 Nov, 2021
I feel like it can't just be that because there's something off about the second lead as well, which doesn't use smooth pitch-bends.
Honestly sometimes when I listen to it it sounds somewhat in-tune, then other times something feels very off. I don't know why but it's often more noticeable when I jump to the middle of the track and start listening from there, rather than starting from the beginning. SO CONFUSED!
Here is another version that uses a different lead without pitch bends, fwiw:
https://vocaroo.com/1jN6NG3VSj8w
Seriously confounded with this right now, probably should take a break XD
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- KVRist
- 356 posts since 18 Jun, 2010
Sounds like some unison pitch-detune on the synth part. I don't think it's problematic, but pretty much any kind of unison/super-saw kind of effect is, by its nature, making a bunch of individual notes slightly out of tune with one another.
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- KVRer
- Topic Starter
- 27 posts since 28 Nov, 2021
Ok so wow, my media player VLC was totally messing with me. Basically I was experiencing this issue and didn't realize it: https://www.reddit.com/r/VLC/comments/b ... the_place/
VLC was messing with the pitch of the audio every time I skipped around the timeline; needed to change its resampler mode from automatic to speex. Explains why I was hearing the out-of-tune-ness more significantly when I jumped to the middle of the track in VLC. Thought I was going crazy hearing those weird pitch shifts only some of the time.
Anyway now I'm not actually sure how out of tune this is, my perceptions about this track have been all over the place thanks to the weird VLC glitch. Appreciate every opinion though!
https://vocaroo.com/16NgTpR17hW2
This sounds fairly in-tune to me? Having a bit of trouble trusting my own ears after the recent events
VLC was messing with the pitch of the audio every time I skipped around the timeline; needed to change its resampler mode from automatic to speex. Explains why I was hearing the out-of-tune-ness more significantly when I jumped to the middle of the track in VLC. Thought I was going crazy hearing those weird pitch shifts only some of the time.
Anyway now I'm not actually sure how out of tune this is, my perceptions about this track have been all over the place thanks to the weird VLC glitch. Appreciate every opinion though!
Thanks for that! The problem might have been less significant than I thought due to the above revelations regarding VLC. Anyway I rendered another version with a lead that has no unison or detune:andrelafosse wrote: ↑Sat Oct 29, 2022 12:04 am Sounds like some unison pitch-detune on the synth part. I don't think it's problematic, but pretty much any kind of unison/super-saw kind of effect is, by its nature, making a bunch of individual notes slightly out of tune with one another.
https://vocaroo.com/16NgTpR17hW2
This sounds fairly in-tune to me? Having a bit of trouble trusting my own ears after the recent events
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- KVRist
- 392 posts since 4 Aug, 2020 from Montreal, Canada
Haha, what's happening on 0:15~0:17 is the bass movement causing inversions and thus the tonal sense got a little blurred 
Regularly they are DbMaj7 => Eb (key is F minor)
But bass moves from Db -> F -> Bb -> Eb (with an octave jump). Eb/Bb, especially accompanied with the melody Eb, Ab, Bb, really gives an impression of Bb7sus. If we view DbMaj7 => Eb as a IV=>V progression borrowed from the relative major in Ab, with that inversion we're actually having the impression of IV=>vi=>II7sus=>V. That II7sus sticks out. But actually, a moment of 2nd inversion on V is a quite common writing pattern in classical
Cool music!
Regularly they are DbMaj7 => Eb (key is F minor)
But bass moves from Db -> F -> Bb -> Eb (with an octave jump). Eb/Bb, especially accompanied with the melody Eb, Ab, Bb, really gives an impression of Bb7sus. If we view DbMaj7 => Eb as a IV=>V progression borrowed from the relative major in Ab, with that inversion we're actually having the impression of IV=>vi=>II7sus=>V. That II7sus sticks out. But actually, a moment of 2nd inversion on V is a quite common writing pattern in classical
Cool music!
