Key and pitch

On a turntable, pitch and speed are tied together: play faster and the sound goes higher. A deck’s Speed knob works that way. Key and Keep pitch break the link, so you can put a sample in key with your track without changing its tempo, or change its tempo without changing its key.

The Key pill

The Key pill sits under the Speed knob. It shifts the deck’s pitch from -12 to +12 semitones, without changing its speed. The default is 0.

Action	What it does
Drag or mouse wheel	Change the Key in semitones.
Shift+drag or wheel	Change it in cents (hundredths of a semitone).
Click	Open a list of semitone steps, the Sample key menu and Reset cents.
Double-click	Reset to 0.
Right-click	MIDI-learn it.

Key is a host parameter (Deck A Key, Deck B Key), so you can automate it.

What happens when you change the Key

ScratchCraft makes a pitch-shifted copy of the whole sample in the background once the Key has stayed still for a moment, and the deck switches to the copy when it is ready. Until then the pill shows the new Key with “…”, and the deck carries on playing the sample as it was (or its previous copy).

By default a Key change leaves the needle where it is, so a running record carries on smoothly. The Feel window’s Key keeps needle option can make it drop on the cue instead.

Pads that play the deck’s own sample hear the deck’s Key too.

Sample key

You can tell ScratchCraft what key the sample itself is in. Click the Key pill and open Sample key: choose one of the 12 major or 12 minor keys, or Unknown.

With a sample key set, the pill shows the note the deck actually plays in: Am at 0, or Cm (+3) when shifted three semitones up from A minor. The Key list also shows the resulting key for every step, so you can pick the step that matches your track.

Like the sample tempo, the sample key is kept with the sample, so it follows the sample into every project. It survives cropping and reversing, and the sample library shows it in its list.

Keep pitch

The Keep pitch lamp sits beside the Sync Loop button. Turn it on and the deck’s Speed, and Sync Loop’s Fit speed, change the tempo but not the key. This is useful with Sync Loop on Sample: a beat loop can be stretched to your song’s tempo and still sound at its own pitch.

Keep pitch works the same way as Key: ScratchCraft prepares a pitch-corrected copy in the background once the speed settles, and the deck keeps playing its previous copy until the new one is ready. Speeds it has prepared before switch at once.

Pads that ride the deck’s speed play the same copy, so they stay in key with it. Shapes that keep their own speed (Seconds and Beats shapes) do hear the shift.

The lamp pulses red whenever the deck is waiting for a pitch-shifted copy, for its Key or for Keep pitch, even while Keep pitch is off.

Good to know

• The original stays the deck’s sample. The pitch-shifted copy is only for playback. The tempo, markers, Crop, Reverse and the saved project all use the original, and the copy is made again after you reopen the project or edit the sample.
• Memory. While a deck has a Key set, it holds the original and the copy, so it uses about twice the memory. A 10-minute sample takes a few seconds to prepare.
• Going back is instant. Recently used copies are kept, so returning to a Key you used recently, or using the same sample at the same Key on the other deck or a pad, switches at once.
• Saving the shifted sound. The deck’s Edit > Save to library… can save the pitch-shifted copy with Include Key. See Edit menu.

Tip

Set the sample key on your scratch sample once. From then on, the Key pill tells you which note it plays in, so matching it to your track’s key is a matter of picking the right line in the list.