Plug-in or program filtering

[Din]

Hi guys, is there a plug-in or program that may take a guitar track and change the overall chord progression to another key while keeping the same tempo?

Many thanks.

[Drew Stephenson]

There are all manner of pitch-shifters available (probably one included in your DAW) but most of them will produce some kind of artefacts depending on how complex the original signal and how much you're wanting to transpose it.
You could look at using some kind of audio-to-midi device, transpose it in midi and then use a sampled instrument to replay it?

[Wonks]

Is this for a track forming part of a recording, so it needs to sound really good, or is it for say simply playing along to without having to retune your guitar?

[Sam Spoons]

Melodyne if you need to extract the guitar part from a mix, if it's a separate track then most DAWs have a pitch/tempo shift plug-in, Reaper certainly does and for small shifts it works pretty well. Once you start changing things by significant a amount there will, as Drew says, be artifacts but it's easy to try and most allow you to revert to the original.

One thing to consider is that if you change the key as a player you may well be changing the chord voicings at the same time (obviously not if detuning or capoing but both affect the timbre of the instrument) so a pitch shifted version may not sound realistic in the new key.

[Din]

I explain to you. A friend who lives in London, put the funky guitar on a composition of mine, where I did the vocals. He introduced the song with funky guitar, and added distorted guitar to the verse. Then since it's a job I want to do, considering I can't play the guitar, I'd like to do the whole song with the same funky riff, but of course, changing the chords. I use Fruity Loops Studio. Is there a plug-in or can I get what I want with the same program?

[Drew Stephenson]

So you're wanting to change the actual chord progression, not just change the key of the song?
I don't think there's any easy way to do that.

[Sam Spoons]

Do you have the guitar on a separate track? When you say he's done "funky guitar intro and distorted guitar in the verses" do you mean he's playing throughout the song or only in parts? Do you want to replace his distorted parts with funky guitar taken from the intro?

If the answer to the first question is yes then it's all doable but without hearing the track it's hard to say how realistic the result would sound. They way I'd do it is to take a two or four bar section from the funky guitar track and build up the new guitar part by pitch shifting the original and stringing them together drum machune style (should suit the Fruity Loops workflow perfectly). FL even has a pitch shifter built in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zm7KrENPIv0

[Din]

I have the funky guitar with drum accompaniment on a separate track in two tempos. Which mentioned guitar is only in the introduction. That's why I want to put it in the whole song, since the rest of the song apart from the intro is played with distorted guitar. What you asked me, yes, I want to replace the distorted parts with the funky guitar of the intro.

But from what I see this "Pitch Shifter" built into Fruity Loops Studio doesn't change the notes of the chords, It just changes the tone. And in this case, for example, I want to change the Am7 and Dm7 chords of the funky riff to the G and Am chords that I want them in the same funky riff. But I don't know if it could be done by stringing them together drum machune style. It has to be made sure by You.

[Eddy Deegan]

And in this case, for example, I want to change the Am7 and Dm7 chords of the funky riff to the G and Am chords that I want them in the same funky riff.

I'm sorry but this isn't going to work well, if at all. Your best option is to explain the changes you need and ask the guitarist to re-record the piece using the chords you want.

[Din]

Ok.

Many thanks.

[James Perrett]

I would say that it can probably be done in a decent spectral editor but it is going to take ages to do it - probably many hours.

[ajay_m]

Scarbee Funk Guitarist will give you a pretty convincing sound and doesn't require much in the way of keyboard chops. It used to be part of NIs Komplete library and for many years those of us with modest finances waited for NIs summer sale. However NI have quietly started removing some products from Komplete (Including this one, you have to get it from Scarbee now) and, tragically, Absynth is also gone, so I will stick with (I think) version 11 of Komplete Ultimate which was acquired over two sales periods (get standard for half price then upgrade the following year for half price).

[ajay_m]

Sorry I should also mention, if you want to add convincing guitar parts from keyboard then musiclabs realstrat is unrivalled. It's on sale at present I believe. It now comes with a very comprehensive amp and effects stack similar to NIs Guitar Rig but the truly awesome thing they've done is to get people like David Gilmour and Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page to contribute presets so you can quickly get a signature sound. I have all their products, they are just amazing, but if I was budget constrained, realstrat will cover most bases.

[Sam Spoons]

I have the funky guitar with drum accompaniment on a separate track in two tempos. Which mentioned guitar is only in the introduction. That's why I want to put it in the whole song, since the rest of the song apart from the intro is played with distorted guitar. What you asked me, yes, I want to replace the distorted parts with the funky guitar of the intro.

But from what I see this "Pitch Shifter" built into Fruity Loops Studio doesn't change the notes of the chords, It just changes the tone. And in this case, for example, I want to change the Am7 and Dm7 chords of the funky riff to the G and Am chords that I want them in the same funky riff. But I don't know if it could be done by stringing them together drum machune style. It has to be made sure by You.

Melodyne might do it as it is supposed to be able to extract notes from a mix and change the pitch (I haven't tried it though). Or if you had the guitar track alone without the drums the pitch shifter in any DAW could change an Am7 to a Dm7 with the same voicing but that's often not how guitarists play. But I agree with the other comments, you either need to get the guitarist to play the part you want or use guitar samples/VSTi (again as a guitarist I haven't had the need to try them) if you want it to sound convincing, doing it with a pitch shifter is going to be a lot of work and then is unlikely to sound great.

[Din]

Ok. I will try It.

Many thanks.