HoRNet SongKey MK3 released

[Lotuz2019]

I'm thinking about buying this handy tool. The price is a no brainer, but I keep reading that it takes a lot of CPU power and is not usable at low buffer rates? Also, I read from another user that it doesn't work well in Cubase.

Can anyone comment on these issues? Does it work efficiently or not? Have these bugs (I regard them as such) been fixed by now?

https://www.hornetplugins.com/plugins/h ... ngkey-mk3/

We decided to not provide a demo for SongKey MK3 because we don’t want to to cripple our product too much and limiting the capability of this plugin for a demo would mean to provide a bad testing experience.

For this reason we offer an instantaneous full refund within 15 days of your purchase if you buy SongKey MK3 and you don’t like it

Just buy it now it's on 50% off sale. You have two weeks to test it.

[heyheycnv]

I find it totally useless on any recorded instrument but if you work with midi synths it might work on those.. maybe.

[Obsolete236871]

I find it totally useless on any recorded instrument but if you work with midi synths it might work on those.. maybe.

I don't need it for midi synths. If I play midi synths I know which chords I'm playing. But I need it for sampled material from recorded sources, which I incorporate into my compositions. When you use sampled material of different origins playing in different keys, such a plugin could help to tune them to a common key and play in harmony. But that's only possible if the key detector is reliable. Right now I'm using guitar tuner type of plugins and frequency spectrometers that display the fundamental frequency / key of the signal. But this approach only works for monophonic signals and is a bit cumbersome. After playing around with Serato Studio, which has fabulous key detection built in, I was looking for a reliable third party solution that works in any DAW.

[yellowmix]

Regarding CPU, understand that this is an inherently CPU-intensive process, as it needs to perform FFTs. I find it be about equal to the init Serum saw at full unison (16) with 3 held notes.

As for performance, also understand that this is a real-time process. Most other tools have the benefit of examining all the audio data at once, which is very advantageous when it comes to BPM detection, which helps with structure detection, and thus key detection.

Given all of that, I think it performs very well. But this is dependent on the input. The more busy, distorted, and compressed the input, the worse it performs, and it understandably suffers if you feed it jazz. I ran it on some top 40 back when it was on version 2 and it did well. In practice since then I find it gets close enough or provides enough information to get me the rest of the way. There's a main guess and two secondary guesses, and a graph of how often a chord or note shows up. So if you listen and know what it is resolving to you, you're good. If you feed it stems it's usually spot-on.

[HoRNet]

We found that on some windows machines it takes too much CPU and we are investigating the issue.
On macs it seems to be less taxing, it probably depends on how the compiler translates one specifica part of the code.
To be able to detect complex chords (MK2 only worked on minor/major while MK3 detects also 7th, 5th, sus, etc.) we had to increase the resolution of the FFT that creates the chromagram and make a very heavy computing process called the "constant Q transform" on the FFT itself so it's actually an heavy plugin but we'll try to improve the performance over time.

Saverio

[heyheycnv]

I don't need it for midi synths. If I play midi synths I know which chords I'm playing. But I need it for sampled material from recorded sources, which I incorporate into my compositions. When you use sampled material of different origins playing in different keys, such a plugin could help to tune them to a common key and play in harmony. But that's only possible if the key detector is reliable.

For recorded material you'd be better of plucking notes randomly on a guitar until you hit the one that sounded right.

[Obsolete236871]

No offense, but Serato Studio and Serato Sample manage to do that in realtime and also allow you to change the key of any sample in realtime while playing without noticable artifacts / aliasing. So, it should be possible to get the key detection thing done as a realtime process. Saverio, I know you can do it! You are the Albert Einstein type of personality who thinks about a problem until you find the solution. You are the kind of person who improves their own algorithms, until they are perfectly doing what they are supposed to, even if it requires thinking outside of the box.

[HoRNet]

No offense, but Serato Studio and Serato Sample manage to do that in realtime and also allow you to change the key of any sample in realtime while playing without noticable artifacts / aliasing. So, it should be possible to get the key detection thing done as a realtime process. Saverio, I know you can do it! You are the Albert Einstein type of personality who thinks about a problem until you find the solution. You are the kind of person who improves their own algorithms, until they are perfectly doing what they are supposed to, even if it requires thinking outside of the box.

Thank you for the nice words I never used Serato products so i'll try to have a look. Do they recognize chords or just key of the sample? The hard part is not identifying the key, is detecting chords and chords changes

Saverio

[Obsolete236871]

Fair enough, they are just detecting the key, but in realtime and very accurately. I would be happy with a plugin that detects the key reliably and without stressing the CPU too much.

[HoRNet]

Fair enough, they are just detecting the key, but in realtime and very accurately. I would be happy with a plugin that detects the key reliably and without stressing the CPU too much.

That's something we can do, right now if you trigger the "sample" mode on the GUI no chord data is used for key detection, but just an average chromagram. I could add the option that when enabled the whole constant-q transform and chord detection is disabled saving a lot of CPU

Saverio

[Obsolete236871]

That sounds like a solution, if switching between key and chord mode works flawlessly.

[HoRNet]

That sounds like a solution, if switching between key and chord mode works flawlessly.

Well right now, to detect key the plugin uses a mix of info from the chord history and the global cumulative chromagram of the song, if you enable sample mode, only the cumulative chromagram is used (like it was in the previous MK2 version) so i can disable chord recognition without issues.

Saverio

[v1o]

I find it totally useless on any recorded instrument but if you work with midi synths it might work on those.. maybe.

It works better on some sources more than others. Usually works better on clean recordings where the instruments are clear. When there are lots of delays, modulation fx and distortion etc etc then it struggles. Sometimes MK2 works better than MK3. It's just a tool, no tool is perfect for every single job, you must still use your ears and brain to figure some things out.

[tommyzai]

I really dig SongKey. Sweet update!