Key finder for a hummed melody or a sample

What this key finder can and can't read

It reads one voice at a time: a melody you hum or sing, a vocal stem, a bass line, a synth lead, a one-shot. From those it hears every note and how long it lasts, and the notes give the key. A finished song is different. Drums, bass, chords and voice sound at once, and no note reader can pull one line out of that and trust it. Sites that name the key of any song mostly look it up in data about released tracks, or analyse the chords, which often lands on the relative key or a fifth away. This page doesn't pretend. For a recorded song, hum its chorus into the microphone: the tune you remember carries the key.

A sample with one note

A one-shot, a held pad, a single bass hit has a root note, not a key. The finder names that note and puts the major and the minor key on it side by side, because one note sits in both, and in several other keys besides. Tap each and keep the one that matches the rest of your track. For the root's exact cents and a retune, the root note finder reads the sound's whole pitch curve; an 808 below about 60 Hz is the 808 tuner's job.

A loop or a vocal with a melody

Choose the file, and the page reads its first 30 seconds in the tab, faster than they play. Nothing is uploaded. The key shows with how sure it is and the runner-up, which is always the relative key: C major and A minor share their seven notes, and only the note the line comes home to decides. Tap both and listen. Below the answer: the notes it heard, the key's seven chords to tap, and a transpose a semitone at a time.

How the key is worked out

Each note counts by how long it sounds, the last one half again, and that pattern is compared with how strongly each note of all 24 major and minor keys is felt in listening tests (Krumhansl and Kessler, 1982). Fewer than five different notes can't settle a key, so the answer then leans towards a close call and says so.

Key and tempo for a producer

Every key page gives the key's Camelot code and the keys that mix with it. The tempo of a full song is easier to read than its key: the BPM finder takes it from a file. To find a key that suits your singing voice, the singing key finder is this tool for singers.

Then make something of it

The door carries the first two bars of what it heard into Brumm, where they play as an instrument over a beat in the same key. No account; the line travels inside the link.

Your voice and your files stay on your device: the page reads them in the browser and keeps nothing. How the site counts visits.